The Forest of Thieves and the Magic Garden: An Anthology of Medieval Jain Stories (Penguin Classics)

by Phyllis Granoff

  ‘“And so on the fifth night of the dark half of the month the youth made his way to the grove of aśoka trees outside her back gate. He saw her from afar, making her way there, and she saw him, too. Their eyes met and stayed firmly fixed on each other, as the eyes of a bride and groom do at the wedding ceremony. They stretched out their arms as they had sent forth their glances, and their bodies rippling with joy, they rushed towards each other. Before they had been joined in mind, now they were joined in body, too. They melted into each other as river and ocean merge together. They spent the night with sweet words of affection and in making love in new and exciting ways, immersed entirely in a lake of pleasure. Sleep came to them, closing their lotus-like eyes, as the night causes the lotuses in a pond to shut. They lay exhausted from their love-making, their heads resting on their arms for pillows.

  ‘“Meanwhile, Devadatta woke up to go outside and urinate. He went out to the aśoka grove, where he saw the two of them lying there. He thought to himself, ‘Damn that wicked daughter-in-law of mine! Look how she sleeps here with some strange man, totally exhausted from making love.’ But he wanted to make sure that the man really was her lover and so he went back into the house, where he saw his own son sleeping peacefully. He went back to where the couple was lying, thinking to himself, ‘I will take off one of her ankle bracelets as proof, so that my son will believe me when I tell him what I have seen.’ And so like a thief Devadatta slipped off one of her anklets and, retracing his steps, he went back home. The goldsmith’s daughter-in-law woke up with a start when he pulled her anklet off. They say that guilty people sleep lightly; their sleep is quick to flee, as if it too is afraid of what will happen. She realized that it was her father-in-law who had taken off her anklet. Trembling in fear, she woke her lover up, ‘Go quickly. My mean father-in-law has seen us. You must help me if I get in trouble.’

  ‘“Her lover agreed. In his fear he hastily pulled himself together and beat a quick retreat. That wanton woman then rushed back into the house and lay down next to her husband. As brazen as she was clever, the skilled actress woke her husband up with a firm embrace. She said to him, ‘Noble One! It’s too hot in here. Let’s go outside to the aśoka grove, where the leaves of the trees sway gently in the breeze.’ Devadiṇṇa, in his innocence, was completely under his wife’s thumb; he got up and went to the aśoka grove, his wife’s arm around his neck. When they got there she lay down on the very spot where her father-in-law had seen her lying with her lover; this time she held her husband tightly to her. Her innocent husband fell asleep at once; true it is that honest people have no trouble falling asleep. The cheating wife concealed her true feelings, and like a skilled actress she turned to her husband and asked, ‘What is it with your family? I hesitate even to speak about their strange customs! As I lay here asleep in your arms, my chest uncovered, your father took one of my anklets from my foot. Decent men would never touch their daughters-in-law, ever; what is this, touching your daughter-in-law, when she lies there making love with her husband?’ Devadiṇṇa replied, ‘O lovely lady, tomorrow you will hear what I’ll say to my father about this!’ But she broke in, ‘You mustn’t wait. You must speak to him right now. By tomorrow he will say that he has seen me lying with another man.’ Her husband reassured her, ‘Don’t worry; I am on your side. I will tell my father off for taking your anklet while I was fast asleep.’ ‘My love, be sure you say that tomorrow morning.’ And that clever lady made her husband swear to her over and over again that he would do just that.

  ‘“When the sun came up, Devadiṇṇa, angry at his father, yelled at him, ‘What did you think you were doing, taking your daughter-in-law’s anklet?’ The old man said, ‘Son! Your wife is unfaithful. Last night I saw her lying with another man in the aśoka grove. I wanted to prove to you that she had been unfaithful to you and so I slipped one of the anklets from her foot.’ The son said, ‘I was sleeping there with her, not some other man! Why have you done this; your shameless act has caused me great embarrassment. Give my wife back her anklet; don’t keep it. You took it from her while I slept by her side. She is an exemplary and faithful wife’ But the father insisted, ‘When I took off her anklet, I came and checked on you; you were asleep in the house’ Durgilā now spoke up. I will not stand for these false accusations. I will prove to my father-in-law that I have done nothing wrong by asking the gods to clear my name. I am a pure and faithful wife, a woman of high birth; how could I let this stain on my character, even if it is just talk, go unchallenged; it is as ugly as a blot of ink on a pure white cloth. I will crawl between the legs of the demi-god, the yaksa śobhanadeva; it is said that a person who is not pure cannot pass through the yaksa’s legs.’

  ‘She was so brazen that she made this agreement with her father-in-law, who knew exactly what was going on, and with her husband, who hadn’t a clue. She bathed and donned a pure white garment. Carrying an offering of flowers and incense in front of all her relatives she went to worship the yaksa. She had given her lover a message that as she was worshipping the yaksa he was to act like a mad man and grab her so firmly by the neck that she would feel as if she was choking on her very own words. The crowd dragged him off, thinking he was crazy. Durgilā bathed again and continued with her worship of the yaksa. She proclaimed, ‘I swear that I have never touched a man other than my husband. Oh yes, this crazy man clung to my neck right in front of all of you. I therefore swear that no man other than my husband and this crazy man has ever touched my body. I am telling the truth. This yaksa loves the truth. Let him clear my name’ This put the yaksa in a bit of a quandary, and as he pondered, ‘What should I do?’ she quickly crawled between the yaksa’s legs, and passed the test. All the people shouted, ‘She’s been proven to be pure, she’s passed the test!’ The king’s guards placed a garland of flowers around her neck. To the sounds of beating drums, accompanied by her delighted family and accepted by her husband Devadiṇṇa, she returned to the house of her father-in-law in triumph. From that time on the people called her by the name, ‘The Clever Lady of the Anklet’.

  ‘“Her father-in-law, Devadatta, was thus defeated by his son’s wife’s cleverness. From that moment on he was consumed with worry that destroyed his sleep, like an elephant tethered to a post. When the king heard that Devadatta had become like a yogi in that he never slept, he hired him in a suitable post. He made him the guard of his harem.

  ‘“One night one of the queens kept checking to see if the harem guard was sleeping or not. Devadatta thought to himself, ‘I’m not quite sure what it is, but there must be some reason why she keeps getting up to check if I am awake or not. I shall pretend to be asleep so that I can find out what she is up to.’ When Devadatta lay down, pretending to be asleep, the queen got up again. She was delighted to find him sleeping like that, and she slowly, like a thief, crept over to the window. The king’s favourite elephant was tied up just under the window. This elephant was like one of the elephants of the gods; it was always in rut. She was enamoured of the elephant’s keeper. She removed the sliding wooden shutter from the window and climbed down. The well-trained elephant lifted her up with his trunk, as he had done many times before and set her down on the ground. The elephant driver was furious when he saw her. His eyes flaming with rage, he asked, ‘Why are you so late?’ and he struck that queen with the elephant’s chain as if she were no better than a servant girl. She cried, ‘Don’t hit me. The king has some new person guarding the harem and he was awake for a long time. I couldn’t come before. I came as soon as I saw he was asleep. O handsome one, don’t be mad at me.’ When the elephant keeper learned this he was no longer angry. And he enjoyed himself with her, doing as he pleased, unafraid. When the night was almost over, that brazen woman let the elephant lift her once more with its trunk and she went back up to the palace.

  ‘“The goldsmith thought, ‘The ways of women are as difficult to fathom as the rumblings of a horse that has the wind. When even queens, whom the rays of the sun never touch, are unfaithful to
their husbands, how can anyone expect an ordinary woman to be chaste? How long would it take before a simple housewife, who roams all over the city and must constantly go out to fetch water and do other chores, finds herself another man?’ At this thought, Devadatta no longer felt so angry at his daughter-in-law’s act of infidelity, and like a man who has paid off all his debts, he began to sleep again, deeply and soundly. When in the morning the old goldsmith still had not woken up, the servants informed the king. The king told them, ‘There must be some reason for this. Bring him to me as soon as he is awake.’ The servants went back to the harem, but after a long time of not sleeping at all, the goldsmith blissfully slept on. He slept for a full seven days. At the end of those seven days the goldsmith finally woke up. The servants brought him before the king, who asked him, ‘Sleep never visited you, as an amorous woman never visits an unfortunately ugly man. Now you have slept for seven full days. Do not be afraid. Tell me what has happened.’ And he told the king everything that he had seen that night, what the queen had done, what the elephant driver had done, and even what the elephant had done. The king gave him a gift and sent him back to his own home. He had had his share of suffering and now was happy. Men do find peace of mind in time.

  ‘“The king wanted to find out which of his queens had been unfaithful to him. He had a wooden elephant made and then said to all of his queens, ‘I have had a dream that told me that all of my queens are to mount this elephant without their clothes on. I will watch them.’ The queens then all did as the king commanded, while the king looked on. Only one queen demurred, saying, I am afraid of that elephant.’ The king was impatient and struck her with the lotus he was holding in his hand. She pretended to faint and dropped to the ground. The king was no fool and realized at once that she was the one who had cast a stain on his house. She was that wicked one, the unfaithful one, that the old harem guard had told him about. He examined her back and saw the marks of the elephant chain. Snapping his fingers, he smiled and said, ‘You play with an elephant in rut, but you are afraid of a wooden elephant. You find pleasure in being beaten with a chain, but you faint when struck by a lotus.’

  ‘“The king burned with rage. He went out to Mount Vaibhāra, not far from the city of Rājagrha, and summoned to him the elephant driver with the elephant. He made the queen get on the elephant with the elephant driver, and then that king, whose laws could be harsh, commanded that beastly elephant driver, ‘Take the elephant to a treacherous area on the mountain and make it go over the edge. When it falls, you two will also be properly punished.’

  ‘“The elephant driver made the elephant climb higher and higher on the mountain until they reached the summit. It had one foot over the edge and was balancing itself with only three feet. The people all cried out, ‘O jewel among kings, you must not slay that jewel of elephants, which is obedient to your commands.’ The king pretended not to hear their pleas and commanded, ‘Drive the elephant over the edge!’ Now the elephant driver had the elephant balanced on only two feet. As the people cried out again, ‘No, no. Do not kill the elephant!’, the king was silent. The driver stopped the elephant with only one foot left on the ground. The people could not bear to see the elephant being killed; they raised their arms and implored the king, ‘This is no ordinary elephant. It is the royal elephant, O King. It is perfectly trained and has no equal among elephants. Where will you get another elephant like this? It is as rare as a special conch shell with right-handed whorls. You are the ruler; you take commands from no one and you may do whatever you want. But if you act without restraint your fame will be sullied by an action that was done without careful reflection. For, O master, even a ruler must consider for himself what should be done and what ought never to be done. Consider that now and protect this jewel of elephants, if only for our sakes.’

  ‘“The king then said, ‘So be it. Tell the driver that I command him to spare the elephant.’ The people then asked the elephant driver, ‘Can you save this elephant, after you have brought it so close to the edge?’ He replied, I will bring the elephant back safely if the king promises that he will not punish us’ When the people reported this back to the king, he agreed to spare them. Carefully, very carefully, the elephant driver led the elephant back from the mountain’s edge. The queen and the elephant driver dismounted from the elephant. The king banished them from his kingdom and they fled.

  ‘“At the end of the day they found themselves in a village. They slept together that night in an abandoned temple. In the middle of the night a thief fled the village, and pursued by the police, he took refuge in the temple. The police surrounded the temple, thinking that in the morning they would seize the thief. Like a blind man, the thief felt his way inside the temple and stumbled upon the two of them sleeping there. The elephant driver did not wake up when the thief touched him; sleep clings like glue to a person who is exhausted. But the queen woke up at once at the thief’s light touch. And just from his touch she felt desire for him. She whispered ‘Who are you?’ He whispered back, ‘I am a thief. I came in here to save my skin when the police were hot on my tail.’ That wanton woman, showing herself to be the slut that she was, then said to the thief, ‘I will save you, don’t worry, but there is one condition, handsome fellow, and that is that you want me.’ The thief told her, ‘I have gold and perfumes. If you save my life, you will indeed be my wife. But tell me first, how will you save me, O fair-complexioned lady? O clever damsel, put my mind at rest.’ She told him, ‘O handsome man! When the police come I will say tell them that you are my husband’ He agreed.

  When morning came the police rushed into temple, brandishing their weapons, their brows furrowed in anger. ‘Who is the thief?’ they asked the three of them. That wanton woman, the very incarnation of deceitfulness, pointed at the thief and said, ‘He is my beloved.’ She folded her hands in a gesture of humble respect to the police and continued, ‘Brothers! We were on our way to another village and stopped here in this temple for the night.’ The police were all simple villagers. They huddled together and decided, ‘What she says could indeed be true. How would a thief have a beautiful woman like this? She is either a brahmin girl or the daughter of a merchant or maybe, even a princess, or maybe someone else. Whatever the case, her beauty attests to her good character. She would never have a thief as her husband. Besides, she is expensively dressed and has fine jewellery. Her husband would not have to live by stealing. The other man must be the thief.’ And so it was that they accused the elephant driver of the other man’s crime and had him impaled on a stake. There on the stake he called out pitifully to every passerby, ‘Please, please, give me some water to drink’ But everyone was afraid of the king and no one dared give him even a drop of water. People are only prepared to do a good deed if they are assured beforehand that no harm will come to them from doing it.

  ‘“A Jain layman named Jinadāsa was passing that way: When the elephant driver saw him and begged him for water, he said, ‘will bring you water. But you must do as I say. Until I come back with the water you must call out these words, “Prais, praise to the Arhats”. And the elephant driver, desperately thirsty, began to call out those words. The Jain then brought the water, and the king’s men gave him permission to give it to the elephant driver. When the elephant driver saw him coming with the water he felt a surge of relief. He called out even louder, “Praise be to the Arhats”, and at that moment he died. Even though he had never even heard about proper conduct according to the Jain doctrine, through the very force of his sufferings he still burned off his karma. As a result of the great power of reciting those words of praise to the Jinas, he became a demi-god.

  ‘That whore of a queen set off with the thief. They came to a river; the water was high, making the river difficult to cross. The thief said, “Beloved! I can’t carry you across the way you are, weighted down by your fancy clothes and jewellery. O fair one! Give me your clothes and your jewels. I’ll take them across the river first and then I’ll come back for you. You’ll be easy t
o carry across without all that excess weight. You can hide in the reeds until I come back for you. You need not fear being all alone; I’ll be back in a jiffy. Then I’ll put you on my back and ferry you across like a real boat. I’ll get you to the other shore. Don’t be afraid. Just do as I say.”

  ‘The wanton woman did as the thief ordered. She hid in the thicket and that thief, carrying her clothes and her jewels, made his way to the other shore. But when he got there he began to think, “This woman killed her husband because she had taken a shine to me. Her affection surely doesn’t seem any more lasting than the color of fresh turmeric. What proof do I have that she will not abandon me at the slightest sign of trouble?” And so that thief took her clothes and her jewels, and looking back at her, he vanished as swiftly as a deer. She raised her arm and beckoned to him, as an elephant raises its trunk. She was as naked as the day she was born as she cried out, “Where are you going, leaving me here like this!” The thief shouted back, “When I saw you naked in the thicket, like some demonness, I was suddenly frightened by the thought of what you have done.” And with those words he disappeared, like a bird flying aloft in the sky. And that whore, who had killed her husband, was left there, just like that.

  ‘The soul who had been the elephant driver had been reborn as a god. He used his supernatural knowledge and found that wretched woman there. Wanting to awaken her, for she had been his wife in a previous life, he turned himself into a jackal with a piece of meat hanging from its mouth. The jackal spat out the piece of meat and proceeded to try to eat a fish that was lying there on the bank of the river. The fish jumped right back into the water and a hawk, that the god had also magically made to appear, quickly snatched up the meat and flew off. That naked woman, sitting there in the thicket of reeds, as wretched as she was, still was slightly curious at this turn of events. She said to the jackal, “Fool! Why did you give up the meat that you had out of a desire to eat that fish? Now you have neither fish nor meat. What will you do now, O jackal?” The jackal answered, “You abandoned your husband out of desire for a new lover. And now you have neither, husband nor lover. O naked lady, what will you do now?”