At a certain city there was a famous Brahmana. He taught a certain
youth the whole of his science. After the scholar learnt the science
the Brahmana became angry [with him]. While the time is going on thus,
the Brahmana thought of killing the scholar. The scholar also got to
know about it.
While they were at a certain place, these two persons having struck
[each other] on the face, the Brahmana chased the scholar along the
path. The scholar being unable to run [further], took the appearance
of a bull, and ran off. The Brahmana, also, bringing a leopard's
appearance, chased him. The scholar being unable to run thus, becoming
a parrot began to fly. The Brahmana, also, becoming a hawk began to
go chasing it. At last the parrot, being unable to fly, entered the
palace of a certain King by the window. The Brahmana, also, bringing
a youth's appearance became appointed for looking after the oxen of
a house near by.
In this royal palace there was a Princess. The parrot having been
during the day time in the disguise of a parrot, in the night time
took also the appearance of a Prince. In the night time, in the
appearance of a Prince he went near the Princess. Having been thus,
in the day time, at the time when the parrot is bathing daily a cock
comes. The parrot having gone away immediately got hid.
Having been thus, and being unable to escape, one day at night having
uttered spells over and given [the Princess] three Mi [327] seeds,
he said that at the time when the cock comes she is to break them
in pieces.
On the following day, at the time when [the parrot] was bathing, the
Brahmana came in the disguise of a cock. Thereupon she broke up the
three Mi seeds. Immediately a jackal having come, seizing the neck
of the cock went off [with it].
After that, the Prince, marrying the royal Princess, in succession
to the King exercised the sovereignty over the city.
Uva Province.
This story with its variants is the first tale of The Story of Madana
Kama Raja (Natesa Sastri), p. 2. The two sons of a deposed King who
became a beggar were educated by a Brahmana on the understanding that
he should keep one of them. By the younger son's advice he was selected
by the parents, his brother being too stupid to learn anything. He
first became a hen which the King bought for a hundred pagodas; in the
night she became a bandicoot, a large rat, and returned home. Then he
became a horse which the Brahmana bought for a thousand pagodas, and
rode and flogged till it was exhausted. At a pool the spirit of the
Prince entered a dead fish, and the horse fell down lifeless; then to
save himself he entered a dead buffalo which thereupon became alive,
and lastly a dead parrot which when pursued by the Brahmana in the form
of a kite took refuge in a Princess's lap, and was put in a cage. On
two nights while she slept the Prince resumed his own shape, rubbed
sandal on her, ate her sweetmeats, and returned to the cage; on the
third night she saw him and heard his story. As predicted by him, the
Brahmana came with rope-dancers, and as a reward for their performance
demanded the bird. By the Prince's advice the Princess broke its neck
when giving it, and his spirit entered her necklace. She broke it,
casting the pearls into the court-yard, where they became worms. When
the Brahmana while still in the swing took a second shape as a cock
and began to pick up the worms, the Prince became a cat and seized
it. By the King's intervention the enemies were reconciled, the Prince
married the Princess, and afterwards recovered his father's kingdom.
In Indian Nights' Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 216, the first part
is similar, the teacher being a fakir. The youth turned himself into
a bull which was sold, without the head-stall, for a hundred rupees,
disappeared, and became the youth again. When he next changed himself
into a horse the fakir chased it; it became a dove and the fakir
a hawk, then it turned into a fish and the fakir a crocodile. When
near capture the fish became a mosquito and crept up the nostril of
a hanging corpse; the fakir blocked the nostril with mud and induced
a merchant to bring him the body. Then follow some of the Vikrama
stories, and at last at the corpse's request the merchant removed
the mud, and the youth escaped. The fakir then accepted the boy's
challenge that he should be a goat and the fakir a tiger, and one
should devour the other. The goat was tied outside the town at night,
men who were stationed to shoot the tiger when it came, fired, and
both animals were killed.
In Folklore of the Santal Parganas (collected by Rev. Dr. Bodding),
p. 134, a Queen bore two sons owing to magical aid given by a Jogi,
who was to have one of them as a reward. The clever younger one whom
he wanted ran off. The man first chased him as a leopard, then they
were a pigeon and hawk, a fly and egret. The fly settled on the rice
plate of a Queen; when the Jogi induced her to throw the rice on the
ground the boy became a coral bead in her necklace. The man then got
her to scatter the beads on the floor, and while as a pigeon he was
picking them up, the boy took the form of a cat and killed it.
In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. i, p. 342, a man became an ox
when a witch tied a string round his neck, and regained his shape when
it was removed. On p. 340 the animal was an ape; when the string was
taken off a spell was also necessary to restore the man's form. In
vol. ii, pp. 157, 168, a man was similarly turned into a peacock,
and resumed his shape when the thread was removed.
In Sagas from the Far East, p. 2, the elder son of a Khan studied
without result under seven magicians for seven years; the younger
son acquired their mystic knowledge by peeping through a crack in
the door. The elder one afterwards sold the younger to them in the
form of a horse; as they were killing it he entered a fish, which as
seven larger fishes they chased. Then he became a dove, which when
seven hawks pursued it took refuge in Nagarjuna's bosom and told him
its story. When the seven men asked for his rosary he put the large
bead in his mouth as requested by the youth, and biting the string,
let the others fall, on which they became worms that seven cocks
began to pick up. On the large bead's falling it changed into a man
who killed the cocks with a stick; they became human corpses.
In the same work, p. 273, when the father of Vikramaditya went to fight
a demon he left his body near an image of Buddha for safety. On his
younger wife's burning it on a pyre, he appeared in a heavenly form and
stated that as his body was destroyed he could not revisit the earth.
In the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton's ed., vol. i, p. 118)
a Princess-magician summoned an Ifrit (Rakshasa) who had turned a
Prince into an ape, and with a sword made from a hair of her head
cut him in two as a lion. They then became a scorpion and python,
a vulture and eagle, a black cat and wolf. The cat became a worm
which crept into a pomegranate; when this broke up and the seeds fell
on the floor, the wolf (Princess) became a white cock which ate all
but one that sprang into the water of a fountain and became a fish,
the cock as a larger fish pursuing it. At last they fought with fire
in their true forms, and were reduced to ashes.
In the same work, vol. iv, p. 492, a magician warned a Prince not
to part with the bridle of a mule which was a metamorphosed Queen,
but her old mother bought the animal and got the bridle with it. When
she removed the bridle and sprinkled water on the mule it became the
Queen again at her orders.
In the Katha Sarit Sagara, vol. i, p. 420, the Asura Maya showed a
King his former Asura body. The King magically re-entered the body,
abandoning his own frame, and the dead Asura arose. He embalmed
and kept his human body, saying that it might prove useful to
him. Apparently this approaches the Egyptian belief in the return of
the soul to its body after death. Mr. Tawney referred such ideas in
China to Buddhist influence.
In the same work, vol. ii, p. 353, a decrepit old hermit who
had magical power left his own body, and entered that of a boy of
sixteen years who was brought to be burnt, after which he threw his
old abandoned body into a ravine, and resumed his ascetic duties as
a youth.
In Dr. De Groot's The Religious System of China, vol. iv, p. 134 ff,
instances are quoted from Chinese writers, of bodies which had been
reanimated by souls of others who died, and it is stated that "it is
a commonplace thing in China, a matter of almost daily occurrence,
that corpses are resuscitated by their own souls returning into them."
In the Rev. Dr. Macgowan's Chinese Folk-lore Tales, p. 109, the spirit
of a King who was murdered by being pushed into a well three years
before, appeared to a monk, gave an account of the murder, and said,
"My soul has not yet been loosed from my body, but is still confined
within it in the well." The body was taken out, and revived when a
few drops of the Elixir of Life were applied to the lips. (See also
the first note on p. 376, vol. ii.)
In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 71, a cord placed
round the neck of a Prince by the daughter of a sorceress changed him
into a ram; when it was accidentally removed he became a Prince again.
In The Kathakoça (Tawney), p. 38, a Vidyadhara gave a Prince the power
of entering another body. When he utilised it, it was given out that
he was dead. His spirit returned to his own body by its own volition.