Having said to this Brahmana and his wife, "You told our men to drink Euphorbia milk, and caused them to die," those women instituted a law-suit before a King.

Thereupon the King caused both parties to be brought. The King asks the Brahmana, "How did this occur?"

The Brahmana says, "Your Majesty (Devayan wahanse), having given three masuran, I asked for and got three words [of advice] from a Brahmana. 'Having gone to a country don’t require honours,' he said; 'Without investigation don’t do a thing,' he said; 'To one’s own wife don’t tell a secret,' he said; thereupon, the masuran being finished, he said without masuran, 'Don’t tell lies to Kings.'"

He then repeated to the King the true story (already given) of his adventures and actions, which I omit; and he ended by saying "On account of [the other Brahmana’s] saying, 'Don’t tell lies to Kings,' I told you the fact."

The King having investigated the law-suit, set free the Brahmana and the Brahmana’s wife.

Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province.

With this may be compared the advice given to the Prince in the story No. 250 in this volume.

In Indian Nights' Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 213 ff., a poor weaver who went away to improve his fortunes after borrowing forty rupees, met with a man who was silent until paid twenty rupees, when he said, "Friend, when four men give you [the same] advice, take it." When he gave the man his remaining twenty rupees, and said, "Speak again," the man warned him not to tell his wife what happened to him. After this, the weaver met with four men sitting round a corpse, and consented to carry it to the adjoining river for them, and throw it in. He found diamonds tied round its waist, appropriated them, returned home, repaid his loan, and lived in luxury. The village headmen wished to know how the weaver became rich, and the man’s wife pestered him about it until he stated that while on his travels he was told to drink half a pint of mustard oil early in the morning, and he would then see hidden treasure. The headman’s wife being told this by her, gave her husband and six children the dose at night, and in the morning they were all dead. When the King held an inquiry she charged the weaver’s wife with advising her to do it; but the latter totally denied it, and the headman’s wife was hanged.

In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 32, a Brahmana’s wife sold to a Prince for a lakh of rupees four pieces of advice written by her husband, and the King banished the Prince for his foolishness in wasting the money thus. The advice was that a person when travelling must be careful at a strange place, and keep awake, (2) a man in need must test his friends, (3) a man who visits a married sister in good style will be well received, but if poor will be disowned, (4) a man must do his own work well. The Prince was saved from murder by keeping awake at night in his lodgings; was nearly executed when he visited his brother-in-law as a poor Yogi; rid a Princess of two snakes which issued from her nostrils, and was appointed her father’s successor; was then received with humility by his brother-in-law, and cured his father’s blindness by laying his hands on his eyes.

At p. 332, four exiled Princes agreed to keep watch at night over the corpse of a great merchant; the reward was to be four thousand rupees. They had adventures with the corpse and demons.

In Folklore of the Santal Parganas (collected by Rev. Dr. Bodding), p. 53, a Prince paid a man his only three gold coins for three pieces of advice, and the man gave him a fourth free of charge. The first was not to sit without moving the stool or mat offered; the second, not to bathe where others bathed; the third, to act according to the opinion of the majority; and, lastly, to restrain his anger, hear an explanation, and weigh it well before acting. The first saved him from being dropped into a well; the second saved his purse when left behind on bathing; the third obtained for him a roll of coin out of the waist cloth of a corpse which he threw into a ravine; and on returning home at night, when he found a pair of slippers and a sword outside his wife’s door, inquiry showed that only her sister was with her.

NO. 210

THE STORY OF A SIWURALA [116]

In a certain country a Lord (monk) having been a monk is without clothes [to put on, in order] to abandon his monk’s robes (siwru). Asking at the hand of a novice for a cloth and a handkerchief, he abandoned his robes (thus becoming a layman again).

Having thus come away, when he was bathing in a river an elder sister and a younger sister were bathing lower down the river. Then, having seen that man who, having abandoned his robes and come [there], is bathing, the elder sister said, "That heap of wood which is coming is for me."

Then the younger sister said, "The things that are in that heap of wood are for me."

Then the elder sister went home for a cloth, to give to the man to wear. Afterwards the younger sister, having torn a piece from the cloth she was wearing, and having given it, goes away to her house with the man. Then the elder sister brings the cloth, too; having seen that these two are going the elder sister went back home. The younger sister and the Siwrala went home [and he remained there as her husband]. The man, continuing to eat without doing work, is quite unemployed.

Afterwards the younger sister’s mother, having told the younger sister and the Siwrala to eat separately, gave her a gill of rice, a small water-pot (koraha), a small cooking-pot (muttiya), a large cooking-pot (appalle), a rice-cleaning bowl (naembiliya), and a spoon.

The man having gone into the village [117] and been [there], when he is coming the younger sister is weeping and weeping. So the man asked, "What are you crying for?"

Then the woman says, "Having said that you do not work, mother told us to eat separately." Having said, "The things she gave (dipuwa), there they are," she showed him them.

Afterwards the man having gone asked the Gamarala (his wife’s father), "How [are we to do], then? There is not a thing for us to eat. I came here to ask to cut even a paela (quarter of an amuna) of your paddy on shares."

The Gamarala said, "Ando! Thou indeed wilt not cut the paddy, having been sitting doing nothing."

Then the man said, "No. I will cut a paela or two of paddy and come back." Having gone to the rice field, and that very day having cut the paddy [plants] for two paelas of paddy (when threshed), and collected them, and heaped them at the corners of the encircling [ridges], and carried them to the threshing floor, and trampled them [by means of buffaloes] that very day, he went to the Gamarala and said, "The paddy equal to two paelas has been cut and trampled (threshed). Let us go at once to measure it."

Afterwards the Gamarala having gone there, [said], "I don’t want this paddy; thou take it."

The man having brought the paddy home, said [to his wife], "You present this as a religious act." [118] The woman having pounded the paddy and cooked it, gave away [the cooked rice] as a religious act.