A History of Sanskrit Literature c20.s1.9

c20.s1.9

Trivikramasena, or as the later accounts have it Vikramāditya, is in receipt annually of a fruit from an ascetic, which he hands over to his treasurer, until accidentally he finds that each contains a jewel. In gratitude he offers aid to the ascetic who asks him to go to a cemetery and bring down from a tree a corpse which is on it. The king agrees to act, but is startled to find that a ghoul, Vetāla, has taken up its abode in the corpse, yet persists in his purpose. The corpse denizen, however, lightens the way by telling a story ending in a question as to the answer to a riddle, and on the king solving it the corpse falls off and returns to its original place. The king, however, finally is defeated, and is silent. The demon then reveals to him that the evil ascetic is seeking in reality to slay him, and at his bidding the king asks the ascetic to show him how to perform the prostration required in the rite which is to be performed with the corpse, and hews off the evil-doer's head. The stories have often much spirit and point; the king is silenced by the question of the relationship *inter se* of the children of a father who marries the daughter of a lady whom his son espouses. This weird tangle arose from rash vows and honour combined; the king and his son had seen the footprints of two ladies and the son induces his sire to marry the one with large, he the one with small feet, and it turned out that the mother was the *petite* beauty. Difficult again is the question how the hand of a girl should be disposed of, when she has been rescued from a demon by the united work of three lovers, one of whom finds by his skill the place where she is hidden, the other by magic provides an aerial car to seek for her, and the third by valour slays the demon; the king gives the palm to valour. Which again is the nobler, the husband-to-be who permits his beloved one a last assignation, the robber who lets her pass him unscathed when he knows her mission, or the lover who returns her unharmed when he learns of the husband's noble deed? A youth vows his head to Bhaṭṭārikā if he win a fair maid as wife; he pays his debt, his friend finds his corpse and imitates his deed, fearful of suspicion of murder; the wife finds the headless bodies, the goddess pities, and bids her restore the heads, but she errs. Which is her husband? The body with the true head, replies the king, for the head is the noblest member. Or we have the strange case of the son of a thief brought up by a Brahmin, adopted by a king, at whose offering to the spirits of the dead three hands appear to demand the sacrifice. Among these Märchen or novelettes there is one distinctly Buddhist tale, though Durgā is the chief figure in the book taken as a whole, which is distinctly a product of the spirit of the Tantras. A king desires a human sacrifice for his own benefit, parents and the Brahmin priest seek to carry it out, the demon is ready, but the little child to be offered laughs at their shameless folly in ignoring the transient nature of all earthly things, and his life is spared.