Indian Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs (best books to read for students TXT) 📕

by misfortunes, said, “Kill her at once! for she has been born in an evil moment, and has brought her father ill luck!”

But Rasalu rose up in his shining armour, tenderhearted and strong, saying, “Not so, oh king! She has done no evil. Give me this child to wife; and if you will vow, by all you hold sacred, never again to play chaupur for another’s head, I will spare yours now!”

Then Sarkap vowed a solemn vow never to play for another’s head; and after that he took a fresh mango branch, and the newborn babe, and placing them on a golden dish gave them to Rasalu.

Now, as he left the palace, carrying with him the newborn babe and the mango branch, he met a band of prisoners, and they called out to him,

“A royal hawk art thou, oh King! the rest
But timid wildfowl. Grant us our request⁠—
Unloose these chains, and live forever blest!”

And Raja Rasalu hearkened to them, and bade King Sarkap set them at liberty.

Then he went to the Murti Hills, and placed the newborn babe, Kokilan, in an underground palace, and planted the mango branch at the door, saying, “In twelve years the mango tree will blossom; then will I return and marry Kokilan.”

And after twelve years, the mango tree began to flower, and Raja Rasalu married the Princess Kokilan, whom he won from Sarkap when he played chaupur with the King.

The Ass in the Lion’s Skin

At the same time, when Brahma-datta was reigning in Benares, the future Buddha was born one of a peasant family; and when he grew up, he gained his living by tilling the ground.

At that time a hawker used to go from place to place, trafficking in goods carried by an ass. Now at each place he came to, when he took the pack down from the ass’s back, he used to clothe him in a lion’s skin, and turn him loose in the rice and barley fields. And when the watchmen in the fields saw the ass, they dared not go near him, taking him for a lion.

So one day the hawker stopped in a village; and whilst he was getting his own breakfast cooked, he dressed the ass in a lion’s skin, and turned him loose in a barley-field. The watchmen in the field dared not go up to him; but going home, they published the news. Then all the villagers came out with weapons in their hands; and blowing chanks, and beating drums, they went near the field and shouted. Terrified with the fear of death, the ass uttered a cry⁠—the bray of an ass!

And when he knew him then to be an ass, the future Buddha pronounced the First Verse:

“This is not a lion’s roaring,
Nor a tiger’s, nor a panther’s;
Dressed in a lion’s skin,
’Tis a wretched ass that roars!”

But when the villagers knew the creature to be an ass, they beat him till his bones broke; and, carrying off the lion’s skin, went away. Then the hawker came; and seeing the ass fallen into so bad a plight, pronounced the Second Verse:

“Long might the ass,
Clad in a lion’s skin,
Have fed on the barley green.
But he brayed!
And that moment he came to ruin.”

And even whilst he was yet speaking the ass died on the spot!

The Farmer and the Moneylender

There was once a farmer who suffered much at the hands of a moneylender. Good harvests, or bad, the farmer was always poor, the moneylender rich. At the last, when he hadn’t a farthing left, farmer went to the moneylender’s house, and said, “You can’t squeeze water from a stone, and as you have nothing to get by me now, you might tell me the secret of becoming rich.”

“My friend,” returned the moneylender, piously, “riches come from Ram⁠—ask him.”

“Thank you, I will!” replied the simple farmer; so he prepared three girdle-cakes to last him on the journey, and set out to find Ram.

First he met a Brahman, and to him he gave a cake, asking him to point out the road to Ram; but the Brahman only took the cake and went on his way without a word. Next the farmer met a Jogi or devotee, and to him he gave a cake, without receiving any help in return. At last, he came upon a poor man sitting under a tree, and finding out he was hungry, the kindly farmer gave him his last cake, and sitting down to rest beside him, entered into conversation.

“And where are you going?” asked the poor man, at length.

“Oh, I have a long journey before me, for I am going to find Ram!” replied the farmer. “I don’t suppose you could tell me which way to go?”

“Perhaps I can,” said the poor man, smiling, “for I am Ram! What do you want of me?”

Then the farmer told the whole story, and Ram, taking pity on him, gave him a conch shell, and showed him how to blow it in a particular way, saying, “Remember! whatever you wish for, you have only to blow the conch that way, and your wish will be fulfilled. Only have a care of that moneylender, for even magic is not proof against their wiles!”

The farmer went back to his village rejoicing. In fact the moneylender noticed his high spirits at once, and said to himself, “Some good fortune must have befallen the stupid fellow, to make him hold his head so jauntily.” Therefore he went over to the simple farmer’s house, and congratulated him on his good fortune, in such cunning words, pretending to have heard all about it, that before long the farmer found himself telling the whole story⁠—all except the secret of blowing the conch, for, with all his simplicity, the farmer was not quite such a fool as to tell that.

Nevertheless, the moneylender determined to have the conch by hook or by crook, and as he was villain enough not to stick