The Penguin Book of Classical Indian Love Stories and Lyrics Page 8

  touch him, be one with him.

  The anguish continued till daybreak.

  In the morning

  the queen held the hand

  of her pet maid, and led her

  to the private chamber

  to tell her of her heart’s deep desire.

  She begged of her

  to fly forthwith to the mahout,

  and fly back to her with the news

  of an arranged tryst with him.

  The maid left for the mahout

  and found him drowsing

  in the elephant stables. She stood

  for a moment, hesitant, and

  looked again

  at the slouching figure

  inside the stables.

  His face turned her stomach, and

  sent her fleeing to her mistress.

  The maid wondered

  what eyeless Destiny

  had sealed this troth.

  For shame,

  the love of a most lovely queen

  to be put into the hands

  of the most abhorred slave!

  How true the popular saying is,

  she felt, that woman wastes her precious love

  often on the most unworthy!

  The queen was all ears, waiting

  to catch the slightest footfall.

  Her lips trembled and were charred

  from anguish. The maid came back

  and saw her all keyed up, her

  eager face burning to hear the love’s

  message. The maid ran her eyes

  over her tall lithe figure

  that shone

  like the splendour of the love-god’s rapier.

  She came up to the queen and began:

  ‘O my mistress,

  where on earth did you find this,

  your charmer, I wonder. Surely,

  there can’t be a man in all the worlds

  who can be a match to him.’

  But the irony was lost on her.

  ‘My dear, tell me straight,

  don’t tease me, is he fair

  and good-looking?

  Don’t kill me with silly chatter.’

  ‘Mistress,’ the maid began,

  ‘If you insist, here it is.

  His features are—O let me count

  and list them on their merits:

  a bald pate, dented forehead, and

  sore eyes, a mouth that has gathered

  the scum of ages round its corners.

  His nose is bashed in, his ears

  are crumpled, and wide spaces run

  between his teeth. His neck has shrunk

  into his chest, the chest in turn

  has fallen and is distressingly narrow.

  He smells like carrion dug out,

  running sore and putrid. And—

  to add to the virtues—

  a hunch-back sits crowning his figure.

  The mahout is, in truth, a perfect

  gnarled stump.’

  Amritamati looked, for a moment,

  bewildered like a hind

  caught in the range of the hunter’s arrow.

  She felt choked in her throat,

  tears welled up in her eyes,

  and her heart beat faster.

  Nevertheless, passion raged

  within her. She said:

  ‘Dear maid,

  who would cast aside musk

  because it is black,

  sandal

  because its wood is gnarled,

  and scorn the rainbow though

  its back is bent?

  You silly, old-fashioned girl,

  the very vices in the person

  we love turn into virtues.

  Yes, it’s true, we ask for good looks,

  nice figure in men if we wish

  to fall in love with them. But once

  in love, and lost in your man,

  why make a fetish of good looks!

  The thing accomplished,

  who would worry about its cause?

  Today he’s my god, my all, I see

  in him the very moon and stars

  and the love-god resident.’

  The queen put her hands round her,

  tipped her well, begged her to

  arrange a tryst with the mahout.

  The maid, clever as she was, fixed

  and managed the affair deftly.

  She brought them together at

  the appointed time in the elephant

  stables. The queen had her heart’s

  desire fulfilled. She had her fill

  of the mahout, day after day.

  Like the crow

  that tastes and relishes the neem sprouts

  and scorns to go near the mango,

  Queen Amritamati found her love

  for the royal husband fast waning.

  A routine love continued, however,

  between the king and queen. The king

  felt keenly, whenever their eyes met

  or they spoke or with mouth to mouth

  they sat, there was something missing.

  There was no longer the fire, the love

  that burned together on their lips.

  He would make sure of the cause, he thought,

  and know why the queen was listless,

  and far off even when

  he held her close in his arms.

  One night

  the king went early to bed,

  pretended he was fast asleep.

  Amritamati lay beside him, enclosed

  in his arms, waiting for the hour of tryst.

  The night was well past,

  she looked at Yasodhara, his sleeping face.

  She stirred a little, and

  gently slipped out from beneath

  the encircling arms. Like the bee

  that slips out from the cup of

  a waterlily unfurling into flower

  with the advent of night. She took

  her steps stealthily from bed,

  tiptoed across the chamber down

  to the stables. Like Nemesis

  that comes in the wake of every vice,

  the king too rose up, kept pace behind her,

  his hand clasping the hilt of his sword.

  As he followed her, he drew out his sword

  from the sheath, but kept on behind her.

  Tonight Amritamati had come late, and

  her paramour was furious.

  He wasn’t the one to take such a delay

  with composure. The queen found

  her way in the dark, and went up

  to the mahout. Her hand carried

  a silver plate with flower-wreaths,

  sandal paste and the betel leaves,

  all neatly arranged on it.

  The mahout shot out his hand in a rage

  and caught her by the forelock;

  like the hawk that swoops down on a swan,

  he knocked her down. The silver plate

  came crashing down, the contents lay

  scattered on the stone floor. He tugged

  fiercely at her hair, and with

  a ropewhip lashed her till she fell faint.

  He kicked her when she went down

  rolling in the dust and

  like a watersnake,

  writhed at his feet.

  A moment later,

  Amritamati raised her face,

  and begging with her eyes, began:

  ‘My love, my master, it’s true

  I’m late, but not without reason.

  My husband, the fiend he is, sat me

  on his lap and plied his caresses on me.

  I sat biding time, couldn’t help it.

  You’re my all, Oh, how I hunger

  for the sound of your voice,

  your shape which always fills my eyes.

  Listen, if you desert me now,

  this would be my end . . .

  I look upon all men but yo
u as brothers.’

  This was too much for the king

  who stood in the dark

  silently watching the scene. It was

  beyond all bounds of human restraint.

  The steel whipped up in his hand,

  and would have chopped them to pieces.

  His arm tingled with the weight

  of the purpose that lay before him.

  He made as if to strike. But something

  held him back; courage, discernment

  gripped him from within, and kept him

  counsel, saved him from committing

  the rash deed. Soon a deep unrest

  set in, and he felt disgust

  at the whole event.

  He thought to himself:

  Should this hand of mine that bears the sword

  to destroy enemy kings kill

  these insects that wriggle in the mire?

  Would not an elephant look out

  for his equal and pass by a tiny ant?

  Would a lion attack a fox

  and let go an elephant?

  It’s unjust to kill

  the nerveless and the weak-kneed.

  This sword that bears the brunt

  of battles, and is baptized

  in blood, should not be made now

  to bear the blood-taint

  of these vermin. The renown

  that extends to the world’s

  four corners should not in the end

  go down smudged by a worthless deed.

  . . . It’s true woman goes astray,

  shakes off her former love and

  flies to the arms of another. But I

  cannot undo the stolen love

  by killing her. O, this is heinous!

  I must spare her. It’s only proper

  I give her up entirely for lost.

  It’s conquest to leave her

  unconquered, to leave her alone.

  I’ll not kill him or her, the faithless

  woman, and end up with her in Hell.

  The king pulled himself together,

  turned back and made his way quietly

  to his bed. As he lay, Amritamati

  returned from her lover on tiptoe, and

  thought the king was fast asleep. She got in

  silently and lay beside him.

  Moments later the king turned a little

  to her side, and felt her breasts touch him.

  They were once smooth and yielding, he felt,

  but now they seemed hard and repulsive.

  A mere touch of hers was, once, enough

  to send him into rapture. But today

  it sickened him. His love was lost

  like the milk that turns whey-sour

  by a tamarind drop.

  When the boy Abhayaruci came

  to this part of the story, King Maridatta

  who had till now listened in silence,

  couldn’t help break out in a rage:

  ‘Oh, it’s all Destiny’s doing,

  turning the queen away from a man

  who was in every limb and feature

  the very love-god, Mara,

  and driving her to the arms of

  a crooked slave! Oh, if only

  I could meet that Destiny in some form,

  I’ll chop up his nose and

  rub off the rest by a brick’s end.’

  To this the boy rejoined:

  ‘My lord the king,

  no man is a match

  to Mara when the latter comes upon him

  charged with the caprice of Destiny.

  And when Mara with his lure gets

  the favour of slender

  frail-souled women,

  would he let go the chance of galloping

  o’er the noses of dignified men,

  to trip them up from behind, and

  mock their power, beauty, and grace?

  The lure of Mara and the glamour

  of woman, both, in short,

  caused the downfall of Yasodhara.’

  So saying, the boy continued the story.

  Young Yasodhara broke out in anguish:

  One’s loved wife is tainted.

  Oh, offer it all at the altar

  of Mari—this vain talk of loving

  and being loved by woman!

  Burn all these riches,

  make a bonfire of them!

  Can the woman I love,

  loving another, bring peace to me?

  Better is it to love that

  which is lasting, the joyous

  Liberation, to court Her

  who liberates. No more

  this loving of wives, truce with them!

  Such were the thoughts that passed

  and repassed in his mind, as

  he kept awake all night,

  and lay beside the queen—till daybreak.

  When the ceremonial pipe and drum

  sounded the morning benediction

  in the royal precincts, the king

  awoke and left the bed.

  He went through the day’s routine,

  performed the kingly rites and

  gave the day’s charity.

  He went to the ghee-pot

  (as part of the custom),

  and looked in to catch his reflection

  in the warm liquid.

  He went to the byre,

  ran his loving hand over the pet

  rust-coloured cow and its calf.

  He held a brief customary levee

  with his close officials and

  made for the queen’s apartments.

  He entered the queen’s private chamber

  in a lover’s humour. He talked to her,

  laughed with a light heart.

  In frolic

  he reached out for her ear,

  for the waterlily that adorned it,

  and struck her with the flower-stalk.

  Feigning the stroke was too hard

  for her delicate flesh to bear

  she fell down in a faint—

  like the fainting bee

  caught in the champak’s perfume!

  Looking intently

  at the fine make-believe

  the queen enacted,

  the king bent over her, saying!

  ‘O dear,

  haven’t I hurt you,

  so frail-limbed!

  Give her a hand and

  lift her up tenderly!’

  He put out his arm

  to help to her feet.

  But the decrees of fate are strange!

  It was fate that now turned death

  away from her door to wait at his;

  the lily stalk that adorned her ear

  turned into a weapon to kill the king!

  The queen thought

  that her lord must be in the know of things:

  Her previous night’s affair

  with the mahout who beat her,

  her stolen amours,

  her mean and wretched ways,

  all must have seen the light of day!

  She still lay on the ground

  scared, as if in a swoon.

  The king eyed her lying still,

  still feigning and keeping up the role.

  Suddenly, filled with disgust,

  he left her and betook himself.

  to the far end of the palace,

  to his mother’s chamber.

  (The queen loses no time in poisoning the king and his mother, feeding them with dishes of spiced rice mixed with poison.—ed.)

  ‘The Queen and the Mahout’, from Tale of the Glory-Bearers: The Episode of Candasasana by Janna, translated by T.R.S. Sharma. New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1994. The original Penguin edition carried diacritical marks. These have been dispensed with in this edition for the purpose of standardization.

  Kathamukha

  Somadeva

  This immortal story came from the mouth of Shiva, arising from his love for Parva
ti, just as the nectar of immortality arose when the ocean was churned by Mt. Mandara. Those who drink from the immortality of this story shall have their obstacles removed and shall be prosperous and Shiva’s grace will bestow godliness on them, even as they live here on earth.

  May Shiva’s sweat protect you, that water which is fresh from his embrace with Parvati and that is Kama’s weapon against Shiva’s fiery third eye!

  In the kingdom of Vatsa, King Shatanika ruled wisely and well from his capital city Kaushambi. He was descended from the heroic Pandavas, for he was the son of Janamejaya. Although he had two virtuous wives, the Earth herself and the queen Vishnumati, the king had no sons. One day while he was out hunting, he met the sage Shandilya who gave him an oblation for his wife to consume and the prince Sahasranika was born. King Shatanika, well-known for his valour, was called by Indra to help subdue the asuras. He was killed in battle and Sahasranika became king. Because of his affection for Shatanika, Indra invited Sahasranika to the great celebration that followed the victory over the asuras. When Sahasranika saw the beautiful celestial women in Nandana, Indra’s paradise, he realized that he should get married. Indra told him that there was already a wife ordained for him since Sahasranika was none other than a cursed vasu. His celestial love had also been born on earth as the princess Mrigavati. But when Sahasranika was leaving Nandana, he inadvertently snubbed the beautiful apsara Tilottama by ignoring her and she cursed him to be separated from his beloved for fourteen years.

  Sahasranika married Mrigavati, and in time she became pregnant. During her pregnancy, she had the urge to bathe in a tank of blood and while she was bathing, Garuda saw her and thought she was a piece of meat and carried her away. He left her on a mountain where she was rescued by an ascetic and her son Udayana was born in a hermitage. When the child was born, a disembodied voice announced that his son would be king of the vidyadharas. Udayana grew up strong and brave and learned in all the sciences and his mother gave him his father’s bracelet to wear. One day Udayana gave the bracelet to a hunter who had saved his life. The hunter sold the bracelet in the city and it was brought to the king’s attention. The time for Sahasranika’s curse of separation was at an end and he went to the mountain hermitage to meet his wife and son. With great joy, he brought them back to Kaushambi.

  Udayana was anointed crown prince and Yaugandharayana, Rumanvat and Vasantaka were appointed his ministers. King Sahasranika soon retired to the forest and Udayana ruled his kingdom wisely and well for some time. Gradually, he left all the administrative responsibilities to his ministers and began to spend more and more time in the pursuit of royal pleasures like wine, music and hunting. But soon he began to hear about the virtues and beauty of the princess Vasavadatta and felt that she would be a suitable wife for him. Vasavadatta’s father, King Candamahasena, was also interested in Udayana as a son-in-law and decided to take him prisoner so that he would marry Vasavadatta. Udayana was taken prisoner while he was hunting and the king made him Vasavadatta’s music teacher. Meanwhile, Yaugandharayana and Rumanvat devised a plan to kidnap Udayana and Vasavadatta so that they could be married, for they were already in love with each other.