The Story of a King and a Prince

This is partly a variant of the story No. 22, in vol. i, called there “The Kulē-Bakā Flowers.” The first part is a repetition of the narrative given in that one, up to the point where the King’s sons were imprisoned at the gambling house. It then continues as follows:—

The Prince who also went afterwards having gone near a widow-mother of that very city [after] filling a bag with bits of plates, when he said, “Mother, a son of yours was lost before, is it not so?” the widow woman said “Yes.” Then the Prince while weeping falsely said, “It is I myself.”

The Prince says falsely, “In that bag are masuran, mother,” he said.

The woman says, “What are masuran to me, son! Look at that: the heap of masuran which the King has given for my having worked.”

After that, the Prince asks, “Whose house is that, mother?”

After that, after the woman went to sleep, the Prince having emptied the pieces of plate in the house, went to gamble [after] filling the bag with the [woman’s] masuran.

Afterwards, that gambling woman just as on other days having brought a golden chair, placed it for the Prince. Then the Prince says, “I am not accustomed to sit on golden chairs. Give me the silver chair,” he said.

The woman says, “It is not a fault to sit [on the golden chair].”

The Prince says, “Having given me that silver chair here, and put aside this lamp also, come to gamble, bringing a good lamp,” he said.

Then the Prince says, “That is not a journey for which I came here. The two eyes of my father the King have become blind. On account of it I am going to seek the Kulē-Bakā flowers. [After] finding them, on the return journey I will bring the Sūran̆ganā flowers,” he said.

Having said this, he went to ask the path going to the Kulē-Bakā garden. When he was going near the Yakās who were on guard on it, a Princess whom the Yakās had seized and carried off came up, and said to the Prince, “What came you here for?”

“Through news that you are here I came to marry you,” [he replied].

Then the Princess says, “Should the Yakās come they will eat you up,” she said.

The Prince then says, “By any possible contrivance save me,” he said.

The Princess then opened the door of a rock house (cave), and having taken the Prince and put him in it, shut the door.

After that, the Yakās having come, ask, “Who came here?”

The Princess says, “Ammē! I cannot be here [to be questioned] in this way. Seek and give me a husband.”

The Princess says, “I will find one if you will not do any harm [to him].”

The Yakshanī said, “We will do no harm to him.”

“If you swear by the censure of your deity, I will show you my husband,” she said. Afterwards she swore.

After she took the Prince into the light, she asks the Prince, “What do you eat?” The Yakshanī asks.

The Prince said, “I eat ripe Jak, Warakā (a kind of Jak fruit), Sugar-cane, Pine-apples.” The Yakshanī went and brought and gave him them. Afterwards, after the Prince ate, she said, “Where are you going?”

Then the Prince says, “Tell me the path [by which] to go to the Kulē-Bakā garden.”

Having informed him of the path, and given him also a robe [endowed] with the power of flying through the air, she told him to go. He went to the Kulē-Bakā garden, and [after] plucking the Kulē-Bakā flower that was in the pool, having come, calling the Princess, to the place where he gambled, he caused her to remain there.

The Prince, taking the Kulē-Bakā flower, was going near his father the King. At the time when he was going across a river those six Princes were [there], cooking and cooking rice. Also at that very place a rich man without his two eyes was saying and saying, “To a man who should cure my two eyes I will give goods [amounting] to a tusk elephant’s load, and also a tusk elephant.” He was saying and saying [this].

Those six Princes having seen it, spoke together: “Let us beat him, and snatch away the flower.”

The Prince having heard that speech, said, “Taking this flower for yourselves, give me a little cooked rice.” Afterwards, taking the flower they gave him cooked rice. Having eaten the cooked rice the Prince came back to the place where he gambled.

After that, while through hunger for them he was going to seek the Sūran̆ganā flowers, three Princes who were coming mounted on horse-back asked this Prince, “Where are you going?”

Then the Prince says falsely, “I am going in hunger in the midst of this forest.” Then a Prince having unfastened a packet of cooked rice and given the Prince to eat, they went away.

As they were going, this Prince went after them very softly. Having gone, when he looked he saw that those three Princes, having descended from horse-back, three times turned round the dēwāla (temple), and jumped into a vessel of boiling oil [and disappeared].

Having seen it, this Prince also having turned round the dēwāla three times, jumped into the oil vessel. After he jumped in, the deity, bringing that Prince out of the oil vessel, covered him with a white cloth when he had struck [him] three blows with a white wand. After he arose, when he asked, “What is the matter for which thou camest here?” [the Prince replied], “I came in order to seek and take Sūran̆ganā flowers.”

Then the deity told him the path:—“Look there. When you are going along that path [you will meet with a pool. When she has put her cloth on the bank and is bathing], take the cloth of the woman who comes after three others to bathe in the pool, and come back [with it],” he said.

After that, he took the cloth, and came. Afterwards that Princess having come running, gave him a chank shell into which she had put [magical] life, and taking the cloth went away.

When he was coming taking the chank shell, an ascetic begged for the chank shell. The Prince says, “If you will give me presents I will give you the chank shell,” he said.

After that, he gave him a wallet (olō-payiya), assuring him that the things thought of will come into existence [in it]. After he gave it, the Prince, thinking of the things he wanted (the celestial flowers), put his hand into it, and when he looked they were inside the wallet.

After that, the Prince, having become satisfied, with pleasure went away [and rejoined his two wives].

North-western Province.

See the Notes appended to the previous story.

In The Indian Antiquary, vol. iii, p. 150, in a legend of the origin of Patnā, by Mr. Basanta Kumar Ningi, two Rākshasas came to a boy with three articles left by their father, out of which he cheated them. One was a bag from which all kinds of jewels could be extracted when the hand was inserted. The story is stated to be from the Bṛihat Kathā. In the Kathā Sarit Sāgara (Tawney), vol. i, p. 13, they were the sons of the Asura Maya, and were wrestling for the things. The boy suggested that they should race for them and while they were doing so he put on the magic shoes which were included in them, and disappeared with the staff and the vessel which supplied any required food.

In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 378, a shipwrecked Prince arrived at a cave which was the residence of a Rākshasa who had carried off a Princess, and who kept her there. She received him well, and hid him in a strong box. When the Rākshasa returned he smelt the man, and insisted on being shown him; but the brave behaviour of the Prince pleased him, and he permitted him to live in the cave, and brought presents for the two when he returned from his expeditions in search of prey. As they still feared he might eat them, the Princess managed to ascertain from him that his life was in a queen-bee in a honey-comb which could be reached by anyone who sat on a magic stool that was in the cave, which transported the sitter where he wished. Next day, when the Rākshasa was absent, the Prince wrapped himself up, smashed the comb, crushed and killed the bee, the Rākshasa died, and they escaped on the stool.