Sex, Marriage and Family in World Religions (57 page)

The king said, “Do you happen to know where the ogre went when he had let you go? Your husband sent me here, O giver of joy to Brahmins.” The Brahmin lady said, “The night-wandering ogre is staying inside this very forest.

Go in and see—unless you’re afraid.” He entered on the path that she had indicated, and saw the ogre, who was surrounded by his troops. The moment that the ogre saw the king, he made haste from afar to touch his head to the earth, and then he approached the king’s feet and said, “By coming here to my house you have done me a great favour. Command me; what can I do for you?

For I live within your political domain. Please accept this welcoming water and take this seat. We are your servants; you are our master. Command me absolutely.”

The king said, “You have done everything, and rendered me all recompense.

But for what purpose did you bring the Brahmin’s wife here, night-wanderer?

She is not good-looking; there are other wives, if you stole her for that. And if you brought her here to eat her, why haven’t you eaten her? Tell me that.” The ogre said, “We don’t eat people; those are other ogres, your majesty. But we eat the fruit of a good deed. And I will tell you about the fruit of a good deed: that

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is how I came to be reborn in the cruel and terrifying womb of an ogre. When we are dishonoured, we eat the very nature of men and women. But we do not eat flesh; we do not eat living creatures. When we eat the patience of men, they become angry; when we have eaten their evil nature, they become virtuous.

We have gorgeous female ogres who are the equal of the celestial nymphs when it comes to beauty. While they are here, how could we take sexual pleasure in human females?”

The king said, “If you want her neither for your bed nor for your table, night-wanderer, then why did you enter the Brahmin’s house and steal her?” The ogre said, “That Brahmin is outstanding when it comes to knowing mantras; as I went to sacrifice after sacrifice, he would recite the mantra that destroys ogres and prevent me from doing my job. We’re starving because of the ritual of mantras that he uses to keep us from making our living. Where can we go?

That Brahmin is the officiating priest in all the sacrifices. Therefore we brought this deficiency upon him: without a wife, a man is not fit to perform the rituals of sacrifice.”

When he said the word “deficiency,” referring to the Brahmin, the king became deeply depressed, thinking, “He is talking about the Brahmin’s deficiency, but truly I am the one that he censures. And that excellent sage also said that I did not deserve the water for a guest. Since the ogre, too, spoke to me about the deficiency of that Brahmin, I must really be in a very tight spot as a result of not having a wife.” As the king was thinking these thoughts, the ogre spoke to him again, bowing low to the king and cupping his hands in reverence: “Your majesty, do me the favour of giving me a command as I bow before you, your servant who lives in your realm.” The king said, “Night-wanderer, since you did say, ‘We eat the very nature. . . . ’ , listen to what we would like you to do. Eat the evil nature of this Brahmin lady, right now. When you have eaten her evil nature, she may become nice. Then take her to the house of the man whose wife she is. When this is done, you will have done all that can be done for me as one who has come to your house.”

Thereupon, by the king’s command, the ogre used his own power of illusion to enter inside the woman and eat her evil nature. And when he had stripped the Brahmin’s wife of her extremely fierce evil nature, she said to the king, “By the ripening of the fruits of my own karma, I was separated from my noble husband; this night-wanderer was merely the proximate cause of that. The fault was not his, nor that of my noble husband; the fault is mine, no one else’s; one eats the fruit of what one has done oneself. In another life, I separated myself from some man; and that separation has now fallen upon me; what fault could there be in my noble husband?”

The ogre said, “My lord, I will take her to her husband’s house, as you command. But command me to do whatever else can be done for you, your majesty.” The king said, “When this is done, you have done everything for me, heroic night-wanderer. But come to me whenever I think of you, when the time
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comes for something to be done.” “Yes!” said the ogre, and then he took the Brahmin’s wife—who was purified and without her evil nature—and brought her quickly to her husband’s house.

Now, when the king had sent the woman to her husband’s house, he sighed and thought, “What good deed could there be in this? The noble sage said that I was wretched because I was unfit for the offering of water to a guest, and this night-wanderer spoke of deficiency, referring to the Brahmin. I abandoned my wife. How shall I act? I shall ask that incomparable sage, who has the eye of knowledge.” Reasoning in this way, the king mounted his chariot and went to the dwelling of the great sage—the soul of
dharma,
knower of past, present and future. He dismounted from his chariot, approached the sage, bowed to him, and told him what had happened to him: how he had met the ogre, and seen the Brahmin woman, and how her evil nature had vanished, and how he had sent her to her husband’s house, and the reason for his own return.

The sage said, “I already knew what you had done, your majesty, and your reason for coming back to me with an aching heart: you came to ask me, ‘What am I to do about this?’ Now that you have come, your majesty, listen to what you must do. A wife is a powerful cause of
dharma,
profit, and pleasure for men; in particular, a man who abandons a wife is abandoned by
dharma
. A man who has no wife, your majesty, is not fit to perform the obligatory rituals, whether he is a Brahmin, a Kshatriya, a Vaishya, or a Shudra. When you abandoned your wife, you didn’t do a very good thing; for just as women should not abandon a husband, so too men should not abandon a wife.”

The king said, “Sir, what shall I
do
? This was the ripening of my karmas, that made me abandon her because she was not affectionate to me when I was affectionate toward her. Whatever one does one endures with an aching heart and an inner soul that fears separation. But she was abandoned in the forest, and now I do not know where she has gone. Maybe she was eaten in the forest by lions or tigers or night-wandering ogres.”

The sage said, “She has not been eaten, your majesty, by lions or tigers or night-wandering ogres. She is now in the subterranean watery world, but there is still no stain on her character.” The king said, “Who took her to the subterranean world? And how did she come to remain unstained? This is most mar-vellous, Brahmin; you must tell me how it happened.”

The sage said, “In the subterranean world there is a Naga king, the famous Kapotaka. He saw her when you had abandoned her and she was wandering around in the great forest. And since the young woman has both beauty and good character, he fell in love with her, declared his intentions to her, and carried her to the subterranean world. Now, the wise Naga king has a beautiful daughter named Nanda, your majesty; and he also has a charming wife. When the daughter saw your queen, more beautiful than her mother, she thought, ‘This woman will become the rival co-wife of my mother,’ and so she brought her to her own house and hid her in the inner apartments of the women there.

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But when Nanda was asked (for the queen), she refused to give any answer; and so her father said to his daughter, ‘You will become mute.’ The daughter remained there, under this curse; and your wife, that was carried off by the Naga king, is still kept there by his daughter, and is still chaste.”

The king, rejoicing, asked that outstanding Brahmin the cause of his own bad luck with regard to the woman he loved: “Sir,” said the king, “everyone likes me very much, but my own wife is not very fond of me; what is the cause of this? I long for her excessively, even more than for my own vital breath, great sage; but she is badly disposed toward me. Tell me the reason for that, Brahmin.”

The sage said, “At the moment when you took her hand in the marriage ceremony, the sun, Mars, and Saturn looked down on you, and Venus and Jupiter looked down on your wife. At that moment, the moon was for you, and Mercury, the son of the moon, was for her. These two groups are inimical to one another, and very inimical to you, your majesty. Now, go and protect the earth according to your own
dharma;
with your wife as your assistant, perform all the rituals of
dharma
.” When King Uttama heard this, he bowed to the sage, mounted his chariot, and went back to his own city. When he arrived at his own city, the king saw the Brahmin, now joyously united with his wife, who now had a good character. The Brahmin said, “Best of kings, I have achieved my aims, since you who know
dharma
have protected
dharma
and brought my wife back to me.” The king said, “You have indeed achieved your aims, incomparable Brahmin, by protecting your own
dharma
. But we are in a tight spot, since we do not have a wife in the house.” “Great king,” said the Brahmin, “if she has been devoured by beasts of prey in the forest, you should not disregard
dharma
by allowing anger to overpower you. Enough of her; why don’t you take the hand of another woman in marriage, your majesty? There are beautiful maidens in the houses of kings.” The king said, “The woman I love was not eaten by beasts of prey; she is alive, and her character is still unstained. How shall I act in this matter?”

The Brahmin said, “If your wife is alive and has not gone astray in her virtue, why do you ruin your whole life by living without a wife?” The king said, “Because even if I brought her back, she is always unpleasant to me; she causes me misery, not happiness. Enough of her! She is no friend of mine. Whatever you did, Brahmin, to gain power over your beautiful wife, make the same effort to give me power over my wife.” The Brahmin said, “There is a ritual called ‘the desire of a lover’ that will make her fond of you, and I will also perform the ritual of ‘finding a friend,’ which people use when they want friends. For it produces fondness between two people who are not fond of one another, and it generates the greatest affection between a wife and husband. I will do that sacrifice for you, your majesty. Wherever your lovely wife is, bring her here from there; she will become extremely fond of you, your majesty.” When he heard this, the king collected all the things needed for the ritual, and the Brahmin performed the sacrifice. Seven times the Brahmin performed that sacrifice,
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again and again, in order to give the king his wife. And when the great Brahmin sage thought that he had made her friendly to her own husband, he said to the king, “Bring here, close to you, the woman you long for, your majesty. Enjoy all pleasures with her, and perform the sacrifices with reverence.”

The king was amazed at the Brahmin’s words, and then he remembered that most virile night-wanderer, who kept his promises. As soon as he thought of him, he came to the king immediately, bowed to him, and said, “What can I do for you?” Then the king told him, at great length; and the ogre went to the subterranean world, took the king’s wife, and returned. As soon as she was brought back, she looked upon her husband with ecstatic joy and said, “Forgive me,” over and over, overflowing with happiness. The king embraced her vio-lently and said to the proud woman, “My darling, I
do
forgive you. Why do you keep saying that?” His wife said, “If your heart has truly forgiven me, then I want to ask you for a favour; do it to honour me.” The king said, “Speak without hesitation and tell me what you desire from me. There is nothing you cannot get from me, my darling; I am entirely at your disposal.”

His wife said, “My friend, the daughter of the Naga, was cursed by him for my sake: ‘You will be mute,’ he said, and she became mute. If, out of your fondness for me, you are able to find a cure for her and to remove the imped-iment to her speech, then there is nothing that you will not have done for me.”

The king said to the Brahmin, “What ritual is there for this, to dispel her muteness?” The Brahmin replied to the king, “Your majesty, I will perform a sacrifice to Sarasvati, the goddess of speech, by your command; and your wife here will pay her debt by restoring her friend’s speech.” Then that excellent Brahmin performed the sacrifice to Sarasvati on her behalf, muttering all the verses to Sarasvati with deep concentration.

In the underworld the girl regained her speech, and a sage there, named Garga, said to her, “This very difficult favour was done for you by your friend’s husband.” When she learned this, Nanda the Naga’s daughter went quickly to the city and embraced the queen, her friend, and praised the king over and over again with sweet and auspicious words. Then the Naga woman sat down and said, “Great hero, you have just done me a favour, and so my heart goes out to you. Listen to what I say. You will have a son of great heroism; he will wield an unchallenged wheel of power upon the earth. He will truly know all the Shastras on politics and will be intent upon the practice of
dharma;
he will be a Manu, the wise ruler of this interval of Manu.” And when she had given him this boon, the daughter of the Naga king embraced her friend again and went back to the underworld.

The noble king made love to his wife for a very long time, while he continued to rule his subjects, and then she bore him a son, like the lovely full-orbed moon that is born on full-moon day. When he was born, all the people rejoiced, together with the gods; the drums of heaven roared, and showers of flowers fell from heaven. Seeing that his form and character would be lovely, all the assem-

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bled sages called him Auttama (“The best”), saying, “The boy was born in the family of Uttama (‘Supreme’), and he was born at the best time, and he has the best limbs; so he will be ‘The Best.’” And so Uttama’s son became famous under the name of Auttama; he was a Manu, with the power of a Manu.