Reading Notes: The Sacred Tales of India, Part C

The Gift of the Ascetic

• A king with 3 wives had no children and this was depressing to him because that signified that he lived a sinful life in a previous existence. No one even liked being in his presence. 
• Even the man who swept the palace who lost his appetite upon seeing the king. 
• The king heard of this and became depressed until one day a holy ascetic went to see him and told him he will be a father if he eats this drug along with his wives.

              - The catch is one of the sons must be his (the ascetics)

• The two eldest wives took all the medicine for themselves bc they did not like the young wife.

              - The young wife heard of this though and resorted to licking the cup

              - The two eldest wives gave birth to 2 sons each, the young wife gave birth to a conch shell

• The boys grew up and the wives and husband forgot about the deal with the ascetic and the young wife realized her conch shell was splitting at night and revealing young man inside.
• The ascetic eventually went back and the king thought he could outwit him by giving him a son of a maid but the ascetic knew and was furious the king eventually gave him the son of the youngest. 
• The youngest wife prayed to Sancta- Narayan, he said her son will come back to her.
• The conch shell son met a beautiful maiden in a cabin in an area the ascetic forbade him to go and they fell in love but turns out him and the maiden are going to be sacrificed. 

            - They devise this plan and it turns out great.

            - the conch shell sons pretends to not understand the ascetics instruction's so he showed him and the conch shell son cut off his head!

• They lived happily ever after

The Sun's Twin Sons

• Very odd story about a woman who was not married 
• A king sent for her to bring sun to his kingdom for just 1 day.
• She prayed to the sun god and said she would give herself to him if he shone the sun on the king for just one day.

          - he did just that but she hid from him so he married her in spirit.
          - she gave birth to twin sons
          -  I don't really understand why the king is so worried about if she has children or not but he
             keeps checking on her to make sure and overtime she hides them.

• Her kids turn into vessels of blood when the sun is out?
• she pours them on a tree one day to hide them from the king

The Consequences of Generosity

• a Brahman woman and a milkmaid were friends
• Obviously the Brahman had more wealth than the milkmaid and the milkmaid one day asked if she could borrow the Brahman's image of Narayana for a year so she might praise her and find wealth too.

            - The Brahman agreed

• Soon the Brahman lost all her wealth and traveled looking for a place to stay but all the people she had cared for previously turned her away, not recognizing her.
• After a year when she retrieved her image of Narayana and her wealth was returned to her approached those people and was like hey, why didn't you care for me

                - all the people (including her own daughter) were all like I'm so sorry I did not know it was
                      you

(Narayana)

A Brahman's Ban

• Indra, king of the gods threw a party
• The party was getting a little crazy and a Brahman showed up and instead of Indra saluting him threw some flowers at him that had just been received by dancing girls.
• The brahman took this as an insult and cursed Indra, saying he has to be a cat for 12 years.

            - Indra died right then and returned as a cat

• Sachi, Indra's wife was unaware of this transition. She went looking for the Brahman who cursed him so she could find out where he was reborn at.
• Sachi found Indra and they slept for 12 years until Indra turned into a man again.

(Cat from pixabay)

The Pir's Power

• A beggar (who worshiped Narayan) ran into a Brahman (who worshiped Satya Pir)
• The beggar decided to worship Satya Pir and found much wealth and his neighbor who was childless worshiped him too after hearing about the beggars wealth.
• He had a daughter who grew up to be beautiful
• She married a wealthy merchant

              - they set sail and landed in a kingdom and bought a stolen necklace (they did not know it
                 was stolen).
              - the merchant was arrested
              - his wife prayed to Satya Pir and he visited the king that held their husbands captive and
                demanded their husbands be released

• The husbands journeyed home with their restored wealth and never forgot to praise Satya Pir

The Gander- Eater

• A poor Brahman widow had a son who went to school with all the other kids and was ashamed that he only ate vegetables and not fish like the rich kids. 

                 - He went home crying to his mom, embarrassed.

• The boy stole  bird for his mom to cook and the next day he was imprisoned. 
• The poor widow praised the goddess Subachani and it worked bc she granted her a wish
• Her son was released from prison and married the kings daughter earning him half the kingdom
• The widowed Brahman never stopped praising Subachani from then on.

Bibliography: Sacred Tales of India. D.N. Neogi. Illustrated by P. Ghose. 1916.