Kathasaritasagara – An unfinished story – {Ep.244}

Today’s episode is a story from the Kathasaritasagara, or the Ocean of the Stream of stories. It’s about a prince, and a life lesson on why you should never start a story without finishing it, especially if demons are listening in!

Welcome to “Stories From India”. This is a podcast that will take you on a journey through the rich mythology, folklore and history of the Indian subcontinent. I am Narada Muni, the celestial storyteller and the original “time lord”. With my ability to travel through space and time, I can bring you fascinating stories from the past, the present, and the future. From the epic tales of the Mahabharata and Ramayana to the folktales of the Panchatantra to stories of Akbar-Birbal and Tenali Raman, I have a story for every occasion.

The purpose of the stories is neither to pass judgment nor to indoctrinate. My goal is only to share these stories with people who may not have heard them before and to make them more entertaining for those who have.

Today’s Story

In this episode, we’re back to the Kathasaritasagara, which literally means the Ocean of Stream of stories. It’s about a Prince who could have been an excellent storyteller, except he had this really bad habit of not finishing a story. I take that back. It’s not a really bad idea. It’s just a mild annoyance. Though paperback novel publishers would have loved it because of the promise it held of never-ending sequels.

The story begins one evening with a caravan. The leader of the caravan was the Prince himself. Let’s call him Rajkumar. A fair choice, because Rajkumar means Prince in more than one language in India. Rajkumar had a sidekick called Mantri. Here I’m taking a creative liberty, because though Mantri means Minister, Mantri wasn’t a minister just yet. He was the current Minister’s son, just as Rajkumar was the King’s son. Nepotism was the way of life in these royal families. 

Rajkumar, Mantri, and about a dozen soldiers and servants were on a mission. You see, Rajkumar was going to marry the Princess of the neighboring Kingdom. Mantri was coming along because he was Rajkumar’s best friend. And more than that, he was the only one who had a bit of a moderating effect on the Prince. The Prince was vain, arrogant, and generally not the kind of person a Princess might be expecting to hitch together for the rest of her life. But, he did take Mantri’s advice. And that gave the King and Queen some hope that Rajkumar wouldn’t mess up this trade deal. Oops, did they just say it out loud? No, they hadn’t meant that. They definitely meant to protect the love and happiness of two young people starting out in life, oppressing their populace. They had NOT meant the trade deal. The trade deal was a side effect.

When the caravan reached a clearing, Rajkumar gave the signal to halt. “It’s getting dark. And this forest and these woods are full of dangers. If we’re on the move, we’re more vulnerable to being attacked. Instead we should camp here in this clearing.”

He was absolutely right. The forest was indeed full of dangers. He may have been talking about Lions and Tigers and Bears, but these woods actually held dangers that were far more sinister. I wonder if you’ve seen some of those NatGeo or Animal Planet series that show the top ten deadliest creatures in every continent. Well, the top 10 were all represented here in this forest, and yet that series fell short – because it didn’t show the deadliest of all – the Yakshas.

Ah but you may ask – aren’t Yakshas benevolent nature spirits? To that I say, yes they can be, and usually are. But sometimes they aren’t. And when they aren’t they can be more than just capricious. They can be vicious! There’s the example of the Yaksha and the Pandavas – something that ended up in the demise of most of the Pandavas. But that’s a story for another time. Just take my word for it.

Mantri knew all this of course, and he was worried. “Are you sure this is safe? There could be Yakshas all around.”

The Prince wasn’t concerned. “I hope they are. Maybe they’ll give us a few gifts!” He hadn’t heard the story of the Pandavas and the Yaksha – maybe because I haven’t covered it yet.

“Relax Mantri, you’re too tense. Which reminds me, we need at least two tents for you and I. The servants and guards can sleep outside. For all in-tents and purposes, for them at least, camping is just sleeping outside.”

The tents were camouflage tents, which made it hard to find in their cargo. But they found them eventually and set them up, including a roaring campfire.

As happens around a campfire, they began making s’mores and telling stories, Mantri told one, a few guards told some more. Rajkumar’s verdict was a little bit blunt. “Boooring! I’d rather read an appendix to an export/import duty manual than to hear a story like that. It was so boring that I fell asleep, and was only woken up by the sound of silence when you stopped narrating it. Here, hold on to your turbans while I tell you a real story.”

And Rajkumar launched into his story. He may have been unfairly critical of the earlier stories, but Mantri and the others felt it wasn’t without merit. Rajkumar seemed like an excellent storyteller. He began narrating an intricate saga with twists and turns. He had everyone’s attention, and not just because he was their future King. They genuinely were engrossed in the complicated story with Apsaras, Giants, flying horses, talking birds, and such. And not just Mantri, the guards and the servants. The audience included some of the dangerous creatures in these woods. They were secretly listening in too.

“…And so, the Apsara on the flying horse, she escaped the fire pit and the 60 foot long snake and headed straight for the giant Rakshasa’s open mouth with its glistening sharp teeth. And we’ll end it here for now. I’m feeling sleepy, we’ll continue the story later.”

But everyone was far too intrigued to let it go.

“But I must know! Did the Apsara rescue her friend or not?” Mantri exclaimed.

He wasn’t the only one. A guard wanted to know if the Apsara’s mother found the potion to change her husband back after a wizard had turned him into a lizard.

A lion asked if the Apsara completed the side quest of finding the Gulab Jamoon tree. But none of the Humans understood Lion-ese.

Rajkumar remarked that it was time for the guards to get back to their position. Didn’t they hear the roar? Reluctantly the guards returned. But not before stealing another wistful glance at the Prince in case he changed his mind and decided to finish the story after all.

But no. Rajkumar was firm. “Run along,” he said and then paused. “Actually you can’t run along. You can only ran along. Because it’s past tense. Past tents. Get it?” 

The guards got it, but it didn’t do much to lift their spirits. Later one of them vowed to finish this in a fan fiction version. If Rajkumar wouldn’t tell the story, the guard would do it to get some closure.

The wild animals dispersed. Everyone went to sleep, except Mantri. He couldn’t sleep because he heard noises. He crept slowly towards them to hear what was going on. At first he thought they were the soldiers or the servants. But it was neither.

His heart beat wildly as he suddenly realized that he was eavesdropping on a group of Yakshas.

They too had secretly been part of the audience. 

“This is infuriating!” one of the Yakshas was saying. “It’s like watching the final ball of a cricket match with 6 runs to be scored, and the players suddenly decided to call it quits!”

Another Yaksha agreed “Or to read a Byomkesh Bakshi mystery only to find the last page with the parlor scene is missing.”

The rest of them voiced their agreement.

The first Yaksha said, after a pause. “I’m going to pay the Prince back. By setting a trap for him. When he hits the road tomorrow, he’ll come across a tree. There’ll be a gold necklace in the tree. When the Prince wears it, it’ll kill him instantly!”

The second Yaksha said, “Great idea, bro! I have a backup in case your idea doesn’t work. Past your necklace tree, the Prince will see a mango tree. If he eats even a single mango from the tree, he’ll fall down dead.”

A third Yaksha also felt that these were great ideas, but needed another backup. And that backup was the marriage hall where Rajkumar and Rajkumari were going to get married. The structure would collapse the moment Rajkumar stepped in.

A fourth Yaksha added that if all that wasn’t enough tomorrow night when the Prince went to bed, he would sneeze a hundred times. And unless someone was with him to bless every single sneeze, the Prince would not wake up.

“You mean he’ll have a restful sleep,” asked someone else

“A permanent sleep,” the Yaksha clarified.

Mantri as he was watching from the shadows was shaken. Even just one life threatening danger was bad enough, but his boss and friend was about to face four! He must go and warn the Prince about all these devious traps. He slowly got up and began crawling stealthily back to the tent.

“And I have something else,” the fifth Yaksha added. “Just in case anyone has been eavesdropping and tries to warn the prince about all these devious traps. If they warn anyone they will die too, right away.”

One of the Yakshas, who was a little hungry despite the deviled eggs and demonade he’d be eating and drinking suggested a different approach. “We all have night vision, it’ll be a lot simpler to just look around and spot whoever is eavesdropping and just eat them.”

Mantri froze mid-motion. He held his breath. The end was coming!

But no – the other four Yakshas voted down the idea. They had a reputation for being devious, they needed to uphold it.

The next morning, Mantri was silent. He couldn’t explain anything to the Prince. He just went along silently, as the group packed up and began their journey towards Rajkumari’s Kingdom.

Soon enough, the Prince spotted something glinting from a tree. It looked like a golden necklace. Just the kind that Rajkumar loved! He asked Mantri to fetch it.

Mantri was ready. “That’s not a necklace, it’s just a little bit of glass, or metal that is reflecting the Sun.” That seemed to satisfy the Prince. Thankfully it was a sunny day so the explanation seemed plausible at least. Rajkumar didn’t realize that Gold is also a metal. The silver lining of not paying attention in class. They moved on.

They reached the tree with delicious looking mangoes. Rajkumar wanted a bite. Again, Mantri was ready and intervened. “Why are you wasting time on these mangoes, when there is a delicious feast waiting for us in Rajkumari’s Kingdom?”

The Prince was reluctant, but only gave in when Mantri reminded him that given this was Ancient India they didn’t have a very good way of keeping food hot. They should hurry on to the venue.

Mantri changed his tune completely when they got to the marriage hall, and Mantri observed that it hadn’t collapsed yet.

“Wait Rajkumar, don’t go in yet!”

The Prince was puzzled. “Why not?” 

“Your shoelaces”

“They aren’t undone, I can see them.”

“Oh they aren’t undone now, but they are about to be. You should undo them and do them all over. And do the other shoe too for good measure”

The Prince sighed and agreed. He didn’t want to appear in the wedding portraits with undone shoelaces. He signaled his servants, who set up a stool for him to sit on and they got to work on his shoelaces.

All the while Mantri kept glancing at the hall. It hadn’t collapsed yet.

The shoelaces were done now, and the shoes were polished as well.

Rajkumar tried to go in but Mantri stopped him again to get some lint off of his shoulder. The Prince couldn’t even see it, but whatever, he gave in again.

When that was done, and the hall still hadn’t collapsed, Mantri tried to point out that one of his buttons was slightly loose and needed to be undone and sewn again. But Rajkumar drew the line there.
“Enough of this Mantri. You said it yourself. The food is getting cold. If the inner button of my jacket falls off, so be it. More than likely it’ll just set a new trend.”

He stepped in and the moment he did, the entire structure began shaking. Mantri was able to quickly pull him out before it all came down.

The Prince was thankful. He guessed Mantri had some sort of sixth sense. And as for Rajkumari’s family. The collapsing structure was not their fault. That was just an act of god, and the hall had no additional insurance. If there had been any malice on the part of the hosts, he’d have expected that they would have collected a big wad of cash on insurance.

The feast went well and the marriage was scheduled for the next day. One last danger remained, however. The curse of the hundred sneezes. That night as Rajkumar was going to bed, Mantri stealthily climbed onto the balcony of the Prince’s sleeping quarters. 

Mantri lay there in wait. He didn’t have to wait very long. And every time Rajkumar sneezed, Mantri was there to softly add “Bless you!”

Now I’ve often wondered why Rajkumar didn’t summon someone after the 5th or 6th sneeze. He had after his own doctor in his group and what’s more Rajkumari’s kingdom’s resources were also at his disposal. It made Mantri’s job harder, because he needed to keep saying Bless You after each sneeze. Sometimes they occurred in such rapid succession that Mantri couldn’t really discern if Rajkumar had sneezed 3 times or 4. But to be on the safe side, Mantri added a liberal dose of Bless Yous. No harm in blessing Rajkumar more than needed.

At the conclusion of the 100th sneeze, Mantri heaved a huge sigh of relief. Rajkumar, who had not responded as seriously to all the sneezing, sat bolt upright when he heard the faint sigh from the balcony, and shouted “Who goes there?” The Prince didn’t think it was an Owl. For one thing, an owl does not respond “Please don’t shoot” to a question like that.

Rajkumar was very very cross with Mantri. And he worried to what extent he was going to punish the fellow. He also resolved to strengthen his Kingdom’s anti-stalking laws when he took up the throne.

Mantri explained everything. Fantastic story, but the Prince believed him.

“You know it’s funny, nothing in the Yaksha’s curse said that you wouldn’t drop dead for telling me about the curses after they had happened. Was it really safe to reveal all?”

It wasn’t, that was true. But the Mantri had merely traded the real harm the Prince was about to do to him for the possibility that the Yakshas had a clause built in.

Rajkumar had heard the story. “You know I think I’ll pick a shorter story for the return journey. And I’ll be sure to finish it this time. Just like the story of the Princess, the mountain-climbing fish and the seven headed snake. The one where the Princess has to free her entire family from a Rakshas and overcomes every obstacle until the Rakshas catches her and puts her in a cage suspended over a volcano crater. What happened next will shock you, you’ll never believe how the magical golden spoon and the silver bowl took some water and …..”

His voice trailed off as he dozed off on the spot.

That’s all for now

Some notes on the show

The Kathasaritasagara literally means the Ocean of the stream of stories. Because these stories flow.

This anthology was compiled by Somadev, a 11th century scholar and poet in a kingdom in Kashmir. He had compiled the Kathasaritasagara to amuse the Queen, Suryavati. Somadev condensed an earlier and much larger set of stories called the Brihatkatha. The Brihatkatha itself was just volume 7 in a much larger set of stories inscribed in blood by its author. Considering the size of the Brihatkatha, it’s more than possible that the author had liberal access to a blood bank. 

The first 6 volumes of the work were lost and so was the Brihatkatha, but derivative works including the Kathasaritasagara remain. All of this knowledge may be lost to most folks. But when you’re a time-traveling immortal all-knowing person like me, such knowledge cannot stay hidden. And I will continue to bring these stories to you.

That’s all for now. 

Next Time

In the next episode, we’re back to the Ramayana. We’ll continue the story with Indrajit and Lakshman’s re-match. Indrajit had hurt the Ayodhya brothers quite badly in their first battle, we’ll find out if Lakshman does better in this round.

Feedback

Thank you all for the comments on Social Media and on Spotify’s Q&A! I can’t directly reply to the questions there, but I’ll address them here on this show.

Raj – of course I am indeed a time-traveling all-knowing bonafide mythological character.

Kaira – I love that you loved that episode so much!

Moshroom – wonderful to hear you’re keeping upto date on all the episodes.

Hiranmayee – the answer is simple – it’s your support, and the support of all you listeners which gives me all the encouragement I need to keep churning out these stories.

Rajul – yes. Garuda and the Nagas were also the children of Kashyap. And many others. There are so many it’s easy to lose track. The Asura Bali was a descendant of Kashyap, not his son. He was technically his Great-Great-Grandson.

Ayra, thank you for the generous praise! I do have a Chandrakanta episode lined up soon.

Shiv, thank you! Akbar and Birbal is also lined up.

Deepinjoy – thanks for the support. The Moon’s story is an interesting one, and I will definitely aim to cover it soon.

Shalu – thank you yet again! Your feedback is very valuable to me. I will be more than happy to do a Tenali Raman story in March. I did cover some stories of his animosity towards animals back in Episode 2 and Episode 3.

If you have any other comments or suggestions or if there are particular stories you’d like to hear, please do let me know by leaving a comment or a review on the site sfipodcast.com, or reply to the questions on Spotify Q&A. You can also find me on Instagram and Facebook. If you want to send me an email it’s stories.from.india.podcast@gmail.com.

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A big thank you to each of you for your continued support and your feedback.

The music is from Purple Planet.

Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next time!