The Seduction of Shiva: Tales of Life and Love (4 page)

Upakosha was happily married to the scholar Vararuchi. When he went away to the Himalayas to propitiate the god Shiva, Vararuchi informed her and placed money for the upkeep of his household with the merchant Hiranya Gupta. Upakosha stayed at home, constant in her devotions, bathing every day in the river Ganga.

As she went to the river for her bath one day, Upakosha was seen by the royal priest, the chief judge and the prince’s counsellor. It was spring time. Slender, pale and charming, she caught people’s eyes like the crescent of the new moon. At the sight of her, all three men were smitten by the arrows of Kama, the god of love.

For some reason Upakosha took a long time
at her bath that day. On her way back in the evening, the prince’s counsellor grabbed her all of a sudden. ‘Good sir,’ she told him boldly, ‘this is something I want as much as you. But I am from a respectable family and my husband is away. So, how can this be done? Anyone may see us and that will surely be bad for both you and me. Come to my house in the first quarter of the night, when people will be engrossed in the spring festival.’

After this arrangement had been made, the counsellor let her go. But she had not gone far when, as luck would have it, she was stopped by the priest. With him too she fixed a similar rendezvous, but for the second quarter of the night. Freed of him somehow, a little further she was accosted once more, this time by the chief judge. Much distressed, she made yet another assignation—with the judge for the third quarter of the same night and, fortunately let go again, got home shaken and trembling.

‘It is better for a respectable woman to die
than become the target of looks from lewd people when her husband is away,’ she said to her servant maid while telling her confidentially what she had done. Worrying about it and thinking of her spouse, the good woman spent that night without any food, full of regrets about her good looks.

The next morning she sent her maid to Hiranya Gupta to get some money for entertaining the three importunate brahmans. The merchant came to her himself and, when they were alone, said: ‘Sleep with me, and I will give you what your husband left in my care.’

Upakosha recalled that there was no witness to her husband’s deposit of the money. Tormented by anger and frustration, but realizing that the merchant was a devil and wishing to be rid of him, that chaste woman then made an assignation with him for the last quarter of the night. Thereafter she got her servant girls to mix soot and oil in a tub together with musk and other scents. She also had four strips of cloth
smeared with this mixture, and procured a large chest with a bolt on its exterior.

Then it was the spring festival. The prince’s counsellor arrived in the first quarter of the night, splendidly dressed. He entered unseen. ‘I won’t touch you till you have had a bath,’ Upakosha told him, ‘so come inside and bathe.’ The fool agreed and the servant girls took him into a secret inner room which was totally dark. There they relieved him of his ornamentation and inner garments, giving him one of the strips of cloth as underwear. Without his realizing it, they then smeared that wicked man’s body thickly, from head to foot, with the sooty oil. While they were rubbing it over all his limbs, the night’s second quarter commenced and the priest arrived.

‘A friend of Vararuchi has come,’ the girls told the prince’s counsellor, ‘it’s a priest, so get inside here.’ And they quickly bundled him naked into the chest and bolted it from outside.

The royal priest was also tricked similarly.
Taken into the darkness on the pretext of a bath, deprived of his robes and given only the strip of cloth, he too was rubbed with sooty oil by the servant girls until it was the third quarter, when he was suddenly locked inside the chest, terror-stricken upon learning that the chief judge had arrived.

The new arrival was also duped. Taken inside on the pretence of a bath and covered with just a strip of cloth, he too was rubbed with soot until the merchant’s arrival in the night’s last quarter. Scared by the maids into thinking that he would be seen, the chief judge was also consigned into the chest which was bolted again. Inside it, the three men were cooped up in darkness, as if rehearsing to live in hell, but not daring to speak though they could touch each other.

Meanwhile Upakosha invited the merchant into the house and gave him a lamp. ‘Give me the money my husband had entrusted to you,’ she told the villain.

On his part, the man observed that there
was no one else in the house and replied, ‘I will certainly give you the money deposited by your husband.’

‘O gods,’ Upakosha then called out so that she could be heard within the chest, ‘listen to this statement of Hiranya Gupta!’ and she put out the lamp.

The merchant too was then smeared with the sooty mixture by the servant girls on the pretext of being prepared for a bath. ‘Go!’ they told him thereafter, ‘the night is over!’ Taking him by the scruff of the neck, they threw the protesting man out. Painted black as ink, covered with just a strip of cloth, bitten by dogs at every step, he made his way home in shame. There he could not even look his own servants in the face as they washed the soot off him. The outcome of impropriety is painful indeed.

The next morning Upakosha went to King Nanda’s
¹
palace without her elders but with her servant girls in tow. ‘The merchant Hiranya Gupta wants to steal the money deposited with
him by my husband,’ she personally informed the king who promptly had the man brought there to clear up the matter.

‘Your Majesty,’ said Hiranya Gupta, ‘there is nothing at all with me that is hers.’

At this Upakosha spoke up. ‘I have witnesses, Your Majesty,’ she told the king. ‘Before he left, my husband had placed the household gods in a chest. This man acknowledged the deposit in his own words in front of them. Let the chest be brought here so that you may ask the gods yourself.’

Amazed at what he had been told, the king ordered the chest be fetched forthwith, and it was brought in by a host of people.

‘O gods,’ asked Upakosha, ‘what did this merchant say? Tell the truth. Then go home. Otherwise I will set you on fire or expose you in this assembly.’

The men inside were terrified on hearing her words. ‘It is true!’ they said. ‘The deposit was acknowledged in our presence.’ Left without
any explanation, the merchant admitted to everything.

The king was filled with curiosity. With Upakosha’s permission, he had the chest unbolted and opened. Out of it emerged the three men, looking like black blots. It was with some difficulty that they were recognized by the monarch and his ministers.

‘What is this?’ the wonderstruck king asked Upakosha, as everyone laughed.

The good woman recounted the whole story and was lauded by the members of the assembly. ‘Concealed within their noble nature,’ they observed, ‘the conduct of respectable women is quite beyond imagination.’

From
Kathāsaritsāgara
, 1.4.26–83

A barber told this story.

‘There was an evil-minded king,’ he said, ‘and I was his servant, performing my prescribed duties. One day, while going about his domain, the king spotted my wife whose good looks and youth entranced his mind. On enquiring about her from his retinue, and learning that she was the royal barber’s spouse, this wicked monarch went straight into my house, thinking, “What can the barber do?” And then he enjoyed my wife to his heart’s content before he left.

‘I was, by chance, out of the house that day. Returning on the next and noticing that my wife did not look her usual self, I questioned her and she told me quite proudly about all that
had happened. Thereafter, the king, who seemed always to be in heat, kept pleasuring himself with my wife in the very same way, while I was powerless to prevent it.

‘Well, how can a depraved, characterless master know the difference between what is permissible and what is not? Can a wildfire fanned by the wind distinguish the grass from the forest?

‘As there was no way for me to stop him, I made myself thin by eating very little and pretended to be ill. In that condition I went to the king’s chamber to carry out my duties. Seeing me so unwell, he asked me earnestly, “How have you become like this? Tell me!” Questioned incessantly, I sought his assurance and spoke to him when we were alone. “Your Majesty,” I said, “my wife is a witch. When I am asleep she pulls out my entrails through my anus and sucks them before putting them back. That is why I have become so thin. How can I be nourished by just a good and regular diet?”

‘On hearing this, the king was filled with misgivings. “Is she truly a witch?” he wondered. “Why has she seduced me? I am stout and well fed; will she suck my entrails too? I must test her myself in some manner tonight.” Thinking thus, he gave me a nice meal in the palace.

‘Then I went home to my wife pretending to be in tears. On being quizzed by her, I shed more tears and replied, “Darling, you must not tell anyone at all about what I say to you. Listen. Teeth have grown in the king’s bottom. They are like hard adamantine spikes. Because of them my razor broke when I was doing my work today. Now it will break like this every time. How will I get a new razor for each occasion? That is why I weep, for my livelihood in this abode is truly at an end.”

‘Hearing this, my wife made up her mind to take a look at the wonderous teeth in the king’s backside while he was asleep that night. She did not consider that such a thing, which had never been seen in the world, could be untrue.
Even intelligent women can be tricked by the tales of rogues.

‘Well, that night the king came to my wife as usual and enjoyed her unreservedly. Then, remembering what I had said, he pretended to be tired and to go to sleep. As for my wife—believing that he slept, she gradually stretched out her hand to get to the teeth in his bottom. When her fingers reached his nether orifice, the king jumped up suddenly, crying, “A witch! A witch!” and fled in terror. From then onwards the frightened ruler kept away from my wife and she was content in being devoted just to me. Thus did I use my brains to free my spouse from the clutches of that ruler.’

From
Kathāsaritsāgara
, 6.6.146–171

There was once a brahman who lived in the priestly settlement of Yajnasthala. A poor man, he went one day to the forest to fetch wood. As he was chopping it with an axe, a splinter flew and pierced his leg right through. He fainted, and was found bleeding in this condition by another man who recognized him and brought him home.

The brahman’s distressed wife revived him, washed off the blood and tied a bandage over the wound on his leg. Though nursed every day, the wound would not heal. It remained open and running, and its flow had weakened the man to the point of death when he was visited by a colleague, another brahman, who spoke to him in private.

‘My friend Yajna Datta was very poor for long,’ said the visitor, ‘but he became rich after propitiating a
pishacha
, a flesh-eating demon, and now lives happily. He told me about the ritual for it, and you too, my friend, should appease such a demon to heal your wound.’

Thereafter the visitor taught the wounded man the spell. ‘Wake up in the last quarter of the night. Naked, your hair untied and mouth unrinsed, take as much rice as you can in your two fists and go to the crossroads repeating this spell. Place the rice there and come back in silence without looking back. Do this until the demon appears. It will then say, “I alone will take care of your ailment.” You should welcome this for it will heal you.’

The brahman did as he had been advised and the demon was propitiated. It brought a particular medicinal herb from the Himalayas and healed the sick man’s wound. The brahman was overjoyed, but the demon then became insistent. ‘Give me another wound to heal,’ it
demanded, ‘otherwise I will cause you some calamity or destroy your body.’

The brahman was terror-stricken. ‘I will give you another wound within a week,’ he replied quickly, but lost all hope of life as the demon went away.

The story now becomes somewhat coarse. The brahman had a shrewd and clever daughter who was a widow. Seeing him desperately worried, she questioned him. On learning of the demon’s threat, she said, ‘I will dupe that demon. Go to it and say “Sir, my daughter has a running wound which you may heal.”’ The brahman was pleased, and saying just that to the demon, brought it to his daughter.

‘Heal this wound of mine, good sir,’ she told the creature, and showed to it, in private, a precious part of her body. That fool kept applying ointments and suchlike to it but was quite unable to achieve any cure. Tired out after some days, it then placed the girl’s legs on its shoulders to inspect the secret spot and see why it would
not heal. The demon then beheld what seemed a second open wound—actually her anus—beneath it. This threw it into confusion. ‘While one has yet to heal,’ it wondered, ‘another wound has appeared. It is truly said that problems multiply in weak spots and orifices. Besides, who can close an opening that serves as the world’s pathway through which mankind comes and goes?’

Thinking thus and afraid of being taken captive now that its efforts had been thwarted, the stupid demon fled and disappeared. Thus was the brahman saved by his daughter’s trick on that infernal being, and he lived happily, content and freed of his ailment.

From
Kathāsaritsāgara
, 6.2.156–184