Indian Fairy Tales (11 page)

"No, no," replied the cat. "Not unless you do some thing for me.
Listen. The ogress, who lives in that house with the prince and his
wife, has swallowed a ring, which I very much want. If you will procure
it for me, I will allow the rat to depart unharmed. If you do not, then
your prince dies under my feet."

"Very well, we agree," said they all. "Nay, if we do not get the ring
for you, devour us all."

This was rather a bold offer. However, they accomplished the thing. At
midnight, when the ogress was sound asleep, one of the rats went to her
bedside, climbed up on her face, and inserted its tail into her throat;
whereupon the ogress coughed violently, and the ring came out and
rolled on to the floor. The rat immediately seized the precious thing
and ran off with it to its king, who was very glad, and went at once to
the cat and released its son.

As soon as the cat received the ring, she started back with the dog to
go and tell their master the good tidings. All seemed safe now. They
had only to give the ring to him, and he would speak to it, and the
house and beautiful princess would again be with them, and everything
would go on as happily as before. "How glad master will be!" they
thought, and ran as fast as their legs could carry them. Now, on the
way they had to cross a stream. The dog swam, and the cat sat on its
back. Now the dog was jealous of the cat, so he asked for the ring, and
threatened to throw the cat into the water if it did not give it up;
whereupon the cat gave up the ring. Sorry moment, for the dog at once
dropped it, and a fish swallowed it.

"Oh! what shall I do? what shall I do?" said the dog.

"What is done is done," replied the cat. "We must try to recover it,
and if we do not succeed we had better drown ourselves in this stream.
I have a plan. You go and kill a small lamb, and bring it here to me."

"All right," said the dog, and at once ran off. He soon came back with
a dead lamb, and gave it to the cat. The cat got inside the lamb and
lay down, telling the dog to go away a little distance and keep quiet.
Not long after this a nadhar, a bird whose look can break the bones of
a fish, came and hovered over the lamb, and eventually pounced down on
it to carry it away. On this the cat came out and jumped on to the
bird, and threatened to kill it if it did not recover the lost ring.
This was most readily promised by the nadhar, who immediately flew off
to the king of the fishes, and ordered it to make inquiries and to
restore the ring. The king of the fishes did so, and the ring was found
and carried back to the cat.

"Come along now; I have got the ring," said the cat to the dog.

"No, I will not," said the dog, "unless you let me have the ring. I can
carry it as well as you. Let me have it or I will kill you." So the cat
was obliged to give up the ring. The careless dog very soon dropped it
again. This time it was picked up and carried off by a kite.

"See, see, there it goes—away to that big tree," the cat exclaimed.

"Oh! oh! what have I done?" cried the dog.

"You foolish thing, I knew it would be so," said the cat. "But stop
your barking, or you will frighten away the bird to some place where we
shall not be able to trace it."

The cat waited till it was quite dark, and then climbed the tree,
killed the kite, and recovered the ring. "Come along," it said to the
dog when it reached the ground. "We must make haste now. We have been
delayed. Our master will die from grief and suspense. Come on."

The dog, now thoroughly ashamed of itself, begged the cat's pardon for
all the trouble it had given. It was afraid to ask for the ring the
third time, so they both reached their sorrowing master in safety and
gave him the precious charm. In a moment his sorrow was turned into
joy. He spoke to the ring, and his beautiful wife and house reappeared,
and he and everybody were as happy as ever they could be.

The future Buddha was once born in a minister's family, when Brahma-
datta was reigning in Benares; and when he grew up, he became the
king's adviser in things temporal and spiritual.

Now this king was very talkative; while he was speaking, others had no
opportunity for a word. And the future Buddha, wanting to cure this
talkativeness of his, was constantly seeking for some means of doing
so.

At that time there was living, in a pond in the Himalaya mountains, a
tortoise. Two young hamsas, or wild ducks, who came to feed there, made
friends with him. And one day, when they had become very intimate with
him, they said to the tortoise:

"Friend tortoise! the place where we live, at the Golden Cave on Mount
Beautiful in the Himalaya country, is a delightful spot. Will you come
there with us?"

"But how can I get there?"

"We can take you, if you can only hold your tongue, and will say
nothing to anybody."

"Oh! that I can do. Take me with you."

"That's right," said they. And making the tortoise bite hold of a
stick, they themselves took the two ends in their teeth, and flew up
into the air.

Seeing him thus carried by the hamsas, some villagers called out, "Two
wild ducks are carrying a tortoise along on a stick!" Whereupon the
tortoise wanted to say, "If my friends choose to carry me, what is that
to you, you wretched slaves!" So just as the swift flight of the wild
ducks had brought him over the king's palace in the city of Benares, he
let go of the stick he was biting, and falling in the open courtyard,
split in two! And there arose a universal cry, "A tortoise has fallen
in the open courtyard, and has split in two!"

The king, taking the future Buddha, went to the place, surrounded by
his courtiers; and looking at the tortoise, he asked the Bodisat,
"Teacher! how comes he to be fallen here?"

The future Buddha thought to himself, "Long expecting, wishing to
admonish the king, have I sought for some means of doing so. This
tortoise must have made friends with the wild ducks; and they must have
made him bite hold of the stick, and have flown up into the air to take
him to the hills. But he, being unable to hold his tongue when he hears
any one else talk, must have wanted to say something, and let go the
stick; and so must have fallen down from the sky, and thus lost his
life." And saying, "Truly, O king! those who are called chatter-boxes—
people whose words have no end—come to grief like this," he uttered
these Verses:

"Verily the tortoise killed himself
Whilst uttering his voice;
Though he was holding tight the stick,
By a word himself he slew.

"Behold him then, O excellent by strength!
And speak wise words, not out of season.
You see how, by his talking overmuch,
The tortoise fell into this wretched plight!"

The king saw that he was himself referred to, and said, "O Teacher! are
you speaking of us?"

And the Bodisat spake openly, and said, "O great king! be it thou, or
be it any other, whoever talks beyond measure meets with some mishap
like this."

And the king henceforth refrained himself, and became a man of few
words.

A poor blind Brahman and his wife were dependent on their son for
their subsistence. Every day the young fellow used to go out and get
what he could by begging. This continued for some time, till at last he
became quite tired of such a wretched life, and determined to go and
try his luck in another country. He informed his wife of his intention,
and ordered her to manage somehow or other for the old people during
the few months that he would be absent. He begged her to be
industrious, lest his parents should be angry and curse him.

One morning he started with some food in a bundle, and walked on day
after day, till he reached the chief city of the neighbouring country.
Here he went and sat down by a merchant's shop and asked alms. The
merchant inquired whence he had come, why he had come, and what was his
caste; to which he replied that he was a Brahman, and was wandering
hither and thither begging a livelihood for himself and wife and
parents. Moved with pity for the man, the merchant advised him to visit
the kind and generous king of that country, and offered to accompany
him to the court. Now at that time it happened that the king was
seeking for a Brahman to look after a golden temple which he had just
had built. His Majesty was very glad, therefore, when he saw the
Brahman and heard that he was good and honest. He at once deputed him
to the charge of this temple, and ordered fifty kharwars of rice and
one hundred rupees to be paid to him every year as wages.

Two months after this, the Brahman's wife, not having heard any news of
her husband, left the house and went in quest of him. By a happy fate
she arrived at the very place that he had reached, where she heard that
every morning at the golden temple a golden rupee was given in the
king's name to any beggar who chose to go for it. Accordingly, on the
following morning she went to the place and met her husband.

"Why have you come here?" he asked. "Why have you left my parents? Care
you not whether they curse me and I die? Go back immediately, and await
my return."

"No, no," said the woman. "I cannot go back to starve and see your old
father and mother die. There is not a grain of rice left in the house."

"O Bhagawant!" exclaimed the Brahman. "Here, take this," he continued,
scribbling a few lines on some paper, and then handing it to her, "and
give it to the king. You will see that he will give you a lac of rupees
for it." Thus saying he dismissed her, and the woman left.

On this scrap of paper were written three pieces of advice—First, If a
person is travelling and reaches any strange place at night, let him be
careful where he puts up, and not close his eyes in sleep, lest he
close them in death. Secondly, If a man has a married sister, and
visits her in great pomp, she will receive him for the sake of what she
can obtain from him; but if he comes to her in poverty, she will frown
on him and disown him. Thirdly, If a man has to do any work, he must do
it himself, and do it with might and without fear.

On reaching her home the Brahmani told her parents of her meeting with
her husband, and what a valuable piece of paper he had given her; but
not liking to go before the king herself, she sent one of her
relations. The king read the paper, and ordering the man to be flogged,
dismissed him. The next morning the Brahmani took the paper, and while
she was going along the road to the darbar reading it, the king's son
met her, and asked what she was reading, whereupon she replied that she
held in her hands a paper containing certain bits of advice, for which
she wanted a lac of rupees. The prince asked her to show it to him, and
when he had read it gave her a parwana for the amount, and rode on. The
poor Brahmani was very thankful. That day she laid in a great store of
provisions, sufficient to last them all for a long time.

In the evening the prince related to his father the meeting with the
woman, and the purchase of the piece of paper. He thought his father
would applaud the act. But it was not so. The king was more angry than
before, and banished his son from the country.

So the prince bade adieu to his mother and relations and friends, and
rode off on his horse, whither he did not know. At nightfall he arrived
at some place, where a man met him, and invited him to lodge at his
house. The prince accepted the invitation, and was treated like a
prince. Matting was spread for him to squat on, and the best provisions
set before him.

"Ah!" thought he, as he lay down to rest, "here is a case for the first
piece of advice that the Brahmani gave me. I will not sleep to-night."

It was well that he thus resolved, for in the middle of the night the
man rose up, and taking a sword in his hand, rushed to the prince with
the intention of killing him. But he rose up and spoke.

"Do not slay me," he said. "What profit would you get from my death? If
you killed me you would be sorry afterwards, like that man who killed
his dog."

"What man? What dog?" he asked.

"I will tell you," said the prince, "if you will give me that sword."

So he gave him the sword, and the prince began his story:

"Once upon a time there lived a wealthy merchant who had a pet dog. He
was suddenly reduced to poverty, and had to part with his dog. He got a
loan of five thousand rupees from a brother merchant, leaving the dog
as a pledge, and with the money began business again. Not long after
this the other merchant's shop was broken into by thieves and
completely sacked. There was hardly ten rupees' worth left in the
place. The faithful dog, however, knew what was going on, and went and
followed the thieves, and saw where they deposited the things, and then
returned.

"In the morning there was great weeping and lamentation in the
merchant's house when it was known what had happened. The merchant
himself nearly went mad. Meanwhile the dog kept on running to the door,
and pulling at his master's shirt and paijamas, as though wishing him
to go outside. At last a friend suggested that, perhaps, the dog knew
something of the whereabouts of the things, and advised the merchant to
follow its leadings. The merchant consented, and went after the dog
right up to the very place where the thieves had hidden the goods. Here
the animal scraped and barked, and showed in various ways that the
things were underneath. So the merchant and his friends dug about the
place, and soon came upon all the stolen property. Nothing was missing.
There was everything just as the thieves had taken them.

"The merchant was very glad. On returning to his house, he at once sent
the dog back to its old master with a letter rolled under the collar,
wherein he had written about the sagacity of the beast, and begged his
friend to forget the loan and to accept another five thousand rupees as
a present. When this merchant saw his dog coming back again, he
thought, 'Alas! my friend is wanting the money. How can I pay him? I
have not had sufficient time to recover myself from my recent losses. I
will slay the dog ere he reaches the threshold, and say that another
must have slain it. Thus there will be an end of my debt.'