part company just yet. These little trips I hold to be,

like lovers' quarrels, the prelude to closer union. With your leave we will still practise a little suspension."
And so saying, the Baital again ascended the tree, and was suspended there.
"Would it not be better," thought the monarch, after recapturing and shouldering the fugitive, "forme to sit down this time and listen to the fellow's story? Perhaps the double exercise of walking and thinking confuses me."
With this idea Vikram placed his bundle upon the ground, well tied up with turband and waistband ; then he seated himself cross-legged before it, and bade his son do the same.
The Vampire strongly objected to this measure, as it was contrary, he asserted, to the covenant between him and the Raja. Vikram replied by citing the very words of the agreement, proving that there was no allusion to walking or sitting.
Then the Baital became sulky, and swore that he would not utter i nother word. But he, too, was bound by the chain of destiny. Presently he opened his lips, with the normal prelude that he was about to tell a true tale.
Vikram placed his bundle upon the ground, and seated himself cross-legged before it (to face p. 158). 9
159
THE VAMPIRE'S SEVENTH STORY.
SHOWING THE EXCEEDING FOLLY OF MANY WISE FOOLS.
THE Baital resumed.
Of all the learned Brahmans in the learnedest univer- sity of Gaur (Bengal) none was so celebrated as Vishnu Swami. He could write verse as well as prose in dead languages, not very correctly, but still, better than all his fellows — which constituted him a distinguished writer. He had history, theosophy, and the four Vedas of Scrip- tures at his fingers' ends, he was skilled in the argute science of Nyasa or Disputation, his mind was a mine of Pauranic or cosmogonico-traditional lore, handed down from the ancient fathers to the modern fathers : and he had written bulky commentaries, exhausting all that tongue of man has to say, upon the obscure text of some old philosopher whose works upon ethics, poetry, and rhetoric were supposed by the sages of Gaur to contain the germs of everything knowable. His fame went over all the country ; yea, from country to country. He was a sea of excellent qualities, the father and mother of Brah- mans, cows, and women, and the horror of loose persons, cut-throats, courtiers, and courtesans. As a benefactor he was equal to Kama, most liberal of heroes. In regard to truth he was equal to the veracious king Yudhishtira.
True, he was sometimes at a loss to spell a common word in his mother tongue, and whilst he knew to a finger- breadth how many palms and paces the sun, the moon,
160 Vikram and the Vampire.
and all the stars are distant from the earth, he would have been puzzled to tell you where the region called Yavana1 lies. Whilst he could enumerate, in strict chronological succession, every important event that happened five or six million years before he was born, he was profoundly ignorant of those that occurred in his own day. And once he asked a friend seriously, if a cat let loose in the jungle would not in time become a tiger.
Yet did all the members of alma mater Kasi, Pandits2 as well as students, look with awe upon Vishnu Swami's livid cheeks, and lack-lustre eyes, grimed hands and soiled cottons.
Now it so happened that this wise and pious Brah- manic peer had four sons, whom he brought up in the strictest and most serious way. They were taught to repeat their prayers long before they understood a word of them, and when they reached the age of four3 they had read a variety of hymns and spiritual songs. Then they were set to learn by heart precepts that inculcate sacred duties, and arguments relating to theology, abstract and concrete.
Their father, who was also their tutor, sedulously cultivated, as all the best works upon education advise, their implicit obedience, humble respect, warm attach- ment, and the virtues and sentiments generally. He praised them secretly and reprehended them openly, to exercise their humility. He derided their looks, and dressed them coarsely, to preserve them from vanity and conceit. Whenever they anticipated a " treat," he
1 The land of Greece.
2 Savans, professors. So in the old saying, "Hanta, Pandit Sansara" — Alas! the world is learned ! This a little antedates the •well-known schoolmaster.
3 Children are commonly sent to school at the age of five. Girls are not taught to read, under the common idea that they will become widows if they do.
The Vampire's Seventh Story. 161
punctually disappointed them, to teach them self-denial. Often when he had promised them a present, he would revoke, not break his word, in order that discipline might have a name and habitat in his household. And knowing by experience how much stronger than love is fear, he frequently threatened, browbeat, and overawed them with the rod and the tongue, with the terrors of this world, and with the horrors of the next, that they might be kept in the right way by dread of falling into the bottomless pits that bound it on both sides.
At the age of six they were transferred to the Chatushpati1or school. Every morning the teacher and his pupils assembled in the hut where the different classes were called up by turns. They laboured till noon, and were allowed only two hours, a moiety of the usual time, for bathing, eating, sleep, and worship, which took up half the period. At 3 P.M. they resumed their labours, repeat- ing to the tutor what they had learned by heart, and listening to the meaning of it : this lasted till twilight. They then worshipped, ate and drank for an hour : after which came a return of study, repeating the day's lessons, till 10 P.M.
In their rare days of ease — for the learned priest, mindful of the words of the wise, did not wish to dull them by everlasting work — they were enjoined to disport them- selves with the gravity and the decorum that befit young Samditats, not to engage in night frolics, not to use free jests or light expressions, not to draw pictures on the walls, not to eat honey, flesh, and sweet substances turned acid, not to talk to little girls at the well-side, on no account to wear sandals, carry an umbrella, or handle a die even for love, and by no means to steal their neigh- bours' mangoes.
As they advanced in years their attention during
i Meaning the place of reading the four Shastras.
if
1 62 Vikram and the Vampire.
work time was unremittingly directed to the Vedas. Wordly studies were almost excluded, or to speak more correctly, whenever wordly studies were brought upon the carpet, they were so evil entreated, that they well nigh lost all form and feature. History became " The Annals of India on Brahminical Principles," opposed to the Bud- dhistical; geography " The Lands of the Vedas," none other being deemed worthy of notice ; and law, " The Institutes of Manu," then almost obsolete, despite their exceeding sanctity.
But Jatu-harini1 had evidently changed these children before they were born ; and Shani2 must have been in the ninth mansion when they came to light.
Each youth as he attained the mature age of twelve was formally entered at the University of Kasi, where, without loss of time, the first became a gambler, the second a confirmed libertine, the third a thief, and the fourth a high Buddhist, or in other words an utter atheist.
Here King Vikram frowned at his son, a hint that he had better not behave himself as the children of highly moral and religious parents usually do. The young prince understood him, and briefly remarking that such things were common in distinguished Brahman families, asked the Baital what he meant by the word " Atheist."
Of a truth (answered the Vampire) it is most difficult to explain. The sages assign to it three or four several meanings : first, one who denies that the gods exist ; secondly, one who owns that the gods exist but denies that they busy themselves with human affairs ; and thirdly, one who believes in the gods and in their providence, but also believes that they are easily to be set aside. Similarly
1 A certain goddess who plays tricks with mankind. If a son when grown up act differently from what his parents did, people say that he has been changed in the womb.
2 Shani is the planet Saturn, which has an exceedingly baleful influence in India as elsewhere.
II — 2
The Vampire's Seventh Story. 163
some atheists derive all things from dead and unintelligent matter ; others from matter living and energetic but without sense or will : others from matter with forms and qualities generable and conceptible ; and others from a plastic and methodical nature. Thus the Vishnu Swamis of the world have invested the subject with some con- fusion. The simple, that is to say, the mass of mortality, have confounded that confusion by reproachfully applying the word atheist to those whose opinions differ materially from their own.
But I being at present, perhaps happily for myself, a Vampire, and having, just now, none of these human or inhuman ideas, meant simply to say that the pious priest's fourth son being great at second and small in the matter of first causes, adopted to their fullest extent the doc- trines of the philosophical Buddhas.1 Nothing according to him exists but the five elements, earth, water, fire, air (or wind), and vacuum, and from the last proceeded the penultimate, and so forth. With the sage Patanjali, he held the universe to have the power of perpetual progres- sion.2 He called that Matra (matter), which is an eternal and infinite principle, beginningless and endless. Organ- ization, intelligence, and design, he opined, are inherent in matter as growth is in a tree. He did not believe in soul or spirit, because it could not be detected in the body, and because it was a departure from physiological analogy. The idea "I am," according to him, was not the identification of spirit with matter, but a product of the mutation of matter in this cloud-like, error-formed world. He believed in Substance (Sat) and scoffed at Unsubstance (Asat). He asserted the subtlety and glo-
1 The Eleatic or Materialistic school of Hindu philosophy, which agrees to explode an intelligent separate First Cause.
2 The writings of this school give an excellent view of the " pro- gressive system," which has popularly been asserted to be a modern idea. But Hindu philosophy seems to have exhausted every fanc^ that can spring from the brain of man.
164 Vikram and the Vampire.
bularity of atoms which are uncreate. He made mind and intellect a mere secretion of the brain, or rather words expressing not a thing, but a state of things. Reason was to him developed instinct, and life an element of the atmosphere affecting certain organisms. He held good and evil to be merely geographical and chronological ex- pressions, and he opined that what is called Evil is mostly an active and transitive form of Good. Law was his great Creator of all things, but he refused a creator of law, because such a creator would require another crea- tor, and so on in a quasi-interminable series up to absurd- ity. This reduced his law to a manner of haphazard. To those who, arguing against it, asked him their favour- ite question, How often might a man after he had jumbled a set of letters in a bag fling them out upon the ground before they would fall into an exact poem? he replied that the calculation was beyond his arithmetic, but that the man had only to 'jumble and fling long enough inevit- ably to arrive at that end. He rejected the necessity as well as the existence of revelation, and he did not credit the miracles of Krishna, because, according to him, nature never suspends her laws, and, moreover, he had never seen aught supernatural. He ridiculed the idea of Maha- pralaya, or the great destruction, for as the world had no beginning, so it will have no end. He objected to absorp- tion, facetiously observing with the sage Jamadagni, that it was pleasant to eat sweetmeats, but that for his part he did not wish to become the sweetmeat itself. He would not believe that Vishnu had formed the universe out of the wax in his ears. He positively asserted that trees are not bodies in which the consequences of merit and demerit are received. Nor would he conclude that to men were attached rewards and punishments from all eternity. He made light of the Sanskara, or sacrament. He admitted Satwa, Raja, and Tama,1 but only as pro-
I Tama is the natural state of matter, Raja is passion acting
The Vampire's Seventh Story. 165
perties of matter. He acknowledged gross matter (Sthula- sharir), and atomic matter (Shukshma-sharir), but not Linga-sharir, or the archetype of bodies. To doubt all things was the foundation of his theory, and to scoff at all who would not doubt was the corner-stone of his prac- tice. In debate he preferred logical and mathematical grounds, requiring a categorical " because" in answer to his "why ? " He was full of morality and natural religion, which some say is no religion at all. He gained the name of atheist by declaring with Gotama that there are innum- erable worlds, that the earth has nothing beneath it but the circumambient air, and that the core of the globe is incandescent. And he was called a practical atheist — a worse form apparently — for supporting the following dogma: "that though creation may attest that a creator has been, it supplies no evidence to prove that a creator still exists." On which occasion, Shiromani, a non- plussed theologian, asked him, "By whom and for what purpose wast thou sent on earth ? " The youth scoffed at the word "sent," and replied, "Not being thy Supreme Intelligence, or Infinite Nihility, I am unable to explain the phenomenon." Upon which he quoted — How sunk in darkness Gaur must be Whose guide is blind Shiromani I
At length it so happened that the four young men, having frequently been surprised in flagrant delict, were summoned to the dread presence of the university Gurus,1 who addressed them as follows : —
"There are four different characters in the world: he who perfectly obeys the commands ; he who practises the commands, but follows evil ; he who does neither good nor evil; and he who does nothing but evil. The third char- acter, it is observed, is also an offender, for he neglects that which he ought to observe. But ye all belong to the fourth category."
upon nature, and Satwa is excellence. These are the three guaas or qualities of matter.
i Spiritual preceptors and learned men.
1 66 Vikrttm and the Vampire.
Then turning to the elder they said :
" In works written upon the subject of government it is advised, « Cut off the gambler's nose and ears, hold up his name to public contempt, and drive him out of the country, that he may thus become an example to others. For they who play must more often lose than win ; and losing, they must either pay or not pay. In the latter case they forfeit caste, in the former they utterly reduce themselves. And though a gambler's wife and children are in the house, do not consider them to be so, since it is not known when they will be lost.1 Thus he is left in a state of perfect not-twoness (solitude), and he will be reborn in hell.' O young man ! thou hast set a bad ex- ample to others, therefore shalt thou immediately ex- change this university for a country life."
Then they spoke to the second offender thus : —
" The wise shun woman, who can fascinate a man in the twinkling of an eye ; but the foolish, conceiving an affection for her, forfeit in the pursuit of pleasure their truthfulness, reputation, and good disposition, their way of life and mode of thought, their vows and their religion. And to such the advice of their spiritual teachers comes amiss, whilst they make others as bad as themselves. For it is said, * He who has lost all sense of shame, fears not to disgrace another ; ' and there is the proverb, ' A wild cat that devours its own young is not likely to let a rat escape ; ' therefore must thou too, O young man ! quit this seat of learning with all possible expedition."
The young man proceeded to justify himself by quotations from the Lila-shastra, his text-book, by citing such lines as —
Fortune favours folly and force, and by advising the elderly professors to improve their
i Under certain limitations, gambling is allowed by Hindu law, and the winner has power over the person and property of the loser. No " debts of honour" in Hindustan !
The Vampire's Seventh Story. 167
skill in the peace and war of love. But they drove him out with execrations.
As sagely and as solemnly did the Pandits and the Gurus reprove the thief and the atheist, but they did not - dispense the words of wisdom in equal proportions. They warned the former that petty larceny is punishable with fine, theft on a larger scale with mutilation of the hand, and robbery, when detected in the act, with loss of life x ; that for cutting purses, or for snatching them out of a man's waistcloth,2 the first penalty is chopping off the fingers, the second is the loss of the hand, and the third is death. Then they call him a dishonour to the college, and they said, " Thou art as a woman, the greatest of plunderers ; other robbers purloin property which is worthless, thou stealest the best ; they plunder in the night, thou in the day," and so forth. They told him that he was a fellow who had read his Chauriya Vidya to more purpose than his ritual.8 And they drove him from the door as he in his shamelessness began to quote texts about the four approved ways of housebreaking, namely, picking out burnt bricks, cutting through unbaked bricks, throw ing water on a mud wall, and boring one of wood with centre-bit.
But they spent six mortal hours in convicting tne atheist, whose abominations they refuted by every possible argumentation : by inference, by comparison, and by sounds, by Sruti and Smriti, i.e., revelational and tradi- tional, rational and evidential, physical and metaphysical, analytical and synthetical, philosophical and philological, historical, and so forth. But they found all their endeavours
1 Quotations from standard works on Hindu criminal law, which in some points at least is almost as absurd as our civilized codes.
2 Hindus carry their money tied up in a kind of sheet, which is wound round the waist and thrown over the shoulder.
3 A thieves' manual in the Sanskrit tongue ; it aspires to the dignity of a " Scripture."
1 68 Vikram and the Vampire.
vain. " For," it is said, " a man who has lost all shame, who can talk without sense, and who tries to cheat his opponent,, will never get tired, and will never be put down." He declared that a non-ad was far more probable than a monad (the active principle), or the duad (the passive principle or matter.) He compared their faith with a bubble in the water, of which we can never predicate that it does exist or it does not. It is, he said, unreal, as when the thirsty mistakes the meadow mist for a pool of water. He proved the eternity of sound.1 He impudently recounted and justified all the villanies of the Vamachari or left-handed sects. He told them that they had taken up an ass's load of religion, and had better apply to honest industry. He fell foul of the gods ; accused Yama of kicking his own mother, Indra of tempt- ing the wife of his spiritual guide, and Shiva of associating with low women. Thus, he said, no one can respect them. Do not we say when it thunders awfully, " the rascally gods are dying ! " And when it is too wet, " these villain gods are sending too much rain " ? Briefly, the young Brahman replied to and harangued them all so impertinently, if not pertinently, that they, waxing angry, fell upon him with their staves, and drove him out of assembly.
Then the four thriftless youths returned home to their father, who in his just indignation had urged their disgrace upon the Pandits and Gurus, otherwise these dignitaries would never have resorted to such extreme measures with so distinguished a house. He took the opportunity of turning them out upon the world, until such time as they might be able to show substantial signs of reform. "For," he said, "those who have read science in their boyhood, and who in youth, agitated by evil pas-
i All sounds, say the Hindus, are of similar origin, and they do not die ; if they did, they could not be remembered.
The Vampire's Seventh Story. 169
sions, have remained in the insolence of ignorance, feel regret in their old age, and are consumed by the fire of avarice." In order to supply them with a motive for the task proposed, he stopped their monthly allowance. But he added, if they would repair to the neighbouring univer- sity of Jayasthal, and there show themselves something better than a disgrace to their family, he would direct their maternal uncle to supply them with all the neces- saries of food and raiment.
In vain the youths attempted, with sighs and tears and threats of suicide, to soften the paternal heart. He was inexorable, for two reasons. In the first place, after wondering away the wonder with which he regarded his own failure, he felt that a stigma now attached to the name of the pious and learned Vishnu Swami, whose lec- tures upon " Management during Teens," and whose "Brahman Young Man's Own Book, "had become standard works. Secondly, from a sense of duty, he determined to omit nothing that might tend to reclaim the reprobates. As regards the monthly allowance being stopped, the reverend man had become every year a little fonder of his purse ; he had hoped that his sons would have quali- fied themselves to take pupils, and thus achieve for them- selves, as he phrased it, "A genteel independence " ; whilst they openly derided the career, calling it "an ad- mirable provision for the more indigent members of the middle classes." For which reason he referred them to their maternal uncle, a man of known and remarkable penuriousness.
The four ne'er-do-weels, foreseeing what awaited them at Jayasthal, deferred it as a last resource; deter- mining first to see a little life, and to push their way in the world, before condemning themselves to the tribula- tions of reform.
They tried to live without a monthly allowance, and notably they failed ; it was squeezing, as men say, oil frolh
170 Vikram and the Vampire.
sand. The gambler, having no capital, and, worse still, no credit, lost two or three suvernas1 at play, and could not pay them ; in consequence of which he was soundly beaten with iron-shod staves, and was nearly compelled by the keeper of the hell to sell himself into slavery. Thus he became disgusted ; and telling his brethren that they would find him at Jayasthal, he departed, with the intention of studying wisdom.
A month afterwards came the libertine's turn to be disappointed. He could no longer afford fine new clothes ; even a well-washed coat was beyond his means. He had
They tried to live without a monthly allowance, and notably they failed.
reckoned upon his handsome face, and he had matured a plan for laying various elderly conquests under contribu- tion. Judge, therefore, his disgust when all the women — high and low, rich and poor, old and young, ugly and beautiful — seeing the end of his waistcloth thrown empty over his shoulder, passed him in the streets without even deigning a look. The very shopkeepers' wives, who once had adored his mustachio and had never ceased talking of his "elegant" gait, despised him; and the wealthy old person who formerly supplied his small feet with the
i Gold pieces.
The Vampire's Seventh Story. 171
choicest slippers, left him to starve. Upon which he also in a state of repentance, followed his brother . to acquire knowledge.
" Am I not," quoth the thief to himself, " a cat in climbing, a deer in running, a snake in twisting, a hawk in pouncing, a dog in scenting ? — keen as a hare, tenacious as a wolf, strong as a lion ? — a lamp in the night, a horse on a plain, a mule on a stony path, a boat in the water, a rock on land1?" The reply to his own questions was of course affirmative. But despite all these fine qualities, and notwithstanding his scrupulous strictness in invo- cating the house-breaking tool and in devoting a due portion of his gains to the gods of plunder,2 he was caught in a store-room by the proprietor, who inexorably handed him over to justice. As he belonged to the priestly caste,3 the fine imposed upon him was heavy. He could not pay it, and therefore he was thrown into a dungeon, where he remained for some time. But at last he escaped from jail, when he made his parting bow to Kartikeya,4 stole a blanket from one of the guards, and set out for Jayasthal, cursing his old profession.
The atheist also found himself in a position that deprived him of all his pleasures. He delighted in after- dinner controversies, and in bringing the light troops of his wit to bear upon the unwieldy masses of lore and
1 These are the qualifications specified by Hindu classical authorities as necessary to make a distinguished thief.
2 Every Hindu is in a manner born to a certain line of life, virtuous or vicious, honest or dishonest ; and his Dharma, or relig- ious duty, consists in conforming to the practice and the worship of his profession. The "Thug," for instance, worships Bhawani, who enables him to murder successfully ; and his remorse would arise from neglecting to murder.
3 Hindu law sensibly punishes, in theory at least, for the same offence the priest more severely than the layman — a hint for him to practise what he preaches.
4 The Hindu Mercury, god of rascals. 0
172 Vikram and the Vampirt
logic opposed to him by polemical Brahmans who, out of respect for his father, did not lay an action against him for overpowering them in theological disputation.1 In the strange city to which he had removed no one knew the son of Vishnu Swami, and no one cared to invite him to the house. Once he attempted his usual trick upon a knot of sages who, sitting round a tank, were recreating themselves with quoting mystical Sanskrit shlokas2 of abominable long-windedness. The result was his being obliged to ply his heels vigorously in flight from the justly incensed literati, to whom he had said "tush" and "pish," at least a dozen times in as many minutes. He therefore also followed the example of his brethren, and started for Jayasthal with all possible expedition.
Arrived at the house of their maternal uncle, the young men, as by one assent, began to attempt the un- loosening of his purse-strings. Signally failing in this and in other notable schemes, they determined to lay in that stock of facts and useful knowledge which might reconcile them with their father, and restore them to that happy life at Gaur which they then despised, and which now brought tears into their eyes.
Then they debated with one another what they should study.
* * *****
That branch of the preternatural, popularly called
"white magic," found with them favour.
****** *
They chose a Guru or teacher strictly according to
the orders of their faith, a wise man of honourable family
1 A penal offence in India. How is it that we English have omitted to codify it ? The laws of Manu also punish severely all disdainful expressions, such as "tush" or "pish," addressed during argument to a priest.
2 Stanzas, generally speaking, on serious subjects.
An edifying spectacle, indeed, for the world to see; across old man sitting amongst his gallipots and crucibles (to face page 173).
The Vampire's Seventh Story. 173
and affable demeanour, who was not a glutton nor leprous, nor blind of one eye, nor blind of both eyes, nor very short, nor suffering from whitlows,1 asthma, or other disease, nor noisy and talkative, nor with any defect about the fingers and toes, nor subject to his wife. ******* A grand discovery had been lately made by a certain physiologico-philosophicoTpsychologico-materialist, a Jay- asthalian. In investigating the vestiges of creation, the cause of causes, the effect of effects, and the original origin of that Matra (matter) which some regard as an entity, others as a non-entity, others self-existent, others merely specious and therefore unexistent, he became con- vinced that the fundamental form of organic being is a globule having another globule within itself. After in- habiting a garret and diving into the depths of his self- consciousness for a few score years, he was able to pro- duce such complex globule in triturated and roasted flint by means of — I will not say what. Happily for creation in general, the discovery died a natural death some centuries ago. An edifying spectacle, indeed, for the world to see ; a cross old man sitting amongst his galli- pots and crucibles, creating animalculae, providing the corpses of birds, beasts, and fishes with what is vulgarly called life, and supplying to epigenesis all the latest im- provements !
In those days the invention, being a novelty, en- grossed the thoughts of the universal learned, who were in a fever of excitement about it. Some believed in it so implicity that they saw in every experiment a hundred things which they did not see. Others were so sceptical and contradictory that they would not preceive what they did see. Those blended with each fact their own deduc-
i Whitlows on the nails show that the sufferer, in the last life, stole gold from a Brahman.
174 Vikram and the Vampire.
tions, whilst these span round every reality the web of their own prejudices. Curious to say, the Jayasthalians, amongst' whom the luminous science arose, hailed it with delight, whilst the Gaurians derided its claim to be con- sidered an important addition to human knowledge.
Let me try to remember a few of their words.
" Unfortunate human nature," wrote the wise of Gaur against the wise of Jayasthal, "wanted no crowning indignity but this ! You had already proved that the body is made of the basest element — earth. You had argued away the immovability, the ubiquity, the per- manency, the eternity, and the divinity of the soul, for is not your favourite axiom, * It is the nature of limbs which thinketh in man ' ? The immortal mind is, according to you, an ignoble viscus ; the god-like gift of reason is the instinct of a dog somewhat highly developed. Still you left us something to hope. Still you allowed us one boast. Still life was a thread connecting us with the Giver of Life. But now, with an impious hand, in blas- phemous rage ye have rent asunder that last frail tie." And so forth.
" Welcome ! thrice welcome ! this latest and most admirable development of human wisdom," wrote the sage Jayasthalians against the sage Gaurians, "which has assigned to man his proper state and status and station in the magnificent scale of being. We have not created the facts which we have investigated, and which we now proudly publish. We have proved materialism to be nature's own system. But our philosophy of matter cannot overturn any truth, because, if erroneous, it will necessarily sink into oblivion ; if real, it will tend only to instruct and to enlighten the world. Wise are ye in your generation, O ye sages of Gaur, yet withal wondrous illogical." And much of this kind.
Concerning all which, mighty king ! I, as a Vampire, have only to remark that those two learned bodies, like
The Vampire's Seventh Story.
175
your Rajaship's Nine Gems of Science, were in the habit of talking most about what they least understood.
The four young men applied the whole force of their talents to mastering the difficulties of the life-giving pro- and in due time, their industry obtained its reward.
cess
The bone thereupon stood upright, and hopped about.
Then they determined to return home. As with beating hearts they approached the old city, their birth- place, and gazed with moistened eyes upon its tall spires and grim pagodas, its verdant meads and venerable groves, they saw a Kanjar,1 who, having tied up in a bundle the skin and bones of a tiger which he had found dead, was about to go on his way. Then said the thief to the gambler, " Take we these remains with us, and by means of them prove the truth of our science before the people of Gaur, to the offence of their noses.8" Being
i A low caste Hindu, who catches and exhibits snakes and per- forms other such mean offices.
2 Meaning, in spite of themselves. 0
176 Vikram and the Vampire.
now possessed of knowledge, they resolved to apply it to its proper purpose, namely, power over the property of others. Accordingly, the wencher, the gambler, and the atheist kept the Kanjar in conversation whilst the thief vivified a shank bone ; and the bone thereupon stood up- right, and hopped about in so grotesque and wonderful a way that the man, being frightened, fled as if I had been close behind him.
Vishnu Swami had lately written a very learned com- mentary on the mystical words of Lokakshi :
"The Scriptures are at variance — the tradition is at variance. He who gives a meaning of his own, quoting the Vedas, is no philosopher.
" True philosophy, through ignorance, is concealed as in the fissures of a rock.
" But the way of the Great One— that is to be fol- lowed."
And the success of his book had quite effaced from the Brahman mind the holy man's failure in bringing up his children. He followed up this by adding to his essay on education a twentieth tome, containing recipes for the " Reformation of Prodigals."
The learned and reverend father received his sons with open arms. He had heard from his brother-in-law that the youths were qualified to support themselves, and when informed that they wished to make a public experi- ment of their science, he exerted himself, despite his dis- belief in it, to forward their views.
The Pandits and Gurus were long before they would consent to attend what they considered dealings with Yama (the Devil). In consequence, however, of Vishnu Swami's name and importunity, at length, on a certain day, all the piors, learned, and reverend tutors, teachers, professors, prolocutors, pastors, spiritual fathers, poets, philosophers, mathematicians, schoolmasters, pedagogues, bear-leaders, institutors, gerund-grinders, preceptors,
The Vampire's Seventh Story. 177
dominies, brushers, coryphaei, dry-nurses, coaches, men- tors, monitors, lecturers, prelectors, fellows, and heads of houses at the university at Gaur, met together in a large garden, where they usually diverted themselves out of hours with ball-tossing, pigeon-tumbling, and kite-flying.
Presently the four young men, carrying their bundle of bones and the other requisites, stepped forward, walk- ing slowly with eyes downcast, like shrinking cattle : for it is said, the Brahman must not run, even when it rains.
After pronouncing an impromptu speech, composed for them by their father, and so stuffed with erudition that even the writer hardly understood it, they announced their wish to prove, by ocular demonstration, the truth of a science upon which their short-sighted rivals of Jayas- thal had cast cold water, but which, they remarked in the eloquent peroration of their discourse, the sages of Gaur had welcomed with that wise and catholic spirit of in- quiry, which had ever characterized their distinguished body.
Huge words, involved sentences, and the high-flown compliment, exceedingly undeserved, obscured, I suppose, the bright wits of the intellectual convocation, which really began to think that their liberality of opinion deserved all praise.
None objected to what was being prepared, except one of the heads of houses ; his appeal was generally scouted, because his Sanskrit style was vulgarly intelli- gible, and he had the bad name of being a practical man. The metaphysician Rashik Lall sneered to Vaiswata the poet, who passed on the look to the theo-philosopher Vard- haman. Haridatt the antiquarian whispered the meta- physician Vasudeva, who burst into a loud laugh ; whilst Narayan, Jagasharma, and Devaswami, all very learned in the Vedas, opened their eyes and stared at him with well-simulated astonishment. So he, being offended, said nothing more, but arose and walked home. 9
12
178 Vikvam and the Vampire.
A great crowd gathered round the four young men and their father, as opening the bundle that contained the tiger's remains, they prepared for their task.
One of the operators spread the bones upon the ground and fixed each one into its proper socket, not for- getting even the teeth and tusks.
The second connected, by means of a marvellous unguent, the skeleton with the muscles and heart of an elephant, which he had procured for the purpose.
The third drew from his pouch the brain and eyes of
They prepared for their task.
a large tom-cat, which he carefully fitted into the animal's skull, and then covered the body with the hide of a young r>inoceros.
Then the fourth — the atheist — who had been direct- ing the operation, produced a globule having another globule within itself. And as the crowd pressed on them, craning their necks, breathless with anxiety, he placed the Principk of Organic Life in the tiger's body with such effect that the monster immediately heaved its chest, breathed, agitated its limbs, opened its eyes, jumped to its feet, shook itself, glared around, and began to gnash
T2 — 2
With a roar like thunder (to face p. 179).
The Vampire's Seventh Story, 179
its teeth and lick its chops> lashing the while its ribs with its tail.
The sages sprang back, and the beast sprang for- ward. With a roar like thunder during Elephanta-time,1 it flew at the nearest of the spectators, flung Vishnu Swami to the ground and clawed his four sons. Then, not even stopping to drink their blood, it hurried after the flying herd of wise men. Jostling and tumbling, stum- bling and catching at one another's long robes, they rushed in hottest haste towards the garden gate. But the beast, having the muscles of an elephant as well as the bones of a tiger, made a few bounds of eighty or ninety feet each, easily distanced them, and took away all chance of escape. To be brief : as the monster was frightfully hungry after its long fast, and as the imprudent young men had furnished it with admirable implements of destruction, it did not cease its work till one hundred and twenty-one learned and highly distinguished Pandits and Gurus lay upon the ground chawed, clawed, sucked dry, and in most cases stone-dead. Amongst them, I need hardly say, were the sage Vishnu Swami and his four sons.
Having told this story the Vampire hung silent for a time. Presently he resumed —
" Now, heed my words, Raja Vikram ! I am about to ask thee, Which of all those learned men was the most finished fool ? The answer is easily found, yet it must be distasteful to thee. Therefore mortify thy vanity, as soon as possible, or I shall be talking, and thou wilt be walking through this livelong night, to scanty purpose. Remember ! science without understanding is of little use ; indeed, understanding is superior to science, and those devoid of understanding perish as did the persons who revivified the tiger. Before this, I warned thee to beware of thyself, and of thine own conceit. Here, then,
i When the moon is in a certain lunar mansion, at the conclusio* of the wet season.
.i8o Vikram and the Vampire.
is an opportunity for self-discipline — which of all those learned men was the greatest fool ? "
The warrior king mistook the kind of mortification imposed upon him, and pondered over the uncomfortable nature of the reply — in the presence of his son.
Again the Baital taunted him.
"The greatest fool of all," at last said Vikram, in slow and by no means willing accents, "was the father. Is it not said, 'There is no fool like an old fool' ? "
"Gramercy! " cried the Vampire, bursting out into a discordant laugh, " I now return to my tree. By this head ! I never before heard a father so readily condemn a father." With these words he disappeared, slipping out of the bundle.
The Raja scolded his son a little for want of obedience, and said that he had always thought more highly of his acuteness — never could have believed that he would have been taken in by so shallow a trick. Dharma Dhwaj answered not a word to this, but promised to be wiser another time.
Then they returned to the tree, and did what they had so often done before.
And, as before, the Baital held his tongue for a time. Presently he began as follows.
iSi
THE VAMPIRE'S EIGHTH STORY.
OF THE USE AND MISUSE OF MAGIC PILLS.
THE lady Chandraprabha, daughter of the Raja Subichar, was a particularly beautiful girl, and marriage- able withal. One day as Vasanta, the Spring, began to assert its reign over the world, animate and inanimate, she went accompanied by her young friends and com- panions to stroll about her father's pleasure-garden.
The fair troop wandered through sombre groves, where the dark tamala-tree entwined its branches with the pale green foliage of the nim, and the pippal's domes of quivering leaves contrasted with the columnar aisles of the banyan fig. They admired the old monarchs of the forest, bearded to the waist with hangings of moss, the flowing creepers delicately climbing from the lower branches to the topmost shoots, and the cordage of llianas stretching from trunk to trunk like bridges for the monkeys to pass over. Then they issued into a clear space dotted with asokas bearing rich crimson flowers, cliterias of azure blue, madhavis exhibiting petals virgin white as the snows on Himalaya, and jasmines raining showers of perfumed blossoms upon the grateful earth. They could not sufficiently praise the tall and graceful stem of the arrowy areca, contrasting with the solid pyramid of the cypress, and the more masculine stature of the palm. Now they lingered in the trellised walks closely covered over with vines and creepers ; then they
1 82 Vikram and the Vampire.
stopped to gather the golden bloom weighing down the mango boughs, and to smell the highly-scented flowers that hung from the green fretwork of the chambela.
It was spring, I have said. The air was still except when broken by the hum of the large black bramra bee, as he plied his task amidst the red and orange flowers of the dak, and by the gushings of many waters that made music as they coursed down their stuccoed channels between borders of many coloured poppies and beds of various flowers. From time to time the dulcet note of the kokila bird, and the hoarse plaint of the turtle-dove deep hid in her leafy bower, attracted every ear and thrilled every heart. The south wind — " breeze of the south,1 the friend of love and spring" blew with a voluptuous warmth, for rain clouds canopied the earth, and the breath of the narcissus, the rose, and the citron, teemed with a languid fragrance.
The charms of the season affected all the damsels. They amused themselves in their privacy with pelting blossoms at one another, running races down the smooth broad alleys, mounting the silken swings that hung between the orange trees, embracing one another, and at times trying to push the butt of the party into the fish- pond. Perhaps the liveliest of all was the lady Chandra- prabha, who on account of her rank could pelt and push all the others, without fear of being pelted and pushed in return.
It so happened, before the attendants had had time to secure privacy for the princess and her women, that Manaswi, a very handsome youth, a Brahman's son, had wandered without malicious intention into the garden. Fatigued with walking, and finding a cool shady place beneath a tree, he had lain down there, and had gone to sleep, and had not been observed by any of the king's
I In Hindustan, it is the prevailing wind of the hot weather.
The Vampire's Eighth Story.
183
people. He was still sleeping when the princess and her companions were playing together.
Presently Chandraprabha, weary of sport, left her friends, and singing a lively air, tripped up the stairs leading to the summer-house. Aroused by the sound of her advancing footsteps, Manaswi sat up; and the princess, seeing a strange man, started. But their eyes had met, and both were subdued by love — love vulgarly called "love at first sight."
"Nonsense!" exclaimed the warrior king, testily, "I can never believe in that freak of Kama Deva." He
But their eyes had met.
spoke feelingly, for the thing had happened to himself more than once, and on no occasion had it turned out well.
"But there is such a thing, O Raja, as love at first sight," objected the Baital, speaking dogmatically.
"Then perhaps thou canst account for it, dead one," growled the monarch surlily.
" I have no reason to do so, O Vikram," retorted fche
184 Vikram and the Vampire.
Vampire, "when you men have already done it. Listen, then, to the words of the wise. In the olden time, one of your great philosophers invented a fluid pervading all matter, strongly self-repulsive like the steam of a brass pot, and widely spreading like the breath of scandal. The repulsiveness, however, according to that wise man, is greatly modified by its second property, namely, an energetic attraction or adhesion to all material bodies. Thus every substance contains a part, more or less, of this fluid, pervading it throughout, and strongly bound to each component atom. He called it * Ambericity,' for the best of reasons, as it has no connection with amber, and he described it as an imponderable, which, meaning that it could not be weighed, gives a very accurate and satis- factory idea of its nature.
"Now, said that philosopher, whenever two bodies containing that unweighable substance in unequal propor- tions happen to meet, a current of imponderable passes from one to the other, producing a kind of attraction, and tend- ing to adhere. The operation takes place instantaneously when the force is strong and much condensed. Thus the vulgar who call things after their effects and not from their causes, term the action of this imponderable love at first sight; the wise define it to be a phenomenon of ambericity. As regards my own opinion about the matter, I have long ago told it to you, O Vikram ! Silli- ness—"
" Either hold your tongue, fellow, or go on with your story," cried the Raja, wearied out by so many words that had no manner of sense.
Well ! the effect of the first glance was that Manaswi, the Brahman's son, fell back in a swoon and remained senseless upon > he ground where he had been sitting ; and the Raja's daughter began to tremble upon her feet, and presently dropped unconscious upon the floor of the summer-house. Shortly after this she was found by her
The Vampire's Eighth Story. 185
companions and attendants, who, quickly taking her up in their arms and supporting her into a litter, conveyed her home.
Manaswi, the Brahman's son, was so completely overcome, that he lay there dead to everything. Just then the learned, deeply read, and purblind Pandits Muldev and Shashi by name, strayed into the garden, and stumbled upon the body.
"Friend," said Muldev, "how came this youth thus to fall senseless on the ground ? "
"Man," replied Shashi, "doubtless some damsel has shot forth the arrows of her glances from the bow of her eyebrows, and thence he has become insensible! "
"We must lift him up then," said Muldev the benevolent.
"What need is there to raise him?" asked Shashi the misanthrope by way of reply.
Muldev, however, would not listen to these words. He ran to the pond hard by, soaked the end of his waist- cloth in water, sprinkled it over the young Brahman, raised him from the ground, and placed him sitting against the wall. And perceiving, when he came to himself, that his sickness was rather of the soul than of the body, the old men asked him how he came to be in that plight.
"We should tell our griefs," answered Manaswi, " only to those who will relieve us ! What is the use of com- municating them to those who, when they have heard, cannot help us ? What is to be gained by the empty pity or by the useless condolence of men in general ? "
The Pandits, however, by friendly looks and words, presently persuaded him to break silence, when he said, "A certain princess entered this summer-house, and from the sight of her I have fallen into this state. If- I can obtain her, I shall live ; if not, I must die."
"Come with me, young man!" said Muldev the benevolent ; " I will use every endeavour to obtain her, and
1 86 Vikram and the Vampire.
if I do not succeed I will make thee wealthy and inde- pendent of the world."
Manaswi rejoined: "The Deity in his beneficence has created many jewels in this world, but the pearl, woman, is chiefest of all ; and for her sake only does man desire wealth. What are riches to one who has abandoned his wife ? What are they who do not possess beautiful wives ? they are but beings inferior to the beasts ! wealth is the fruit of virtue ; ease, of wealth ; a wife, of ease. And where no wife is, how can there be happiness?" And the enamoured youth rambled on in this way, curious to us, Raja Vikram, but perhaps natural enough in a Brah- man's son suffering under that endemic malady — deter- mination to marry.
"Whatever thou mayest desire," said Muldev, "shall by the blessing of heaven be given to thee."
Manaswi implored him, saying most pathetically, " O Pandit, bestow then that damsel upon me ! "
Muldev promised to do so, and having comforted the youth, led him to his own house. Then he welcomed him politely, seated him upon the carpet, and left him for a few minutes, promising him to return. When he re- appeared, he held in his hand two little balls or pills, and showing them to Manaswi, he explained their virtues as follows :
" There is in our house an hereditary secret, by means of which I try to promote the weal of humanity. But in all cases my success depends mainly upon the purity and the heartwholeness of those that seek my aid. If thou place this in thy mouth, thou shalt be changed into a dam- sel twelve years old, and when thou withdrawest it again, thou shalt again recover thine original form. Beware, however, that thou use the power for none but a good purpose; otherwise some great calamity will befall thee. Therefore, take counsel of thyself before undertaking this trial 1 "
The Vampire's Eighth Story. I 87
What lover, O warrior king Vikram, would have hesi- tated, under such circumstances, to assure the Pandit that he was the most innocent, earnest, and well-intentioned being in the Three Worlds ?
The Brahman's son, at least, lost no time in so doing. Hence the simple-minded philosopher put one of the pills into the young man's mouth, warning him on no account to swallow it, and took the other into his own mouth. Upon which Manaswi became a sprightly young maid, and Muldev was changed to a reverend and decrepid senior, not fewer than eighty years old.
Thus transformed, the twain walked up to the palace of the Raja Subichar, and stood for a while to admire the gate. Then passing through seven courts, beautiful as the Paradise of Indra, they entered, unannounced, as became the priestly dignity, a hall where, surrounded by his courtiers, sat the ruler. The latter, seeing the Holy Brahman under his roof, rose up, made the customary humble salutation, and taking their right hands, led what appeared to be the father and daughter to appropriate seats. Upon which Muldev, having recited a verse, bestowed upon the Raja a blessing whose beauty has been diffused over all creation.
" May that Deity1 who as a mannikin deceived the great king Bali ; who as a hero, with a monkey-host, bridged the Salt Sea ; who as a shepherd lifted up the mountain Gobarddhan in the palm of his hand, and by it saved the cowherds and cowherdesses from the thunders of heaven — may that Deity be thy protector ! "
Having heard and marvelled at this display of elo-
i Vishnu, as a dwarf, sank down into and secured in the lower regions the Raja Bali, who by his piety and prayerfulness was sub- verting the reign of the lesser gods ; as Ramachandra he built a bridge between Lanka (Ceylon) and the main land ; and as Krishna he defended, by holding up a hill as an umbrella for them, his friends the shepherds and shepherdesses from the thunders of Indra, whoae worship they had neglected.
1 88 Vikvam and the Vampire.
quence, the Raja inquired, " Whence hath your holiness come ? "
" My country," replied Muldev, " is on the northern side of the great mother Ganges, and there too my dwel- ling is. I travelled to a distant land, and having found in this maiden a worthy wife for my son, I straightway returned homewards. Meanwhile a famine had laid waste our village, and my wife and my son have fled I know not where. Encumbered with this damsel, how can I wander about seeking them ? Hearing the name of a pious and generous ruler, I said to myself, ' I will leave her under his charge until my return.' Be pleased to take great care of her."
For a minute the Raja sat thoughtful and silent. He was highly pleased with the Brahman's perfect compli- ment. But he could not hide from himself that he was placed between two difficulties : one, the charge of a beautiful young girl, with pouting lips, soft speech, and roguish eyes ; the other, a priestly curse upon himself and his kingdom. He thought, however, refusal the more dangerous : so he raised his face and exclaimed, " O pro- duce of Brahma's head,1 I will do what your highness has desired of me."
Upon which the Brahman, after delivering a bene- diction of adieu almost as beautiful and spirit-stirring as that with which he had presented himself, took the betel2 and went his ways.
Then the Raja sent for his daughter Chandraprabha and said to her, " This is the affianced bride of a young Brahman, and she has been trusted to my protection for a time by her father-in-law. Take her therefore into the inner rooms, treat her with the utmost regard, and never
i The priesLy caste sprang, as has been said, from the noblest part of the Demiurgus ; the three others from lower members.
•2 A chew of betel leaf and spices is offered by the master of the house when dismissing a visitor.
The Vampire's Eighth Story. 189
allow her to be separated from thee, day or night, asleep or awake, eating or drinking, at home or abroad."
Chandraprabha took the hand of Sita — as Manaswi had pleased to call himself — and led the way to her own apartment. Once the seat of joy and pleasure, the rooms now wore a desolate and melancholy look. The windows were darkened, the attendants moved noiselessly over the carpets, as if their footsteps would cause headache, and there was a faint scent of some drug much used in cases of deliquium. The apartments were handsome, but the only ornament in the room where they sat was a large bunch of withered flowers in an arched recess, and these, though possibly interesting to some one, were not likely to find favour as a decoration in the eyes of everybody.
The Raja's daughter paid the greatest attention and talked with unusual vivacity to the Brahman's daughter- in-law, either because she had roguish eyes, or from some presentiment of what was to occur, whichever you please, Raja Vikram, and it is no matter which. Still Sita could not help perceiving that there was a shade of sorrow upon the forehead of her fair new friend, and so when they retired to rest she asked the cause of it.
Then Chandraprabha related to her the sad tale : " One day in the spring season, as I was strolling in the garden along with my companions, I beheld a very hand- some Brahman, and our eyes having met, he became unconscious, and I also was insensible. My companions seeing my condition, brought me home, and therefore I know neither his name nor his abode. His beautiful form is impressed upon my memory. I have now no desire to eat or to drink, and from this distress my colour has become pale and my body is thus emaciated." And the beautiful princess sighed a sigh that was musical and melancholy, and concluded by predicting for herself — as persons similarly placed often do — a sudden and untimely end about the beginning of the next month.
i go Vikram and the Vampire.
" What wilt thou give me," asked the Brahman's daughter-in-law demurely, " if I show thee thy beloved at this very moment ? "
The Raja's daughter answered, " I will ever be the lowest of thy slaves, standing before thee with joined hands."
Upon which Sita removed the pill from her mouth, and instantly having become Manaswi, put it carefully away in a little bag hung round his neck. At this sight Chandraprabha felt abashed, and hung down her head in beautiful confusion. To describe —
" I will have no descriptions, Vampire ! " cried the great Vikram, jerking the bag up and down as if he were sweating gold in it. " The fewer of thy descriptions the better for us all."
Briefly (resumed the demon), Manaswi reflected upon the eight forms of marriage — viz., Bramhalagan, when a girl is given to a Brahman, or man of superior caste, with- out reward ; Daiva, when she is presented as a gift or fee to the officiating priest at the close of a sacrifice ; Arsha, when two cows are received by the girl's father in exchange for the bride1; Prajapatya, when the girl is given at the request of a Brahman, and the father says to his daughter and her to betrothed, " Go, fulfil the duties of religion" ; Asura, when money is received by the father in exchange for the bride ; Rakshasha, when she is captured in war, or when her bridegroom overcomes his rival ; Paisacha, when the girl is taken away from her father's house by craft ; and eighthly, Gandharva-lagan, or the marriage that takes place by mutual consent.8
1 Respectable Hindus say that receiving a fee for a daughter is like selling flesh.
2 A moderr. custom amongst the low caste is for the bride and bridegroom, in the presence of friends, to place a flower garland on each other's necks, and thus declare themselves man and wife. The old classical Gandharva-lagan has been before explained.
The Vampire's Eighth Story. 191
Manaswi preferred the latter, especially as by her rank and age the princess was entitled to call upon her father for the Lakshmi Swayambara wedding, in which she would have chosen her own husband. And thus it is that Rama, Arjuna, Krishna, Nala, and others, were pro- posed to by the princesses whom they married.
For five months after these nuptials, Manaswi never stirred out of the palace, but remained there by day a woman, and a man by night. The consequence was that he — I call him " he," for whether Manaswi or Sita, his mind ever remained masculine — presently found himself in a fair way to become a father.
Now, one would imagine that a change of sex every twenty-four hours would be variety enough to satisfy even a man. Manaswi, however, was not contented. He began to pine for more liberty, and to find fault with his wife for not taking him out into the world. And you might have supposed that a young person who, from love at first sight, had fallen senseless upon the steps of a summer-house, and who had devoted herself to a sudden and untimely end because she was separated from her lover, would have repressed her yawns and little irritable words even for a year after having converted him into a husband. But no ! Chandraprabha soon felt as tired of seeing Manaswi and nothing but Manaswi, as Manaswi was weary of seeing Chandraprabha and nothing but Chandraprabha. Often she had been on the point of pro- posing visits and out-of-door excursions. But when at last the idea was first suggested by her husband, she at once became an injured woman. She hinted how foolish it was for married people to imprison themselves and to quarrel all day. When Manaswi remonstrated, saying that he wanted nothing better than to appear before the world with her as his wife, but that he really did not know what her father might do to him, she threw out a cutting sarcasm upon his effeminate appearance during the hotrs
1 92 Vikram and the Vampire.
*
of light. She then told him of an unfortunate young woman in an old nursery tale who had unconsciously married a fiend that became a fine handsome man at night when no eye could see him, and utter ugliness by day when good looks show to advantage. And lastly, when inveighing against the changeableness, fickleness, and infidelity of mankind, she quoted the words of the poet —
Out upon change ! it tires the heart And weighs the noble spirit down ;
A vain, vain world indeed thou art That can such vile condition own ;
The veil hath fallen from my eyes,
I cannot love where I despise. . . .
You can easily, O King Vikram, continue for yourself and conclude this lecture, which I leave unfinished on account of its length.
Chandraprabha and Sita, who called each other the Zodiacal Twins and Laughter Light,1 and All-consenters, easily persuaded the old Raja that their health would be further improved by air, exercise, and distractions. Subi- char, being delighted with the change that had taken place in a daughter whom he loved, and whom he had feared to lose, told them to do as they pleased. They began a new life, in which short trips and visits, baths and dances, music parties, drives in bullock chariots, and water excursions succeeded one another.
It so happened that one day the Raja went with his whole family to a wedding feast in the house of his grand treasurer, where the latter's son saw Manaswi in the beautiful shape of Sita. This was a third case of love at first sight, for the young man immediately said to a par- ticular friend, " If I obtain that girl, I shall live ; if not, I shall abandon life."
i Meaning that the sight of each other will cause a smile, and that what one purposes the other will consent to.
The Vampire's Eighth Story. 193
In the meantime the king, having enjoyed the feast, came back to his palace with his whole family. The con- dition of the treasurer's son, however, became very dis- tressing ; and through separation from his beloved, he gave up eating and drinking. The particular friend had kept the secret for some days, though burning to tell it. At length he found an excuse for himself in the sad state of his friend, and he immediately went and divulged all that he knew to the treasurer. After this he felt relieved.
The minister repaired to the court, and laid his case before the king, saying, " Great Raja ! through the love of that Brahman's daughter-in-law, my son's state is very bad ; he has given up eating and drinking ; in fact he is consumed by the fire of separation. If now your majesty could show compassion, and bestow the girl upon him, his life would be saved. If not "
"Fool!" cried the Raja, who, hearing these words, had waxed very wroth ; "it is not right for kings to do injustice. Listen! when a person puts anyone in charge of a protector, how can the latter give away his trust without consulting the person that trusted him? And yet this is what you wish me to do."
The treasurer knew that the Raja could not govern his realm without him, and he was well acquainted with his master's character. He said to himself, "This will not last long; " but he remained dumb, simulating hope- lessness, and hanging down his head, whilst Subichar alternately scolded and coaxed, abused and flattered him, in order to open his lips. Then, with tears in his eyes, he muttered a request to take leave ; and as he passed through the palace gates, he said aloud, with a resolute air, "It will cost me but ten days of fasting!"
The treasurer, having returned home, collected all his attendants, and went straightway to his son's room. Seeing the youth still stretched upon his sleeping-mat, and very yellow for the want of food, he took his band,
13
194 Vikram and the Vampire.
and said in a whisper, meant to be audible, " Alas! poor son, I can do nothing but perish with thee."
The servants, hearing this threat, slipped one by. one out of the room, and each went to tell his friend that the grand treasurer had resolved to live no longer. After which, they went back to the house to see if their master intended to keep his wprd, and curious to know, if he did intend to die, how, where, and when it was to be. And they were not disappointed : I do not mean that they wished their lord to die, as he was a good master to them, but still there was an excitement in the thing
(Raja Vikram could not refrain from showing his anger at the insult thus cast by the Baital upon human nature ; the wretch, however, pretending not to notice it, went on without interrupting himself.) which somehow or other pleased them.
When the treasurer had spent three days without touching bread or water, all the cabinet council met and determined to retire from business unless the Raja yielded to their solicitations. The treasurer was their working man. "Besides which," said the cabinet council, "if a certain person gets into the habit of refusing us, what is to be the end of it, and what is the use of being cabinet councillors any longer? "
Early on the next morning, the ministers went in a body before the Raja, and humbly represented that "the treasurer's son is at the point of death, the effect of a full heart and an empty stomach. Should he die, the father, who has not eaten or drunk during the last three days" (the Raja trembled to hear the intelligence, though he knew it), "his father, we say, cannot be saved. If the father dies the affairs of the kingdom come to ruin, — is he not the grand treasurer ? It is already said that half the accounts have been gnawed by white ants, and that some pernicious substance in the ink has eaten jagged holes through the paper, so that the other half of the accounts 13—2
The Vampire's Eighth Story. 195
is illegible. It were best, sire, that you agree to what we represent."
The white ants and corrosive ink were too strong for the Raja's determination. Still, wishing to save appear- ances, he replied, with much firmness, that he knew the value of the treasurer and his son, that he would do much to save them, but that he had passed his royal word, and had undertaken a trust. That he would rather die a dozen deaths than break his promise, or not dis- charge his duty faithfully. That man's condition in this world is to depart from it, none remaining in it ; that one comes and that one goes, none knowing when or where ; but that eternity is eternity for happiness or misery. And much of the same nature, not very novel, and not perhaps quite to the purpose, but edifying to those who knew what lay behind the speaker's words.
The ministers did not know their lord's character so well as the grand treasurer, and they were more impressed by his firm demeanour and the number of his words than he wished them to be. After allowing his speech to settle in their minds, he did away with a great part of its effect by declaring that such were the sentiments and the prin- ciples— when a man talks of his principles, O Vikram ! ask thyself the reason why — instilled into his youthful mind by the most honourable of fathers and the most vir- tuous of mothers. At the same time that he was by no means obstinate or proof against conviction. In token whereof he graciously permitted the councillors to con- vince him that it was his royal duty to break his word and betray his trust, and to give away another man's wife.
Pray do not lose your temper, O warrior king ! Subi- char, although a Raja, was a weak man; and you know, or you ought to know, that the wicked may be wise in their generation, but the weak never can.
Well, the ministers hearing their lord's last wprds,
196 Vikyam and the Vampire,
took courage, and proceeded to work upon his mind by the figure of speech popularly called "rigmarole." They said: "Great king! that old Brahman has been gone many days, and has not recurned ; he is probably dead and burnt. It is therefore right that by giving to the grand treasurer's son his daughter-in-law, who is only affianced, not fairly married, you should establish your government firmly. And even if he should return, be- stow villages and wealth upon him; and if he be not then content, provide another and a more beautiful wife for his son, and dismiss him. A person should be sacrificed for the sake of a family, a family for a city, a city for a country, and a country for a king! "
Subichar having heard them, dismissed them with the remark that as so much was to be said on both sides, he must employ the night in thinking over the matter, and that he would on the next day favour them with his decision. The cabinet councillors knew by this that he meant that he would go and consult his wives. They retired contented, convinced that every voice would be in favour of a wedding, and that the young girl, with so good an offer, would not sacrifice the present to the future.
That evening the treasurer and his son supped to- gether.
The first words uttered by Raja Subichar, when he entered his daughter's apartment, were an order addressed to Sita: "Go thou at once to the house of my treasurer's son."
Now, as Chandraprabha and Manaswi were gener- ally scolding each other, Chandraprabha and Sita were hardly on speaking terms. When they heard the Raja's order for their separation they were —
— " Delig'ite.d ? " cried Dharma Dhwaj, who for some reason took the greatest interest in the narrative.
" Overwhelmed with grief, thou most guileless Yuva Raja (young prince) ! " ejaculated the Vampire.
The Vampire's Eighth Story. 197
Raja Vikram reproved his son for talking about things of which he knew nothing, and the Baital resumed.
They turned pale and wept, and they wrung their hands, and they begged and argued and refused obedience. In fact they did everything to make the king revoke his order.
"The virtue of a woman," quoth Sita, "is destroyed through too much beauty; the religion of a Brahman is impaired by serving kings; a cow is spoiled by distant pasturage, wealth is lost by committing injustice, and prosperity departs from the house where promises are not kept."
The Raja highly applauded the sentiment, but was firm as a rock upon the subject of Sita marrying the treasurer's son.
Chandraprabha observed that her royal father, usually so conscientious, must now be acting from interested motives, and that when selfishness sways a man, right becomes left and left becomes right, as in the reflection of a mirror.
Subichar approved of the comparison; he was not quite so resolved, but he showed no symptoms of chang- ing his mind.
Then the Brahman's daughter-in-law, with the view of gaining time — a famous stratagem amongst feminines — said to the Raja: "Great king, if you are determined upon giving me to the grand treasurer's son, exact from him the promise that he will do what I bid him. Only on this condition will I ever enter his house ! "
"Speak, then," asked the king; "what will he have to do?"
She replied, "I am of the Brahman or priestly caste, he is the son of a Kshatriya or warrior : the law directs that before we twain can wed, he should perform Yatra (pilgrimage) to all the holy places."
" Thou hast spoken Veda-truth, girl," answered the
198 Vikram and the Vampire.
Raja, not sorry to have found so good a pretext for tem- porizing, and at the same time to preserve his character for firmness, resolution, determination.
That night Manaswi and Chandraprabha, instead of scolding each other, congratulated themselves upon having escaped an imminent danger — which they did not escape.
In the morning Subichar sent for his ministers, in- cluding his grand treasurer and his love-sick son, and told them how well and wisely the Brahman's daughter-in- law had spoken upon the subject of the marriage. All of them approved of the condition ; but the young man ven- tured to suggest, that while he was a-pilgrimaging the maiden should reside under his father's roof. As he and his father showed a disposition to continue their fasts in case of the small favour not being granted, the Raja, though very loath to separate his beloved daughter and her dear friend, was driven to do it. And Sita was car- ried off, weeping bitterly, to the treasurer's palace. That dignitary solemnly committed her to the charge of his third and youngest wife, the lady Subhagya-Sundari, who was about her own age, and said, "You must both live together, without any kind of wrangling or conten- tion, and do not go into other people's houses." And the grand treasurer's son went off to perform his pil- grimages.
It is no less sad than true, Raja Vikram, that in less than six days the disconsolate Sita waxed weary of being Sita, took the ball out of her mouth, and became Manaswi. Alas for the infidelity of mankind ! But it is gratifying to reflect that he met with the punishment with which the Pandit Muldev had threatened him. One night the magic pill slipped down his throat. When morning dawned, being unable to change himself into Sita, Manaswi was obliged to escape through a window from the lady Subhagya-Sundari's room. He sprained his ankle with
The Vampire's Eighth Story. 199
the leap, and he lay for a time upon the ground — where I leave him whilst convenient to me.
When Muldev quitted the presence of Subichar, he resumed his old shape, and returning to his brother Pandit Shashi, told him what he had done. Whereupon Shashi, the misanthrope, looked black, and used hard words and told his friend that good nature and soft-heartedness had caused him to commit a very bad action — a grievous sin. Incensed at this charge, the philanthropic Muldev be- came angry, and said, " I have warned the youth about his purity; what harm can come of it?"
"Thou hast," retorted Shashi, with irritating cool- ness, "placed a sharp weapon in a fool's hand."
"I have not," cried Muldev, indignantly.
"Therefore," drawled the malevolent, "you are answerable for all the mischief he does with it, and mischief assuredly he will do."
"He will not, by Brahma!" exclaimed Muldev.
"He will, by Vishnu!" said Shashi, with an ami- ability produced by having completely upset his friend's temper; "and if within the coming six months he does not disgrace himself, thou shalt have the whole of my book-case; but if he does, the philanthropic Muldev will use all his skill and ingenuity in procuring the daughter of Raja Subichar as a wife for his faithful friend Shashi."
Having made this covenant, they both agreed not to speak of the matter till the autumn.
The appointed time drawing near, the Pandits began to make inquiries about the effect of the magic pills. Presently they found out that Sita, alias Manaswi, had one night mysteriously disappeared from the grand treasurer's house, and had not been heard of since that time. This, together with certain other things that transpired presently, convinced Muldev, who had cooled down in six months, that his friend had won the wager. He prepared to make honourable payment by handing a
2OO Vikram and the Vampire.
pill to old Shashi, who at once became a stout, handsome young Brahman, some twenty years old. Next putting a pill into his own mouth, he resumed the shape and form under which he had first appeared before Raja Subichar; and, leaning upon his staff, he led the way to the palace.
The king, in great confusion, at once recognized the old priest, and guessed the errand upon which he and the youth were come. However, he saluted them, and offered them seats, and receiving their blessings, he began to make inquiries about their health and welfare. At last he mustered courage to ask the old Brahman where he had been living for so long a time.
"Great king," replied the priest, "I went to seek after my son, and having found him, I bring him to your majesty. Give him his wife, and I will take them both home with me."
Raja Subichar prevaricated not a little ; but presently, being hard pushed, he related everything that had hap- pened.
"What is this that you have done?" cried Muldev, simulating excessive anger and astonishment. "Why have you given my son's wife in marriage to another man ? You have done what you wished, and now, therefore, receive my Shrap (curse) ! "
The poor Raja, in great trepidation, said, "O Divinity! be not thus angry! I will do whatever you bid me."
Said Muldev, " If through dread of my excommuni- cation you will freely give whatever I demand of you, then marry your daughter, Chandraprabha, to this my son. On this condition I forgive you. To me, now a necklace of pe iris and a venomous krishna (cobra capella) ; the most powerful enemy and the kindest friend; the most precious gem and a clod of earth ; the softest bed and the hardest stone ; a blade of grass and the loveliest
The Vampire's Eighth Story. 201
woman — are precisely the same. All I desire is that in some holy place, repeating the name of God, I may soon end my days."
Subichar, terrified by this additional show of sanc- tity, at once summoned an astrologer, and fixed upon the auspicious moment and lunar influence. He did not consult the princess, and had he done so she would not have resisted his wishes. Chandraprabha had heard of Sita's escape from the treasurer's house, and she had on the subject her own suspicions. Besides which she looked forward to a certain event, and she was by no means sure that her royal father approved of the Gand- harba form of marriage — at least for his daughter. Thus the Brahman's son receiving in due time the princess and her dowry, took leave of the king and returned to his own village.
Hardly, however, had Chandraprabha been married to Shashi the Pandit, when Manaswi went to him, and began to wrangle, and said, "Give me my wife!" He had recovered from the effects of his fall, and having lost her he therefore loved her — very dearly.
But Shashi proved by reference to the astrologers, priests, and ten persons as witnesses, that he had duly wedded her, and brought her to his home; "therefore," said he, "she is my spouse."
Manaswi swore by all holy things that he had been legally married to her, and that he was the father of her child that was about to be. "How then," continued he, "can she be thy spouse?" He would have summoned Muldev as a witness, but that worthy, after remonstrating with him, disappeared. He called upon Chandraprabha to confirm his statement, but she put on an innocent face, and indignantly denied ever having seen the man.
Still, continued the Baital, many people believed Manaswi's story, as it was marvellous and incredible. Even to the present day, there are many who decidedly
2O2 Vikram and the Vampire.
think him legally married to the daughter of Raja Subichar.
"Then they are pestilent fellows!" cried the warrior king Vikram, who hated nothing more than clandestine and runaway matches. "No one knew that the villain, Manaswi, was the father of her child; whereas, the Pandit Shashi married her lawfully, before witnesses, and with all the ceremonies.1 She therefore remains his wife, and the child will perform the funeral obsequies for him, and offer water to the manes of his pitris (ancestors). At least, so say law and justice."
"Which justice is often unjust enough!" cried the Vampire; "and ply thy legs, mighty Raja; let me see if thou canst reach the siras-tree before I do."
* * * * * *
"The next story, O Raja Vikram, is remarkably interesting."
I This would be the verdict of a Hindu jury.
203
THE VAMPIRE'S NINTH STORY.
SHOWING THAT A MAN'S WIFE BELONGS NOT TO HIS BODY BUT TO HIS HEAD.
,FAR and wide through the lovely land overrun by the Arya from the Western Highlands spread the fame of Unmadini, the beautiful daughter of Haridas the Brah- man. In the numberless odes, sonnets, and acrostics addressed to her by a hundred Pandits and poets her charms were sung with prodigious triteness. Her pre- sence was compared to light shining in a dark house; her face to the full moon ; her complexion to the yellow champaka flower; her curls to female snakes; her eyes to those of the deer; her eyebrows to bent bows; her teeth to strings of little opals ; her feet to rubies and red gems,1 and her gait to that of the wild goose. And none forgot to say that her voice affected the author like the song of the kokila bird, sounding from the shadowy brake, when the breeze blows coolly, or that the fairy beings of Indra's heaven would have shrunk away abashed at her loveliness.
But, Raja Vikram! all the poets failed to win the fair Unmadini's love. To praise the beauty of a beauty is not to praise her. Extol her wit and talents, which has the zest of novelty, then you may succeed. For the same reason, read inversely, the plainer and cleverer is the
i Because stained with the powder of Mhendi, or the Lawsonia inermis shrub. ^
204 Vikram and the Vampire.
bosom you would fire, the more personal you must be upon the subject of its grace and loveliness. Flattery, you know, is ever the match which kindles the flame of love. True it is that some by roughness of demeanour and bluntness in speech, contrasting with those whom they call the "herd," have the art to succeed in the ser- vice of the bodyless god.1 But even they must
The young prince Dharma Dhwaj could not help laughing at the thought of how this must sound in his father's ear. And the Raja hearing the ill-timed merri- ment, sternly ordered the Baital to cease his immoralities and to continue his story.
Thus the lovely Unmadini, conceiving an extreme contempt for poets and literati, one day told her father, who greatly loved her, that her husband must be a fine young man who never wrote verses. Withal she insisted strongly on mental qualities and science, being a person of moderate mind and an adorer of talent — when not perverted to poetry.
As you may imagine, Raja Vikram, all the beauty's bosom friends, seeing her refuse so many good offers, confidently predicted that she would pass through the jungle and content herself with a bad stick, or that she would lead ring-tailed apes in Patala.
At length when some time had elapsed, four suitors appeared from four different countries, all of them claim- ing equal excellence in youth and beauty, strength and understanding. And after paying their respects to Hari- das, and telling him their wishes, they were directed to come early on the next morning and to enter upon the first ordeal — an intellectual conversation.
This they did.
" Foolish the man," quoth the young Mahasani,
i Kansa's son ; so called because the god Shiva, when struck by his shafts, destroyed him with a fiery glance.
The Vampire's Ninth Story. 205
" that seeks permanence in this world — frail as the stem of the plantain-tree, transient as the ocean foam.
"All that is high shall presently fall ; all that is low must finally perish.
" Unwillingly do the manes of the dead taste the tears shed by their kinsmen : then wail not, but perform the funeral obsequies with diligence."
"What ill-omened fellow is this?" quoth the fair Unmadini, who was sitting behind her curtain; " besides, he has dared to quote poetry!" There was little chance of success for that suitor.
"She is called a good woman, and a woman of pure descent," quoth the second suitor, " who serves him to whom her father and mother have given her ; and it is written in the scriptures that a woman who in the life- time of her husband, becoming a devotee, engages in fast- ing, and in austere devotion, shortens his days, and here- after falls into the fire. For it is said —
" A woman's bliss is found not in the smile Of father, mother, friend, nor in herself; Her husband is her only portion here, Her heaven hereafter."
The word " serve," which might mean " obey," was peculiarly disagreeable to the fair one's ears, and she did not admire the check so soon placed upon her devotion, or the decided language and manner of the youth. She therefore mentally resolved never again to see that per- son, whom she determined to be stupid as an elephant.
"A mother," said Gunakar, the third candidate, "protects her son in babyhood, and a father when his off- spring is growing up. But the man of warrior descent defends his brethren at all times. Such is the custom of the world, and such is my state. I dwell on the heads of the strong ! "
Therefore those assembled together looked with great respect upon the man of valour. 9
206 Vikram and the Vampire.
Devasharma, the fourth suitor, contented himself with listening to the others, who fancied that he was overawed by their cleverness. And when it came to his turn he simply remarked, "Silence is better than speech." Being further pressed, he said, " A wise man will not proclaim his age, nor a deception practised upon himself, nor his riches, nor the loss of riches, nor family faults, nor incantations, nor conjugal love, nor medicinal pre- scriptions, nor religious duties, nor gifts, nor reproach, nor the infidelity of his wife."
Thus ended the first trial. The master of the house dismissed the two former speakers, with many polite ex- pressions and some trifling presents. Then having given betel to them, scented their garments with attar, and sprinkled rose-water over their heads, he accompanied them to the door, showing much regret. The two latter speakers he begged to come on the next day.
Gunakar and Devasharma did not fail. When they entered the assembly-room and took the seats pointed out to them, the father said, " Be ye pleased to explain and make manifest the effects of your mental qualities. So shall I judge of them."
"I have made," said Gunakar, "a four-wheeled carriage, in which the power resides to carry you in a moment wherever you may purpose to go."
" I have such power over the angel of death," said Devasharma, " that I can at all times raise a corpse, and enable my friends to do the same."
Now tell me by thy brains, O warrior King Vikram, which of these two youths was the fitter husband for the maid?
Either the Raja could not answer the question, or perhaps he would not, being determined to break the spell which had already kept him walking to and fro for so many hours. Then the Baital, who had paused to let his royal carrier commit himself, seeing that the attempt
The Vampires Ninth Story. 207
had failed, proceeded without making any further com- ment.
The beautiful Unmadini was brought out, but she hung down her head and made no reply. Yet she took care to move both her eyes in the direction of Deva- sharma. Whereupon Haridas, quoting the proverb that "pearls string with pearls," formally betrothed to him his daughter.
The soldier suitor twisted the ends of his mustachios into his eyes, which were red with wrath, and fumbled with his fingers about the hilt of his sword. But he was a man of noble birth, and presently his anger passed away.
Mahasani the poet, however, being a shameless per- son— and when can we be safe from such ? — forced him- self into the assembly and began to rage and to storm, and to quote proverbs in a loud tone of voice. He re- marked that in this world women are a mine of grief, a poisonous root, the abode of solicitude, the destroyers of resolution, the occasioners of fascination, and the plun- derers of all virtuous qualities. From the daughter he passed to the father, and after saying hard things of him as a " Maha-Brahman,1" who took cows and gold and worshipped a monkey, he fell with a sweeping censure upon all priests and sons of priests, more especially Deva- sharma. As the bystanders remonstrated with him, he
i "Great Brahman"; used contemptuously to priests who officiate for servile men. Brahmans lose their honour by the follow- ing things : By becoming servants to the king ; by pursuing any secular business ; by acting priests to Shudras (serviles) ; by officiat- ing as priests for a whole village ; and by neglecting any part of the three daily services. Many violate these rules ; yet to kill a Brahman is still one of the five great Hindu sins. In the present age of the world, the Brahman may not accept a gift of cows or of gold ; of course he despises the law. As regards rronkey worship, a certain Rajah of Nadiya is said to have expended £10,000 in marrying two monkeys with all the parade and splendour of the Hindu rite.
i
208 Vikvam and the Vampire.
became more violent, and when Haridas, who was a weak man, appeared terrified by his voice, look, and ges- ture, he swore a solemn oath that despite all the be- trothals in the world, unless Unmadini became his wife he would commit suicide, and as a demon haunt the house and injure the inmates.
Gunakar the soldier exhorted this shameless poet to slay himself at once, and to go where he pleased. But as Haridas reproved the warrior for inhumanity, Mahasani nerved by spite, love, rage, and perversity to an heroic death, drew a noose from his bosom, rushed out of the house, and suspended himself to the nearest tree.
And, true enough, as the midnight gong struck, he appeared in the form of a gigantic and malignant Rakshasa (fiend), dreadfully frightened the household of Haridas, and carried off the lovely Unmadini, leaving word that she was to be found on the topmost peak of Himalaya.
The unhappy father hastened to the house where Devasharma lived. There, weeping bitterly and wringing his hands in despair, he told the terrible tale, and be- sought his intended son-in-law to be up and doing.
The young Brahman at once sought his late rival, and asked his aid. This the soldier granted at once, although he had been nettled at being conquered in love by a priestling.
The carriage was at once made ready, and the suitors set out, bidding the father be of good cheer, and that before sunset he should embrace his daughter. They then entered the vehicle ; Gunakar with cabalistic words caused it to rise high in the air, and Devasharma put to flight the demon by reciting the sacred verse,1 " Let us meditate on the supreme splendour (or adorable light) of that Divine Ruler (the sun) who may illuminate our under-
i The celebrated Gayatri, the Moslem Kalmah.
The Vampire's Ninth Story. 209
standings. Venerable men, guided by the intelligence, salute the divine sun (Sarvitri) with oblations and praise. Om!"
Then they returned with the girl to the house, and Haridas blessed them, praising the sun aloud in the joy of his heart. Lest other accidents might happen, he chose an auspicious planetary conjunction, and at a fortunate moment rubbed turmeric upon his daughter's hands.
The wedding was splendid, and broke the hearts of twenty-four rivals. In due time Devasharma asked leave from his father-in-law to revisit his home, and to carry with him his bride. This request being granted, he set out accompanied by Gunakar the soldier, who swore not to leave the couple before seeing them safe under their own roof-tree.
It so happened that their road lay over the summits of the wild Vindhya hills, where dangers of all kinds are as thick as shells upon the shore of the deep. Here were rocks and jagged precipices making the traveller's brain whirl when he looked into them. There impetuous torrents roared and flashed down their beds of black stone, threatening destruction to those who would cross them. Now the path was lost in the matted thorny underwood and the pitchy shades of the jungle, deep and dark as the valley of death. Then the thunder-cloud licked the earth with its fiery tongue, and its voice shook the crags and filled their hollow caves. At times, the sun was so hot, that wild birds fell dead from the air. And at every moment the wayfarers heard the trumpeting of giant elephants, the fierce howling of the tiger, the grisly laugh of the foul hyaena, and the whimpering of the wild dogs as they coursed by on the tracks of their prey.
Yet, sustained by the five-armed god1 the little party passed safely through all these dangers. They had al-
i Kama again.
2io Vikram and the Vampire.
most emerged from the damp glooms of the forest into the open plains which skirt the southern base of the hills, when one night the fair Unmadini saw a terrible vision.
She beheld herself wading through a sluggish pool of muddy water, which rippled, curdling as she stepped intc it, and which, as she advanced, darkened with the slime raised by her feet. She was bearing in her arms the semblance of a sick child, which struggled convul- sively and filled the air with dismal wails. These cries seemed to be answered by a multitude of other children, some bloated like toads, others mere skeletons lying upon the bank, or floating upon the thick brown waters of the pond. And all seemed to address their cries to her, as if she were the cause of their weeping ; nor could all her efforts quiet or console them for a moment.
When the bride awoke, she related all the particulars of her ill-omened vision to her husband ; and the latter, after a short pause, informed her and his friend that a terrible calamity was about to befall them. He then drew from his travelling wallet a skein of thread. This he divided into three parts, one for each, and told his com- panions that in case of grievous bodily injury, the bit of thread wound round the wounded part would instantly make it whole. After which he taught them the Mantra,1 or mystical word by which the lives of men are restored to their bodies, even when they have taken their allotted places amongst the stars, and which for evident reasons I do not want to repeat. It concluded, however, with the three Vyahritis, or sacred syllables — Bhuh, Bhuvah, Svar !
Raja Vikram was perhaps a little disappointed by this declaration. He made no remark, however, and the Baital thus pursued :
As Devasharma foretold, an accident of a terrible
T From " Man," to think ; primarily meaning, what makes man think. Id— 2
As they emerged upon the plain, they were attacked by the Kiratas (to ^ ace p. 211).
The Vampire's Ninth Story. 211
nature did occur. On the evening of that day, as they emerged upon the plain, they were attacked by the Kiratas, or savage tribes of the mountain.1 A small, black, wiry figure, armed with a bow and little cane arrows, stood in their way, signifying by gestures that they must halt and lay down their arms. As they continued to advance, he began to speak with a shrill chattering, like the note of an affrighted bird, his restless red eyes glared with rage, and he waved his weapon furiously round his head. Then from the rocks and thickets on both sides of the path poured a shower of shafts upon the three strangers.
The unequal combat did not last long. Gunakar, the soldier, wielded his strong right arm with fatal effect and struck down some threescore of the foes. But new swarms came on like angry hornets buzzing round the destroyer of their nests. And when he fell, Devasharma, who had left him for a moment to hide his beautiful wife in the hollow of a tree, returned, and stood fighting over the body of his friend till he also, overpowered by numbers, was thrown to the ground. Then the wild men, drawing their knives, cut off the heads of their helpless enemies, stripped their bodies of all their ornaments, and departed, leaving the woman unharmed for good luck.
When Unmadini, who had been more dead than alive during the affray, found silence succeed to the horrid din of shrieks and shouts, she ventured to creep out of her refuge in the hollow tree. And what does she behold ? her husband and his friend are lying upon the ground, with their heads at a short distance from their bodies. She sat down and wept bitterly.
Presently, remembering the lesson which she had learned that very morning, she drew forth from her bosom the bit of thread and proceeded to use it. She approached
i The Cirrhadse of classical writers.
212 Vikram and the Vampire.
the heads to the bodies, and tied some of the magic string round each neck. But the shades of evening were fast deepening, and in her agitation, confusion and terror, she made a curious mistake by applying the heads to the wrong trunks. After which, she again sat down, and having recited her prayers, she pronounced, as her hus- band had taught her, the life-giving incantation.
In a moment the dead men were made alive. They opened their eyes, shook themselves, sat up and handled their limbs as if to feel that all was right. But something or other appeared to them all wrong. They placed their palms upon their foreheads, and looked downwards, and started to their feet and began to stare at their hands and legs. Upon which they scrutinized the very scanty articles of dress which the wild men had left upon them, and lastly one began to eye the other with curious puzzled looks.
The wife, attributing their gestures to the confusion which one might expect to find in the brains of men who have just undergone so great a trial as amputation of the head must be, stood before them for a moment or two. She then with a cry of gladness flew to the bosom of the individual who was, as she supposed, her husband. He repulsed her, telling her that she was mistaken. Then, blushing deeply in spite of her other emotions, she threw both her beautiful arms round the neck of the person who must be, she naturally concluded, the right man. To her utter confusion, he also shrank back from her embrace.
Then a horrid thought flashed across her mind : she perceived her fatal mistake, and her heart almost ceased to beat.
"This 53 thy wife!" cried the Brahman's head that had been fastened to the soldier's body.
"No; she is thy wife!" replied the soldier's head which had been placed upon the Brahman's body.
Then a horrid thought flashed across her mind ; she perceived her fatal mistake (to face p. 212).
The Vampire's Ninth Story. 213
" Then she is my wife ! " rejoined the first compound creature.
"By no means! she is my wife," cried the second.
"What then am I ?" asked Devasharma-Gunakan
"What do you think I am?" answered Gunakar- Devasharma, with another question.
"Unmadini shall be mine" quoth the head.
"You lie, she shall be mine,'" shouted the body.
" Holy Yama,1 hear the villain," exclaimed both of them at the same moment.
* # * * * *
In short, having thus begun, they continued to quarrel violently, each one declaring that the beautiful Unmadini belonged to him, and to him only. How to settle their dispute Brahma the Lord of creatures only knows. I do not, except by cutting off their heads once more, and by putting them in their .proper places. And I am quite sure, O Raja Vikram ! that thy wits are quite unfit to answer the question, To which of these two is the beauti- ful Unmadini wife ? It is even said — amongst us Baitals — that when this pair of half-husbands appeared in the presence of the Just King, a terrible confusion arose, each head declaiming all the sins and peccadilloes which its body had committed, and that Yama the holy ruler himself hit his forefinger with vexation.2
Here the young prince Dharma Dhwaj burst out laughing at the ridiculous idea of the wrong heads. And the warrior king, who, like single-minded fathers in
1 The Hindu Pluto ; also called the Just King.
2 Yama judges the dead, whose souls go to him in four hours and forty minntes ; therefore a corpse cannot be burned till after that time. His residence is Yamalaya, and it is on the south side of the earth ; down South, as we say. (I. Sam. xxv. i, and xxx. 15). The Hebrews, like the Hindus, held the northern parts of the world to be higher than the southern. Hindus often joke a man who is seen walking in that direction, and ask him where he is going.
*
214 Vikram and the Vampire.
general, was ever in the idea that his son had a velleity for deriding and otherwise vexing him, began a severe course of reproof. He reminded the prince of the com- mon saying that merriment without cause degrades a man in the opinion of his fellows, and indulged him with a quotation extensively used by grave fathers, namely, that the loud laugh bespeaks a vacant mind. After which he proceeded with much pompousness to pronounce the fol- lowing opinion :
" It is said in the Shastras "
" Your majesty need hardly display so much erudi- tion ! Doubtless it comes from the lips of Jayudeva or some other one of your Nine Gems of Science, who know much more about their songs and their stanzas than they do about their scriptures," insolently interrupted the Baital, who never lost an opportunity of carping at those reverend men.
" It is said in the Shastras," continued Raja Vikram sternly, after hesitating whether he should or should net administer a corporeal correction to the Vampire, "that Mother Ganga1 is the queen amongst rivers, and the mountain Sumeru2 is the monarch among mountains, and the tree Kalpavriksha 8 is the king of all trees, and the head of man is the best and most excellent of limbs. And thus, according to this reason, the wife belonged to him whose noblest position claimed her."
" The next thing your majesty will do, I suppose," continued the Baital, with a sneer, "is to support the opinions of the Digambara, who maintains that the soul
1 The " Ganges," in heaven called Mandakini. I have no idea why we still adhere to our venerable corruption of the word.
2 The fabulous mountain supposed by Hindu geographers to occupy the centre of the universe.
3 The all-bestowing tree in Indra's Paradise, which grants everything asked of it. It is the Tuba of Al-Islam, and is not un- known to the Apocryphal New Testament.
The Vampire's Ninth Story. 215
is exceedingly rarefied, confined to one place, and of equal dimensions with the body, or the fancies of that worthy philosopher Jaimani, who, conceiving soul and mind and matter to be things purely synonymous, asserts outwardly and writes in his books that the brain is the organ of the mind which is acted upon by the immortal soul, but who inwardly and verily believes that the brain is the mind, and consequently that the brain is the soul or spirit or whatever you please to call it ; in fact, that soul is a natural faculty of the body. A pretty doctrine, indeed, for a Brahman to hold. You might as well agree with me at once that the soul of irian resides, when at home, either in a vein in the breast, or in the pit of his stomach, or that half of it is in a man's brain and the other or reasoning half is in his heart, an organ of his body."
" What has all this string of words to do with the matter, Vampire?" asked Raja Vikram angrily.
"Only," said the demon laughing, " that in my opinion, as opposed to the Shastras and to Raja Vikram, that the beautiful Unmadini belonged, not to the head part but to the body part. Because the latter has an immortal soul in the pit of its stomach, whereas the former is a box of bone, more or less thick, and contains brains which are of much the same consistence as those of a calf."
" Villain ! " exclaimed the Raja, " does not the soul or conscious life enter the body through the sagittal suture and lodge in the brain, thence to contemplate, through the same opening, the divine perfections ? "
" I must, however, bid you farewell for the moment, O warrior king, Sakadhipati-Vikramaditya l ! I feel a sudden and ardent desire to change this cramped position for one more natural to me."
i " Vikramaditya, Lord of the Saka." This is prevoyance on the part of the Vampire ; the king had not acquired the title. ^
216 Vikrani and the Vampire.
The warrior monarch had so far committed himself that he could not prevent the Vampire from flitting. But he lost no more time in following him than a grain of mustard, in its fall, stays on a cow's horn. And when he had thrown him over his shoulder, the king desired him of his own accord to begin a new tale.
" O my left eyelid flutters," exclaimed the Baital in despair, " my heart throbs, my sight is dim : surely now beginneth the end. It is as Vidhata hath written on my forehead — how can it be otherwise J ? Still listen, O mighty Raja, whilst I recount to you a true story, and Saraswati2 sit on my tongue."
1 On the sixth day after the child's birth, the god Vidhata writes all its fate upon its forehead. The Moslems have a similar idea, and probably it passed to the Hindus.
2 Goddess of eloquence. "The waters of the Saraswati" is the classical Hindu phrase for the mirage.
2I7
THE VAMPIRE'S TENTH STORY.1
OF THE MARVELLOUS DELICACY OF THREE QUEENS.
THE Baital said, O king, in the Gaur country, Vardh- man by name, there is a city, and one called Gunshekhar was the Raja of that land. His minister was one Abhaich- and, a Jain, by whose teachings the king also came into the Jain faith.
The worship of Shiva and of Vishnu, gifts of cows, gifts of lands, gifts of rice balls, gaming and spirit-drink- ing, all these he prohibited. In the city no man could get leave to do them, and as for bones, into the Ganges no man was allowed to throw them, and in these matters the minister, having taken orders from the king, caused a proclamation to be made about the city, saying, " Who- ever these acts shall do, the Raja having confiscated, will punish him and banish him from the city."
Now one day the Diwan2 began to say to the Raja, " O great king, to the decisions of the Faith be pleased to
1 This story is perhaps the least interesting in the collection. I have translated it literally, in order to give an idea of the original. The reader will remark in it the source of our own nursery tale about the princess who was so high born and delicately bred, that she could discover the three peas laid beneath a straw mattress and four feather beds. The Hindus, however, believe that Sybaritism can be carried so far; I remember my Pandit asserting the truth of the story,
2 A minister. The word, as is the case with many in this col- lection, is quite modern Moslem, and anachronistic.
218 Vikram and the Vampire.
give ear. Whosoever takes the life of another, his life also in the future birth is taken : this very sin causes him to be born again and again upon earth and to die. And thus he ever continues to be born again and to die. Hence for one who has found entrance into this world to cultivate religion is right and proper. Be pleased to behold ! By love, by wrath, by pain, by desire, and by fascination overpowered, the gods Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahadeva (Shiva) in various ways upon the earth are ever becoming incarnate. Far better than they is the Cow, who is free from passion, enmity, drunkenness, anger, covetousness, and inordinate affection, who supports mankind, and whose progeny in many ways give ease and solace to the creatures of the world. These deities and sages (munis) believe in the Cow. l
" For such reason to believe in the gods is not good. Upon this earth be pleased to believe in the Cow. It is our duty to protect the life of everyone, beginning from the elephant, through ants, beasts, and birds, up to man. In the world righteousness equal to that there is none. Those who, eating the flesh of other creatures, increase
i The cow is called the mother of the gods, and is declared by Brahma, the first person of the triad, Vishnu and Shiva being the second and the third, to be a proper object of worship. " If a European speak to the Hindu about eating the flesh of cows," says an old missionary, " they immediately raise their hands to their ears ; yet milkmen, carmen, and farmers beat the cow as unmerci- fully as a carrier of coals beats his ass in England." The Jains or Jainas (from ji, to conquer ; as subduing the passions) are one of the atheistical sects with whom the Brahmans have of old carried on the fiercest religious controversies, ending in many a sanguinary fight. Their tenets are consequently exaggerated and ridiculed, as in the text. They believe that there is no such God as the common notions on the subject point out, and they hold that the highest act of virtue is to abstain from injuring sentient creatures. Man does not possess an immortal spirit : death is the same to Brahma and to a fly. Therefore there is no heaven or hell separate from present pleasure or pain. Hindu Epicureans ! — " Epicuri de grege porci."
The Vampire's Tenth Story. 219
their own flesh, shall in the fulness of time assuredly obtain the fruition of Narak l ; hence for a man it is proper to attend to the conversation of life. They who under- stand not the pain of other creatures, and who continue to slay and to devour them, last but few days in the land, and return to mundane existence, maimed, limping, one- eyed, blind, dwarfed, hunchbacked, and imperfect in such wise. Just as they consume the bodies of beasts and of birds, even so they end by spoiling their own bodies. From drinking spirits also the great sin arises, hence the consuming of spirits and flesh is not advisable."
The minister having in this manner explained to the king the sentiments of his own mind, so brought him over to the Jain faith, that whatever he said, so the king did. Thus in Brahmans, in Jogis, in Janganis, in Sevras, in Sannyasis,2 and in religious mendicants, no man be- lieved, and according to this creed the rule was carried on.
1 Narak is one of the multitudinous places of Hindu punishment, said to adjoin the residence of Ajarna. The less cultivated Jains believe in a region of torment. The illuminati, however, have a sovereign contempt for the Creator, for a future state, and for all religious ceremonies. As Hindus, however, they believe in future births of mankind, somewhat influenced by present actions. The "next birth " in the mouth of a Hindu, we are told, is the same as "to-morrow" in the mouth of a Christian. The metempsychosis is on an extensive scale : according to some, a person who loses human birth must pass through eight millions of successive incarnations — fish, insects, worms, birds, and beasts — before he can reappear as a man.
2 Jogi, or Yogi, properly applies to followers of the Yoga or Patanjala school, who by ascetic practices acquire power over the elements. Vulgarly, it is a general term for mountebank vagrants, worshippers of Shiva. The Janganis adore the same deity, and carry about a Linga. The Sevras are Jain beggars, who regard their chiefs as superior to the gods of other sects. The Sannyasis are mendicant followers of Shiva ; they never touch metals or fire, and, in religious parlance, they take up the staff. They are opposed to the Viragis, worshippers of Vishnu, who contend as strongly against the worshippers of gods who receive bloody offerings, as a Christian could do against idolatry. f
22O Vikram and the Vampire.
Now one day, being in the power of Death, Raja Gunshekhar died. Then his son Dharmadhwaj sat upon the carpet (throne), and began to rule. Presently he caused the minister Abhaichand to be seized, had his head shaved all but seven locks of hair, ordered his face to be blackened, and mounting him on an ass, with drums beaten, had him led all about the city, and drove him from the kingdom. From that time he carried on his rule free from all anxiety.
It so happened that in the season of spring, the king Dharmadhwaj, taking his queens with him, went for a stroll in the garden, where there was a large tank with lotuses blooming within it. The Raja admiring its beauty, took off his clothes and went down to bathe.
After plucking a flower and coming to the bank, he was going to give it into the hands of one of his queens, when it slipped from his fingers, fell upon her foot, and broke it with the blow. Then the Raja being alarmed, at once came out of the tank, and began to apply reme- dies to her.
Hereupon night came on, and the moon shone brightly : the falling of its rays on the body of the second queen formed blisters. And suddenly from a distance the sound of a wooden pestle came out of a householder's dwelling, when the third queen fainted away with a severe pain in the head.
Having spoken thus much the Baital said "O my king ! of these three which is the most delicate ? " The Raja answered, " She indeed is the most delicate who fainted in consequence of the headache." The Baital hearing this speech, went and hung himself from the very same tree, and the Raja, having gone there and taken him down and fastened him in the bundle and placed him on his shoulder, carried him away.
221
THE VAMPIRE'S ELEVENTH STORY.
WHICH PUZZLES RAJA VIKRAM.
THERE is a queer time coming, O Raja Vikram ! — a queer time coming (said the Vampire), a queer time coming. Elderly people like you talk abundantly about the good old days that were, and about the degeneracy of the days that are. I wonder what you would say if you could but look forward a few hundred years.
Brahmans shall disgrace themselves by becoming soldiers and being killed, and Serviles (Shudras) shall dishonour themselves by wearing the thread of the twice- born, and by refusing to be slaves ; in fact, society shall be all "mouth" and mixed castes.1 The courts of justice shall be disused ; the great works of peace shall no longer be undertaken ; wars shall last six weeks, and their causes shall be clean forgotten; the useful arts and great sciences shall die starved ; there shall be no Gems of Science; there shall be a hospital for destitute kings, those, at least, who do not lose their heads, and no Vikrama
A severe shaking stayed for a moment the Vampire's tongue.
i The Brahman, or priest, is supposed to proceed from the mouth of Brahma, the creating person of the Triad ; the Khshatriyas (soldiers) from his arms ; the Vaishyas (enterers into business) from his thighs; and the Shudras, "who take refuge in the Brahmans," from his feet. Only high caste men should assume the thread at the age of puberty.
222 Vikram and the Vampire.
He presently resumed. Briefly, building tanks ; feeding Brahmans ; lying when one ought to lie ; suicide ; the burning of widows, and the burying of live children, shall become utterly unfashionable.
The consequence of this singular degeneracy, O mighty Vikram, will be that strangers shall dwell beneath the roof tree in Bharat Khanda (India), and impure bar- barians shall call the land their own. They come from a wonderful country, and I am most surprised that they bear it. The sky which ought to be gold and blue is there grey, a kind of dark white ; the sun looks deadly pale, and the moon as if he were dead.1 The sea, when not dirty green, glistens with yellowish foam, and as you approach the shore, tall ghastly cliffs, like the skeletons of giants, stand up to receive or ready to repel. During the greater part of the sun's Dakhshanayan (southern declina- tion) the country is covered with a sort of cold white stuff which dazzles the eyes ; and at such times the air is ob- scured with what appears to be a shower of white feathers or flocks of cotton. At other seasons there is a pale glare produced by the mist clouds which spread themselves over the lower firmament. Even the faces of the people are white ; the men are white when not painted blue ; the women are whiter, and the children are whitest : these indeed often have white hair.
" Truly," exclaimed Dharma Dhwaj, " says the pro- verb, 'Whoso seeth the world telleth many a lie.' "
At present (resumed the Vampire, not heeding the interruption), they run about naked in the woods, being merely Hindu outcastes. Presently they will change — the wonderful white Pariahs ! They will eat all food indifferently, domestic fowls, onions, hogs fed in the street, donkeys, horses, hares, and (most horrible !) the flesh of the sacred cow. They will imbibe what resembles meat
i Soma, the moon, I have said, is masculine in India.
The Vampire's Eleventh Story. 223
ofcolocynth, mixed with water, producing a curious frothy liquid, and a fiery stuff which burns the mouth, for their milk will be mostly chalk and pulp of brains ; they will ignore the sweet juices of fruits and sugar-cane, and as for the pure element they will drink it, but only as medicine, They will shave their beards instead of their heads, and stand upright when they should sit down, and squat upon a wooden frame instead of a carpet, and appear in red and black like the children of Yama.1 They will never offer sacrifices to the manes of ancestors, leaving them after their death to fry in the hottest of places. Yet will they perpetually quarrel and fight about their faith ; for their tempers are fierce, and they would burst if they could not harm one another. Even now the children, who amuse themselves with making puddings on the shore, that is to say, heaping up the sand, always end their little games with "punching," which means shutting the hand and striking one another's heads, and it is soon found that the children are the fathers of the men.
These wonderful white outcastes will often be ruled by female chiefs, and it is likely that the habit of pros- trating themselves before a woman who has not the power of cutting off a single head, may account for their unusual degeneracy and uncleanness. They will consider no occupation so noble as running after a jackal ; they will dance for themselves, holding on to strange women, and they will take a pride in playing upon instruments, like young music girls.
The women, of course, relying upon the aid of the female chieftains, will soon emancipate themselves from the rules of modesty. They will eat with their husbands and with other men, and yawn and sit carelessly before them showing the backs of their heads. They will impudently quote the words, " By confinement at home, even under affectionate and observant guardians,
i Pluto.
224 Vikram and the Vampire.
women are not secure, but those are really safe who are guarded by their own inclinations " ; as the poet sang —
Woman obeys one only word, her heart. They will nor allow their husbands to have more than one wife, and even the single wife will not be his slave when he needs her services, busying herself in the collection of wealth, in ceremonial purification, and feminine duty ; in the preparation of daily food and in the superintendence of household utensils. What said Rama of Sita his wife ? " If I chanced to be angry, she bore my impatience like the patient earth without a murmur; in the hour of neces- sity she cherished me as a mother does her child ; in the moments of repose she was a lover to me ; in times of gladness she was to me as a friend." And it is said, " a religious wife assists her husband in his worship with a spirit as devout as his own. She gives her whole mind to make him happy ; she is as faithful to him as a shadow to the body, and she esteems him, whether poor or rich, good or bad, handsome or deformed. In his absence or his sickness she renounces every gratification ; at his death she dies with him, and he enjoys heaven as the fruit of her virtuous deeds. Whereas if she be guilty of many wicked actions and he should die first, he must suffer much for the demerits of his wife."
But these women will +alk aloud, and scold as the braying ass, and make the house a scene of variance, like the snake with the ichneumon, the owl with the crow, for they have no fear of losing their noses or parting with their ears. They will (O my mother !) converse with strange men and take their hands ; they will receive presents from them, and, worst of all, they will show their white faces openly without the least sense of shame ; they will ride publicly in chariots and mount horses, whose points they pride themselves upon knowing, and eat and drink in crowded places — their husbands looking on the while, and perhaps even leading them through the
The Vampire's Eleventh Story. 225
streets. And she will be deemed the pinnacle of the pagoda of perfection, that most excels in wit and shame- lessness, and who can turn to water the livers of most men. They will dance and sing instead of minding their children, and when these grow up they will send them out of the house to shift for themselves, and care little if they never see them again.1 But the greatest sin of all will be this : when widowed they will ever be on the look-out for a second husband, and instances will be known of women fearlessly marrying three, four, and five times.2 You would think that all this licence satisfies them. But no ! The more they have the more their weak minds covet. The men have admitted them to an equality, they will aim at an absolute superiority, and claim respect and homage ; they will eternally raise tem- pests about their rights, and if anyone should venture to chastise them as they deserve, they would call him a coward and run off to the judge.
The men will, I say, be as wonderful about their women as about all other matters. The sage of Bharat Khanda guards the frail sex strictly, knowing its frailty, and avoids teaching it to read and write, which it will assuredly use for a bad purpose. For women are ever subject to the god8 with the sugar-cane bow and string of bees, and arrows tipped with heating blossoms, and to him they will ever surrender man, dhan, tan — mind, wealth, and body. When, by exceeding cunning, all human .precautions have been made vain, the wise man bows to Fate, and he forgets, or he tries to forget, the past. Whereas this race of white Pariahs will purposely
1 Nothing astonishes Hindus so much as the apparent want of affection between the European parent and child.
2 A third marriage is held improper and baneful to a Hindu woman. Hence, before the nuptials they betroth the man to a tree, upon which the evil expends itself, and the tree dies.
3 Kama.
. 15*
226 Vikram and the Vampire.
lead their women into every kind of temptation, and, when an accident occurs, they will rage at and accuse them, killing ten thousand with a word, and cause an uproar, and talk scandal and be scandalized, and go before the magistrate, and make all the evil as public as possible. One would think they had in every way done their duty to their women !
And when all this change shall have come over them, they will feel restless and take flight, and fall like locusts upon the Aryavartta (land of India). Starving in their own country, they will find enough to eat here, and to carry away also. They will be mischievous as the saw with which ornament -makers trim their shells, and cut ascending as well as descending. To cultivate their friendship will be like making a gap in the water, and their partisans will ever fare worse than their foes. They will be selfish as crows, which, though they eat every kind of flesh, will not permit other birds to devour that of the crow.
In the beginning they will hire a shop near, the mouth of mother Ganges, and they will sell lead and bullion, fine and coarse woollen cloths, and all the materials for intoxication. Then they will begin to send for soldiers beyond the sea, and to enlist warriors in Zam- budwipa (India). They will from shopkeepers become soldiers : they will beat and be beaten ; they will win and lose ; but the power of their star and the enchant- ments of their Queen Kompani, a daina or witch who can draw the blood out of a man and slay him with a look, will turn everything to their good. Presently the noise of their armies shall be as the roaring of the sea ; the dazzling of their arms shall blind the eyes like lightning ; their battle-fields shall be as the dissolution of the world ; and the slaughter-ground shall resemble a garden of plan- tain trees after a storm. At length they shall spread like the march of a host of ants over the land. They will 15—2
The Vampire's Eleventh Story. 227
swear, " Debar Ganga1! " and they hate nothing so much as being compelled to destroy an army, to take and loot a city, or to add a rich slip of territory to their rule. And yet they will go on killing and capturing and adding region to region, till the Abode of Snow (Himalaya) con- fines them to the north, the Sindhu-naddi (Indus) to the west, and elsewhere the sea. Even in this, too, they will demean themselves as lords and masters, scarcely allow- ing poor Samudradevta2 to rule his own waves.
Raja Vikram was in a silent mood, otherwise he would not have allowed such ill-omened discourse to pass uninterrupted. Then the Baital, who in vain had often paused to give the royal carrier a chance of asking him a curious question, continued his recital in a dissonant and dissatisfied tone of voice.
By my feet and your head,8 O warrior king ! it will fare badly in those days for the Rajas of Hindustan, when the red-coated men of Shaka4 shall come amongst them. Listen to my words.
In the Vindhya Mountain there will be a city named Dharmapur, whose king will be called Mahabul. He will be a mighty warrior, well-skilled in the dhanur-veda (art of war),5 and will always lead his own armies to the field. He will duly regard all the omens, such as a storm at the beginning of the march, an earthquake, the implements of war dropping from the hands of the soldiery, screaming vultures passing over or walking near the army, the clouds and the sun's rays waxing red, thunder in a clear sky, the
1 An oath, meaning, " From such a falsehood preserve me, Ganges ! "
2 The Indian Neptune.
3 A highly insulting form of adjuration.
4 The British Islands — according to Wilford.
5 Literally the science (veda) of the bow (dhanush). This weapon, as everything amongst the Hindus, had a divine origin; it was of three kinds — the common bow, the pellet or stone bow, and* the crossbow or catapult.
228 Vikram and the Vampire.
moon appearing small as a star, the dropping of blood from the clouds, the falling of lightning bolts, darkness filling the four quarters of the heavens, a corpse or a pan of water being carried to the right of the army, the sight of a female beggar with dishevelled hair, dressed in red, and preceding the vanguard, the starting of the flesh over the left ribs of the commander-in- chief, and the weeping or turning back of the horses when urged forward.
He will encourage his men to single combats, and will carefully train them to gymnastics. Many of the wrestlers and boxers will be so strong that they will often beat all the extremities of the antagonist into his body, or break his back, or rend him into two pieces. He will promise heaven to those who shall die in the front of battle, and he will have them taught certain dreadful expressions of abuse to be interchanged with the enemy when com- mencing the contest. Honours will be conferred on those who never turn their backs in an engagement, who mani- fest a contempt of death, who despise fatigue, as well as the most formidable enemies, who shall be found invincible in every combat, and who display a courage which increases before danger, like the glory of the sun advancing to his meridian splendour.
But King Mahabul will be attacked by the white Pariahs, who, as usual, will employ against him gold, fire, and steel. With gold they will win over his best men, and persuade them openly to desert when the army is drawn out for battle. They will use the terrible " fire weapon,1" large and small tubes, which discharge flame and smoke, and bullets as big as those hurled by the bow of Bharata.2 And instead of using swords and shields, they will fix daggers to the end of their tubes, and thrust with them like lances.
1 It is a disputed point whether the ancient Hindus did or did not know the use of gunpowder.
2 It is said to have discharged balls, each 6,400 pounds in weight
The Vampire's Eleventh Story. 229
Mahabul, distinguished by valour and military skill, will march. out of his city to meet the white foe. In front will be the ensigns, bells, cows'-tails, and flags, the latter painted with the bird Garura^the bull of Shiva, the Bau- hinia tree, the monkey-god Hanuman, the lion and the tiger, the fish, an alms-dish, and seven palm-trees. Then will come the footmen armed with fire-tubes, swords and shields, spears and daggers, clubs, and blud- geons. They will be followed by fighting men on horses and oxen, on camels and elephants. The musicians, the water-carriers, and lastly the stores on carriages, will bring up the rear.
The white outcastes will come forward in a long thin red thread, and vomiting fire like the Jwalamukhi.2 King Mahabul will receive them with his troops formed in a circle ; another division will be in the shape of a half- moon ; a third like a cloud, whilst others shall represent a lion, a tiger, a carriage, a lily, a giant, and a bull. But as the elephants will all turn round when they feel the fire, and trample upon their own men, and as the cavalry defiling in front of the host will openly gallop away ; Mahabul, being thus without resource, will enter his palanquin, and accompanied by his queen and their only daughter, will escape at night-time into the forest.
The unfortunate three will be deserted by their small party, and live for a time on jungle food, fruits and roots ; they will even be compelled to eat game. After some days they will come in sight of a village, which Mahabul will enter to obtain victuals. There the wild Bhils, famous for long years, will come up, and surrounding the party, will bid the Raja throw down his arms. There- upon Mahabul, skilful in aiming, twanging and wielding
1 A kind of Mercury, a god with the head and wings of a bird, who is the Vahan or vehicle of the second person of the Triad, Vishnu.
2 The celebrated burning springs of Baku, near the Caspian, are so called. There are many other " fire mouths."
230 Vikrdm and the Vampire.
the bow on all sides, so as to keep off the bolts of the enemy, will discharge his bolts so rapidly, that one will drive forward another, and none of the barbarians will be able to approach. But he will have failed to bring his quiver containing an inexhaustible store of arms, some of which, pointed with diamonds, shall have the faculty of re- turning again to their case after they have done their duty. The conflict will continue three hours, and many of the Bhils will be slain : at length a shaft will cleave the king's skull, he will fall dead, and one of the wild men will come up and cut off his head.
When the queen and the princess shall have seen that Mahabul fell dead, they will return to the forest weeping and beating their bosoms. They will thus escape the Bhils, and after journeying on for four miles, at length they will sit down wearied, and revolve many thoughts in their minds.
They are very lovely (continued the Vampire), as I see them with the eye of clear-seeing. What beautiful hair ! it hangs down like the tail of the cow of Tartary, or like the thatch of a house ; it is shining as oil, dark as the clouds, black as blackness itself. What charming faces ! likest to water-lilies, with eyes as the stones in unripe mangos, noses resembling the beaks of parrots, teeth like pearls set in corals, ears like those of the red- throated vulture, and mouths like the water of life. What excellent forms! breasts like boxes containing essences, the unopened fruit of plantains or a couple of crabs ; loins the width of a span, like the middle of the viol ; legs like the trunk of an elephant, and feet like the yellow lotus.
And a fearful place is that jungle, a dense dark mass of thorny shrubs, and ropy creepers, and tall canes, and tangled brake, and gigantic gnarled trees, which groan wildly in the night wind's embrace. But a wilder horror urges the unhappy women on ; they fear the
The Vampires Eleventh Story. 231
polluting touch of the Bhils ; once more they rise and plunge deeper into its gloomy depths.
The day dawns. The white Pariahs have done their usual work. They have cut off the hands of some, the feet and heads of others, whilst many they have crushed into shapeless masses, or scattered in pieces upon the ground. The field is strewed with corpses, the river runs red, so that the dogs and jackals swim in blood ; the birds of prey sitting on the branches, drink man's life from the stream, and enjoy the sickening smell of burnt flesh.
Such will be the scenes acted in the fair land of Bharat.
Perchance two white outcastes, father and son, who with a party of men are scouring the forest and slaying everything, fall upon the path which the women have taken shortly before. Their attention is attracted by footprints leading towards a place full of tigers, leopards, bears, wolves, and wild dogs. And they are utterly con- founded when, after inspection, they discover the sex of the wanderers.
"How is it," shall say the father, "that the foot- prints of mortals are seen in this part of the forest? "
The son shall reply, "Sir, these are the marks of women's feet : a man's foot would not be so small."
"It is passing strange," shall rejoin the elder white Pariah, "but thou speakest truth. Certainly such a soft and delicate foot cannot belong to anyone but a woman."
"They have only just left the track," shall continue the son, "and look! this is the step of a married woman. See how she treads on the inside of her sole, because of the bending of her ankles." And the younger white outcaste shall point to the queen's footprints.
"Come, let us search the forest for them," shall cry the father, "what an opportunity of finding wives fortune has thrown in our hands. But no ! thou art hi error," he shall continue, after examining the track pointed out jpy
232 Vikram and the Vampire.
his son, "in supposing this to be the sign of a matron. Look at the other, it is much longer ; the toes have scarcely touched the ground, whereas the marks of the heels are deep. Of a truth this must be the married woman." And the elder white outcaste shall point to the footprints of the princess.
" Then," shall reply the son, who admires the shorter foot, " let us first seek them, and when we find them, give to me her who has the short feet, and take the other to wife thyself."
Having made this agreement they shall proceed on their way, and presently they shall find the women lying on the earth, half dead with fatigue and fear. Their legs and feet are scratched and torn by brambles, their orna- ments have fallen off, and their garments are in strips. The two white outcastes find little difficulty, the first surprise over, in persuading the unhappy women to follow them home, and with great delight, conformably to their arrangement, each takes up his prize on his horse and rides back to the tents. The son takes the queen, and the father the princess.
In due time two marriages come to pass ; the father, according to agreement, espouses the long foot, and the son takes to wife the short foot. And after the usual interval, the elder white outcaste, who had married the daughter, rejoices at the birth of a boy, and the younger white outcaste, who had married the mother, is gladdened by the sight of a girl.
Now then, by my feet and your head, O warrior king Vikram, answer me one question. What relationship will there be between the children of the two white Pariahs ?
Vikram's brow waxed black as a charcoal-burner's, when he again heard the most irreverent oath ever pro- posed to mortal king. The question presently attracted his attention, and he turned over the Baital's words in
The Vampire's Eleventh Story. 233
his head, confusing the ties of filiality, brotherhood, and relationship, and connection in general.
" Hem ! " said the warrior king, at last perplexed, and remembering, in his perplexity, that he had better hold his tongue — " ahem ! "
" I think your majesty spoke ? " asked the Vampire, in an inquisitive and insinuating tone of voice.
" Hem ! " ejaculated the monarch.
The Baital held his peace for a few minutes, cough- ing once or twice impatiently. He suspected that the extraordinary nature of this last tale, combined with the use of the future tense, had given rise to a taciturnity so unexpected in the warrior king. He therefore asked if Vikram the Brave would not like to hear another little anecdote.
" This time the king did not even say " hem ! " Having walked at an unusually rapid pace, he dis- tinguished at a distance the fire kindled by the devotee, and he hurried towards it with an effort which left him no breath wherewith to speak, even had he been so inclined.
"Since your majesty is so completely dumbfoundered by it, perhaps this acute young prince may be able to answer my question?" insinuated the. Baital, after a few minutes of anxious suspense.
But Dharma Dhwaj answered not a syllable.
234
CONCLUSION.
AT Raja Vikram's silence the Baital was greatly surprised, and he praised the royal courage and resolution to the skies. Still he did not give up the contest at once.
"Allow me, great king," pursued the Demon, in a dry tone of voice, " to wish you joy. After so many failures you have at length succeeded in repressing your loquacity. I will not stop to enquire whether it was humility and self-restraint which prevented your answering my last question, or whether it was mere ignorance and inability. Of course I suspect the latter, but to say the truth your condescension in at last taking a Vampire's advice, flatters me so much, that I will not look too narrowly into cause or motive."
Raja Vikram winced, but maintained a stubborn silence, squeezing his lips lest they should open involun- tarily.
" Now, however, your majesty has mortified, we will suppose, a somewhat exacting vanity, I also will in my turn forego the pleasure which I had anticipated in seeing you a corpse and in entering your royal body for a short time, just to know how queer it must feel to be a king. And what is more, I will now perform my original promise, and you shall derive from me a benefit which none but myself can bestow. First, however, allow me to ask you, will you let me have a little more air?"
Dharma Dhwaj pulled his father's sleeve, but this
Conclusion. 235
time Raja Vikram required no reminder : wild horses or the executioner's saw, beginning at the shoulder, would not have drawn a word from him. Observing his obstinate silence, the Baital, with an ominous smile, con- tinued :
" Now give ear, O warrior king, to what I am about to tell thee, and bear in mind the giant's saying, ' A man is justified in killing one who has a design to kill him.' The young merchant Mai Deo, who placed such magnifi- cent presents at your royal feet, and Shanta-Shil the devotee saint, who works his spells, incantations, and magical rites in a cemetery on the banks of the Godaveri river, are, as thou knowest, one person — the terrible Jogi, whose wrath your father aroused in his folly, and whose revenge your blood alone can satisfy. With regard to myself, the oilman's son, the same Jogi, fearing lest I might interfere with his projects of universal dominion, slew me by the power of his penance, and has kept me suspended, a trap for you, head downwards from the siras-tree.
"That Jogi it was, you now know, who sent you to fetch me back to him on your back. And when you cast me at his feet he will return thanks to you and praise your valour, perseverance and resolution to the skies. I warn you to beware. He will lead you to the shrine of Durga, and when he has finished his adoration he will say to you, * O great king, salute my deity with the eight- limbed reverence.' "
Here the Vampire whispered for a time and in a low tone, lest some listening goblin might carry his words if spoken out loud to the ears of the devotee Shanta-Shil.
At the end of the monologue a rustling sound was heard. It proceeded from the Baital, who was disengag- ing himself from the dead body in the bundle, and the burden became sensibly lighter upon the monarch's back.
The departing Baital, however, did not forget to bid
236 Vikram and the Vampire.
farewell to the warrior king and to his son. fiTe compli- mented the former for the last time, in his own way, upon the royal humility and the prodigious self-mortification which he had displayed — qualities, he remarked, which never failed to ensure the proprietor's success in all the worlds.
There he found the Jogi.
Raja Vikram stepped out joyfully, and soon reached the burning ground. There he found the Jogi, dressed in his usual habit, a deerskin thrown over his back, and twisted reeds instead of a garment hanging round his loins. The hair had fallen from his limbs and his skin was bleached ghastly white by exposure to the elements. A fire seemed to proceed from his mouth, and the matted
Conclusion. 237
locks dropping from his head to the ground were changed by the rays of the sun to the colour of gold or saffron. He had the beard of a goat and the ornaments of a king ; his shoulders were high and his arms long, reaching to his knees : his nails grew to such a length as to curl round the ends of his fingers, and his feet resembled those of a tiger. He was drumming upon a skull, and inces- santly exclaiming, " Ho, Kali ! ho, Durga ! ho, Devi ! "
As before, strange beings were holding their carnival in the Jogi's presence. Monstrous Asuras, giant goblins, stood grimly gazing upon the scene with fixed eyes and motionless features. Rakshasas and messengers of Yama, fierce and hideous, assumed at pleasure the shapes of foul and ferocious beasts. Nagas and Bhutas, partly human and partly bestial, disported themselves in throngs about the upper air, and were dimly seen in the faint light of the dawn. Mighty Daityas, Bramha-daityas, and Pretas, the size of a man's thumb, or dried up like leaves, and Pisachas of terrible power guarded the place. There were enormous goats, vivified by the spirits of those who had slain Brahmans ; things with the bodies of men and the faces of horses, camels and monkeys ; hideous worms containing the souls of those priests who had drunk spirituous liquors ; men with one leg and one ear, and mischievous blood-sucking demons, who in life had stolen church property. There were vultures, wretches that had violated the beds of their spiritual fathers, restless ghosts that had loved low-caste women, shades for whom funeral rites had not been performed, and who could not cross the dread Vaitarani stream,1 and vital souls fresh from the horrors of Tamisra, or utter darkness, and the Usipatra Vana, or the sword-leaved forest. Pale spirits, Alayas, Gumas, Baitals, and Yakshas,2 beings of a base
1 The Hindu Styx.
2 From Yaksha, to eat ; as Rakshasas are from Raksha, to pre- serve.— See .Hardy's Manual of Buddhism, p. 57.
238 Vikram-and the Vampire.
and vulgar order, glided over the ground, amongst corpses and skeletons animated by female fiends, Dakinis, Yoginis,' Hakinis, and Shankinis, which were dancing in frightful revelry. The air was filled with supernatural sights and sounds, cries of owls and jackals, cats and crows, dogs, asses, and vultures, high above which rose the clashing of the bones with which the Jogi sat drumming upon the skull before him, and tending a huge cauldron of oil whose smoke was of blue fire. But as he raised his long lank arm, silver-white with ashes, the demons fled, and a momentary silence succeeded to their uproar. The tigers ceased to roar and the elephants to scream ; the bears raised their snouts from their foul banquets, and the wolves dropped from their jaws the remnants of human flesh. And when they disappeared, the hooting of the owl, and ghastly "ha ! ha ! " of the curlew, and the howl- ing of the jackal died away in the far distance, leaving a silence still more oppressive.
As Raja Vikram entered the burni-ng-ground, the hollow sound of solitude alone met his ear. Sadly wailed the wet autumnal blast. The tall gaunt trees groaned aloud, and bowed and trembled like slaves bending before their masters. Huge purple clouds and patches and lines of glaring white mist coursed furiously across the black expanse of firmament, discharging threads and chains and lozenges and balls of white and blue, purple and pink lightning, followed by the deafening crash and roll of thunder, the dreadful roaring of the mighty wind, and the torrents of plashing rain. At times was heard in the distance the dull gurgling of the swollen river, interrupted by explosions, as slips of earth-bank fell headlong into the stream. But once more the Jogi raised his arm and all was still : nature lay breathless, as if awaiting the effect of his tremendous spells.
The warrior king drew near the terrible man, un- strung his bundle from his back, untwisted the portion
Conclusion. 239
which he held, threw open the cloth, and exposed to Shanta-Shil's glittering eyes the corpse, which had now recovered its proper form — that of a young child Seeing it, the devotee was highly pleased, and thanked Vikram the Brave, extolling his courage and daring above any monarch that had yet lived. After which he repeated certain charms facing towards the south, awakened the dead body, and placed it in a sitting position. He then in its presence sacrificed to his goddess, the White One,1 all that he had ready by his side — betel leaf and flowers, sandal wood and unbroken rice, fruits, perfumes, and the flesh of man untouched by steel. Lastly, he half filled his skull with burning embers, blew upon them till they shot forth tongues of crimson light, serving as a lamp, and motioning the Raja and his son to follow him, led the way to a little fane of the Destroying Deity erected in a dark clump of wood, outside and close to the burning- ground.
They passed through the quadrangular outer court of the temple whose piazza was hung with deep shade.2 In silence they circumambulated the small central shrine, and whenever Shanta-Shil directed, Raja Vikram entered the Sabha, or vestibule, and struck three times upon the gong, which gave forth a loud and warning sound.
They then passed over the threshold, and looked into the gloomy inner depths. There stood Smashana-Kali,8
1 Shiva is always painted white, no one knows why. His wife Gauri has also a European complexion. Hence it is generally said that the sect popularly called " Thugs," who were worshippers of these murderous gods, spared Englishmen, the latter being supposed to have some rapport with their deities.
2 The Hindu shrine is mostly a small building, with two inner compartments, the vestibule and the Garbagriha or adytum, in which stands the image.
3 Meaning Kali of the cemetery (Smashana) ; another form of Durga.
240 Vikram and the Vampire*
the goddess, in her most horrid form. She was a naked and very black woman, with half-severed head, partly cut and partly painted, resting on her shoulder ; and her tongue lolled out from her wide yawning mouth1; her eyes were red like those of a drunkard ; and her eyebrows were of the same colour : her thick coarse hair hung like a mantle to her heels. She was robed in an elephant's hide, dried and withered, confined at the waist with a belt composed of the hands of the giants whom she had slain in war : two dead bodies formed her earrings, and her necklace was of bleached skulls. Her four arms supported a scimitar, a noose, a trident, and a ponder- ous mace. She stood with one leg on the breast of her husband, Shiva, and she rested the other on his thigh. Before the idol lay the utensils of worship, namely, dishes for the offerings, lamps, jugs, incense, copper cups, conches and gongs ; and all of them smelt of blood.
As Raja Vikram and his son stood gazing upon the hideous spectacle, the devotee stooped down to place his skull-lamp upon the ground, and drew from out his ochre- coloured cloth a sharp sword which he hid behind his back.
" Prosperity to thine and thy son's for ever and ever, O mighty Vikram ! " exclaimed Shanta-Shil, after he had muttered a prayer before the image. " Verily thou hast right royally redeemed thy pledge, and by the virtue of thy presence all my wishes shall presently be accom- plished. Behold ! the Sun is about to drive his car over the eastern hills, and our task now ends. Do thou reverence before this my deity, worshipping the earth
i Not being able to find victims, this pleasant deity, to satisfy her thirst for the curious juice, cut her own throat that the blood might spout up into her mouth. She once found herself dancing on her husband, and was so shocked that in surprise she put out her tongue to a great length, and remained motionless. She is often represented in this form.
Conclusion. 241
through thy nose, and so prostrating thyself that thy eight limbs may touch the ground.1 Thus shall thy glory and splendour be great ; the Eight Powers2 and the Nine Treasures shall be thine, and prosperity shall ever re- main under thy roof-tree."
Raja Vikram, hearing these words, recalled suddenly to mind all that the Vampire had whispered to him. He brought his joined hands open up to his forehead, caused his two thumbs to touch his brow several times, and replied with the greatest humility,
" O pious person ! I am a king ignorant of the way to do such obeisance. Thou art a spiritual preceptor : be pleased to teach me and I will do even as thou desirest."
Then the Jogi, being a cunning man, fell into his own net. As he bent him down to salute the goddess, Vikram, drawing his sword, struck him upon the neck so violent a blow, that his head rolled from his body upon the ground. At the same moment Dharma Dhwaj, seizing his father's arm, pulled him out of the way in time to escape being crushed by the image, which fell with the sound of thunder upon the floor of the temple.
A small thin voice in the upper air was heard to cry, " A man is justified in killing one who has the desire to kill him." Then glad shouts of triumph and victory were heard in all directions. They proceeded from the celestial choristers, the heavenly dancers, the mistresses of the gods, and the nymphs of Indra's Paradise, who left their beds of gold and precious stones, their seats glorious as the meridian sun, their canals of crystal water, their per- fumed groves, and their gardens where the wind ever
1 This ashtanga, the most ceremonious of the five forms of Hindu salutation, consists of prostrating and of making the eight parts of the body — namely, the temples, nose and chin, knees and hands — touch the ground.
2 " Sidhis," the personified Powers of Nature. At least, so we explain them ; but people do not worship abstract powers.
16
242
V ikv am and the Vampire.
blows in softest breezes, to applaud the valour and good fortune of the warrior king.
At last the brilliant god, Indra himself, with the thousand eyes, rising from the shade of the Parigat tree, the fragrance of whose flowers fills the heavens, appeared in his car drawn by yellow steeds and cleaving the thick vapours which surround the earth — whilst his attendants sounded the heavenly drums and rained a shower of
As he bent him down to salute the goddess.
blossoms and perfumes — bade the Vikramajit the Brave ask a boon.
The Raja joined his hands and respectfully replied, "O mighty ruler of the lower firmament, let this my history become famous throughout the world ! "
" It is well," rejoined the god. " As long as the sun and moon endure, and the sky looks down upon the ground, so long shall this thy adventure be remembered over all the earth. Meanwhile rule thou mankind."
Conclusion.
243
Thus saying, Indra retired to the delicious Amrawati.1 Vikram took up the corpses and threw them into the caul- dron which Shanta-Shil had been tending. At once two heroes started into life, and Vikram said to them, " When I call you, come ! "
With these mysterious words the king, followed by his son, returned to the palace unmolested. As the Vampire had predicted, everything was prosperous to him, and he presently obtained the remarkable titles, Sakaro, or foe of the Sakas, and Sakadhipati-Vikramaditya.
And when, after a long and happy life spent in bring- ing the world under the shadow of one umbrella, and in ruling it free from care, the warrior king Vikram entered the gloomy realms of Yama, from whom for mortals there is no escape, he left behind him a name that endured amongst men like the odour of the flower whose memory remains long after its form has mingled with the dust.2
1 The residence of Indra, king of heaven, built by Wishwa- Karma, the architect of the gods.
2 In other words, to the present day, whenever a Hindu novelist, romancer, or tale writer seeks a peg upon which to suspend the texture of his story, he invariably pitches upon the glorious, pious, and immortal memory of that Eastern King Arthur, Vikram- aditya, shortly called Vikram.
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