Panchtantra Stories

One day a fiend name Cruel met a Brahmin in his wanderings in the forest, and climbed on his shoulder, and said, "Keep going ahead." So the terrified Brahman started off with him.But on observing that the fiend's feet were soft as a lotus-heart, he asked him: "Sir, why are your feet so tender?" And the fiend replied: "I am under a vow never to touch the ground with my feet until I have washed them." Soon the Brahman, while meditating a plan of escape, came to a lake. Here the fiend said: "Sir, do not stir from this spot until I come forth from the lake after bathing and worshiping the god." Thereupon the Brahman thought: "He will be sure to eat me after his worship. I will hurry away. For he will not follow me with unwashen feet." And when he did so, the fiend, not daring to break his vow, did not follow. After listening to this, the king summoned the Brahmans and said: "Brahmans, a three-breasted daughter has been born to me. Are any remedial measures to be taken, or not?" And they replied: "O King, listen. A daughter fitted out with limbs Too numerous or few, Will lose her character, and willDestroy her husband, too. But if the father sees a girl With triple breast about,She dooms him to a speedy deathWithout a shade of doubt. "Therefore, O King, shun the sight of her. Give her to anyone who will marry her, but banish him from the country. If this is done, there is no offense to laws human or divine." When the king had listened to this opinion, he ordered a proclamation to be made everywhere with beat of drum, as follows: "Hear ye! There is a threebreasted princess. To anyone who marries her the king will give a hundred thousand gold-pieces, but will exile him." For a long time this proclamation was made without anyone marrying the princess, who remained in seclusion and grew to young womanhood. Now there was a blind man in the city, and as companion he had a hunchback named Slow, who guided him with a staff. These two heard the drum and consulted, saying: "In case we touch that drum, we get girl and gold. With the gold our life will be happy. And even if death results from the girl's deformity, it will put a final end to the wretchedness of poverty. For Until a mortal's belly-pot Is full, he does not care a jotFor love or music, wit or shame, For body's care or scholar's name, For virtue or for social charm, For lightness or release from harm, For godlike wisdom, youthful beauty. For purity or anxious duty." After this consultation, the blind man went and touched the drum saying: "I will marry the girl." Thereupon the king’s men went and reported: O, King, a certain blind man has touched the drum. Decision rests with the king." And the king said: "Listen, Blind or deaf, of meanest birth,Leprous may he be;Let him take the girl and goldTo a far country." So the king’s men, following their lord’s command, took the three-breasted princess to the river-bank, married her to the blind man, and gave him the hundred thousand gold-pieces. Then putting them all in a fishing-boat, they said to the fishermen: "Men, take this blind man, with his wife and the hunchback, to a foreign land, and settle them in some town or other." So they came to a foreign country, all three of them. There in a certain town they purchased a house and lived comfortably. The blind man, however, spent all his time dozing on a couch. The hunchback did the housework. In course of time the princess had an intrigue with the hunchback, and she said: "My beloved, if this blind man happened to be killed, we should live happily together. Please find some poison. I will administer it, will kill him, and will become happy." Now one day the hunchback picked up a dead black snake, and joyfully returning home with it, he said to her: "Beloved, I found this black snake. Please cut it up, season it with delicious tidbits and give it to that eyeless fellow, telling him it is fish. Then he will die in a hurry." And with this Slow started off for the market.