The Story of a Siwurāla1

The Story of a Siwurāla1

In a certain country a Lord (monk) having been a monk is without clothes [to put on, in order] to abandon his monk’s robes (siwru). Asking at the hand of a novice for a cloth and a handkerchief, he abandoned his robes (thus becoming a layman again).

Having thus come away, when he was bathing in a river an elder sister and a younger sister were bathing lower down the river. Then, having seen that man who, having abandoned his robes and come [there], is bathing, the elder sister said, “That heap of wood which is coming is for me.”

Then the younger sister said, “The things that are in that heap of wood are for me.”

Then the elder sister went home for a cloth, to give to the man to wear. Afterwards the younger sister, having torn a piece from the cloth she was wearing, and having given it, goes away to her house with the man. Then the elder sister brings the cloth, too; having seen that these two are going the elder sister went back home. The younger sister and the Siwrāla went home [and he remained there as her husband]. The man, continuing to eat without doing work, is quite unemployed.

Afterwards the younger sister’s mother, having told the younger sister and the Siwrāla to eat separately, gave her a gill of rice, a small water-pot (koraha), a small cooking-pot (muṭṭiya), a large cooking-pot (appallē), a rice-cleaning bowl (nāem̆biliya), and a spoon.

Then the woman says, “Having said that you do not work, mother told us to eat separately.” Having said, “The things she gave (dīpuwā), there they are,” she showed him them.

Afterwards the man having gone asked the Gamarāla (his wife’s father), “How [are we to do], then? There is not a thing for us to eat. I came here to ask to cut even a pāela (quarter of an amuṇa) of your paddy on shares.”

The Gamarāla said, “Andō! Thou indeed wilt not cut the paddy, having been sitting doing nothing.”

Then the man said, “No. I will cut a pāela or two of paddy and come back.” Having gone to the rice field, and that very day having cut the paddy [plants] for two pāelas of paddy (when threshed), and collected them, and heaped them at the corners of the encircling [ridges], and carried them to the threshing floor, and trampled them [by means of buffaloes] that very day, he went to the Gamarāla and said, “The paddy equal to two pāelas has been cut and trampled (threshed). Let us go at once to measure it.”

Afterwards the Gamarāla having gone there, [said], “I don’t want this paddy; thou take it.”

Then that old man said, “Anē! My walking-stick was forgotten.” The Siwrāla brought and gave that also. Then that old man said, “Anē! My oil bottle was forgotten.” The Siwrāla brought and gave that also.

Well then, that old man tried to give money to this man; the Siwrāla did not take it. The old man went away.

This Siwrāla came home. Having gone there, the Siwrāla, having got fever, lay down. Well then, the Siwrāla says, “I shall be still a little delayed.”

The woman asked, “What are you saying? Am I not becoming afraid [when you talk in that way]?”

Then the man says, “Nay, I will say nothing. They are telling me to mount on that carriage, and telling me to mount on this carriage.”

The woman said, “That is false you are saying.”

Then the man said, “To look if it is false, string a flower garland and give me it.”

Afterwards the woman having strung a flower garland, gave it. The man, taking the flower garland, threw it on the [celestial] carriage [in the air]. Then the flower garland was arranged on the carriage. Having seen it, that woman, covering her face, died.

Having died there, the woman having been [re]-born in the divine world, when she was coming again to the house the man had not yet died. On account of it the woman said, “Why have you not died yet? I, having died, and gone, and been [re]-born in the divine world,—is it not so?—came here. Come, and go with me,” she said.

Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province.

The account of the dying man’s words and the flower garland which hung on the celestial carriage is borrowed from Mah. I., p. 226 (Dr. Geiger’s translation). When six gods invited the dying King Duṭṭha-Gāmaṇi to join them on their celestial cars and proceed to their heavenly world, he motioned to them to wait while sacred verses were being chanted, and explained to the monks what his gesture signified. As it was thought that his mind was affected, he ordered flower garlands to be thrown into the air, and these arranged themselves on the cars, which were invisible to all but the King.