  In a country there was a King; the King had a Prince (son). He sent the Prince to a school to learn the arts, and the Prince quickly learnt the arts. The teacher, having become pleased with the Prince, gave his daughter in marriage to the Prince. When they were thus for no long time the Prince’s father, the King, died. At that time he set out to go back with the Princess to his own country. When going, they were obliged to go through the middle of a forest on the path on which they were going. In the midst of the forest there was a Vaedda King. The Vaedda King having seen this Princess and Prince, asked, “Who are you? To go where, came you?” Thereupon the Prince says, “I indeed am the Prince called Manam, of the King here; this is my Princess,” he said. “It is good. Who gave you permission to go through the middle of this forest of mine? Owing to your coming without permission, I shall now kill you,” he said. “Otherwise, if you wish to go to your kingdom, having now made this Princess remain here, you may go.” The Prince says, “I will not go, leaving here my Princess whom I married in my youth. If you will not let us go, it will be better that we two should die.” When he had said this, the Vaedda King, although he spoke about it again and again, did not listen to him. Afterwards, having caused his army to be brought, “Look now at this army of mine,” he said; “they will kill you. Then you will not have your kingdom, nor your Princess. Obtaining your kingdom will be better than that, having Then the Prince said, “My kingdom does not matter to me if there be not my Princess.” “It is good. If so, look, now, in a little [time], at the way I shall kill you.” “No matter for that.” “My army! Come. Kill this Prince.” Then the Vaeddas came running, bringing bows and arrows. The Prince having said to the Princess, “You sit down. Look at what I do to these Vaeddas. Don’t cry. The favour of the Gods is for us,” taking his bow, fights with the army of the Vaedda King. Having said, “Shoot! Kill the Prince!” all came, and sprang [forward], and began to shoot. The Prince having given his sword into the hand of his very Princess, taking the bow began to shoot at them. Well then, all having fallen, a few persons, only, being left over, they bounded off and went away. At that time the Vaedda King said, “Is He Thereupon the Prince, after he (the Vaedda King) took his bow, says, “Not in that way. We two having wrestled, must cut off the head of the person who should fall,” he said. “It is good. I am satisfied.” “If so, come. Princess, take this sword of mine,” he said. At that time, the Vaedda having looked in the direction of the Princess, and having spoken [to her] without the Prince’s knowing, the Princess was mentally bound to the Vaedda King. He had no beauty,—a very black colour. The Prince was a very beautiful person. Well then, while they were wrestling, the Vaedda King having got underneath, fell. Then the Prince asked the Princess for the sword. The Princess quickly having given The Princess says, “Good work! That indeed was in my mind. Now then, there is no fear; we can remain,” she said. The Vaedda King says, “You are very good. If you were not [here] to-day, no life for me. Owing to your faithfulness, indeed, I survive. Having taken off your clothes, and the tied things (belt, bracelets, necklace, etc.) and ornaments, give them into my hand, in order to place them on the [other] bank of that river, and come back,” he said. Seizing them, and having taken them and placed them somewhere, and returned [he said], “Let us go; we have not any fear.” Taking her to the middle of the river, he said, “Throughout this world there is not an evil bad woman like you.” Having said, “It is bad [even] to remain in the country in which is the woman who gave the sword sheath, in order to kill outright the Prince whom you married while young,—having tied your mind on me whom you saw to-day [only],” having said this, he bounded off and went away. Her ornaments and her clothes having been lost, without even a place to go to for food or clothing, while she was on the bank of the river in the midst of the forest, a Jackal came running to the place where the Princess was staying, holding in his mouth a piece of meat. Having come there [and seen the reflection of the meat in the water], he placed the piece of meat on the ground, and sprang to seize a piece of meat that was inside the river. Then a kite that was flying above, having come, flew away, taking the piece of meat. The Princess having been looking on at it, says, “Bola! Foolish Jackal! Putting aside the piece of meat that was in thy mouth, thou wentest to eat meat in the river! Was that good?” After she had scolded him, the Jackal says, “Not like my foolishness was yours. Having been staying married to the King here, having indeed gone to be married to the Vaedda Afterwards the God Sakra having come, taking a Jackal’s disguise, because of the wickedness which the Princess did, bit her and tore her to pieces. (According to a variant related by a Washerman she joined a poor man and went about with him, getting a living by begging, until she died.) P. B. Madahapola, Ra?emahatmaya, North-western Province. In The Orientalist, vol. i, p. 184, this story was given by Mr. H. A. Pieris, extracted from a dramatic work called Kolan-kavi-pota. A King named Maname and his Queen while on a hunting excursion lost their way in the forest. The Vaedda King stopped them, but offered to release the King if he would hand over the Queen. The King refused, they fought, and the Vaedda King got him down. Maname asked the Queen for his sword; but as she had fallen in love with the handsome Vaedda she held out the sheath, and when the King seized it drew out the sword and gave it to the Vaedda, who cut off the King’s head. Afterwards the Vaedda made off with her jewels and clothes at the river. While she sat there, Sakra appeared in the form of a fox (jackal), holding a piece of meat, Matali as a hawk, and another deva [PaÑcasikka] as a fish. The jackal dropped its meat on the bank, and plunged into the water to seize the fish as it swam by; the hawk then carried off the piece of meat. The Queen remarked on the stupidity of the jackal, which replied that her folly was greater than his; and she died of a broken heart when she realised it. This story is simply the Jataka tale No. 374 (vol. iii, p. 145), except that in the Jataka the woman is not described as dying or being killed. In the Aventures de Paramarta of the AbbÉ Dubois, a dog which had stolen a leg of mutton in a village, while crossing a river with it observed its reflection in the water, let go its own mutton, and sprang to seize that of the other dog, of course losing both. In the Tota Kahani (Small), p. 81, a young married woman eloped with a stranger one night, and while near a pond he stole her jewels when she was asleep. In the morning a jackal came up, carrying a bone. Seeing a fish that had fallen on the bank, it dropped the bone and rushed to catch the fish, which floundered into the water. In the meantime the bone was carried off by a dog. The woman laughed, quoted a proverb, “He who leaves the half to run In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 76, a fool who went to drink water at a tank saw in it the reflection of a golden-crested bird that was sitting on a tree. Thinking it was real gold, he entered the water several times to get it, but the movement of the surface caused it to disappear each time. In Julien’s Les Avadanas this story is No. XLVI, vol. i, p. 171; in this tale the man saw the reflection of a piece of gold which the bird had placed in the tree. In the Preface to The KathakoÇa, p. xvii, Mr. Tawney quoted from Professor Jacobi’s introduction to the Parisish?a Parvan the Jain form of the story, in which the robber left the Queen without clothing on the river bank. The Vyantara god, in order to save her soul, took the form of a jackal carrying a piece of flesh. When he dropped it and rushed to seize a fish that sprang on the bank, a bird carried off the meat. The Queen laughed, the jackal retorted, exhorted her to take refuge in the Jina, and she became a nun. In Les Avadanas (Julien), No. LXXV, vol. ii, p. 11, a woman eloped with her lover, who carried her gold, silver, and clothes across a river and abandoned her. A fox which had caught a sparrow-hawk came up, let go the hawk in order to spring at a fish in the river, and lost both. When the woman remarked on his stupidity, the fox admitted it, and retorted that hers was still greater. This is the form in which the story occurs in Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. i, p. 381; but in vol. ii, p. 367, there is a variant which agrees with the following Tibetan tale. In A. von Schiefner’s Tibetan Tales (Ralston), p. 232, a robber chief for whom a woman abandoned a blind man, sent her first into the river and then made off with her things. A jackal which came with a piece of flesh dropped it in order to seize a fish on the bank; this sprang into the water, and a vulture carried away the meat. After the usual retorts, the jackal agreed to assist her on her promising it meat daily, told her to stand in the water immersed to the neck, and persuaded the King whose wife she had been to pardon her on account of this penance. |
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