Episode 5 – Kingly duties

A quick note before we start today’s show.

This episode features a betaal. A betaal is a creature that has often been approximated to a vampire. This is probably okay in the context of today’s show, but I’ll mention some differences between betaals and vampires at the end.

This week we’ll see why when someone gifts you a fruit, it’s best to eat it right away instead of storing it. We’ll also learn how betals are great at creating lateral thinking puzzles. We’ll also hear the story that may have inspired the princess and the pea story from Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tales 

Vikram and Betaal

King Vikramaditya was a great king from about 2000 years ago.

How he got to be a king is not so great however. When he was a prince and second in line to his father’s throne, in a move that might be straight out of “the Godfather”, had his older brother killed. He used a poisonous scorpion according to one source, a very painful way to die instead of a quick death.

Despite that nasty backstory Vikramaditya(whom I am just going  to call Vic), proved to be a fair king and ruled with great wisdom.

Vic held court every day, listened to the problems of his people,  and did everything he could to fix them. I mean fix the problems, not fix the people.

One day, a wise man came to his court. Now wise men, or rishis were treated with great respect and kings would move mountains to grant their smallest wish. A typical rishi would go to a king’s court, be well received, eat good food and drink, sleep well for a few days, and leave. The payoff to the king would be that the rishi would make a prediction or if he had some power-ups he would even grant a wish.

The predictions were almost always vague and were meant for some time in the future when the rishi was safely away from the scene and unreachable. The wishes were usually vague enough that it would be impossible to rule out magic wish fulfillment by the rishi. So it was a pretty good deal, a win win for all involved. 

Now the rishi who came to court today first ran into the royal secretary.

“Do you have an appointment?” The secretary asked. 
“I don’t” said the rishi.
“You’ll have to take a token and wait your turn. Meanwhile you can fill in this form. Check here and here for your dietary requirements, how long you’ll be staying and most importantly check here to indicate your specialty – wish, prediction or other(please describe). Fill in the form and we’ll get back with a decision in a day or two. Sorry to make you do all this, but we had a couple of freeloaders last month. They skipped out on us without so much as a thank you. I don’t think they were real rishis, I spotted them right away, their robes were all wrong,  but who was going to believe me? Anyway, that’s why we have this process now. Are you trying to say something?” he asked the rishi.

The rishi who had been trying to interrupt said “Yes, if I could just have a minute. I just want to give the king a gift’

The secretary almost dropped his clipboard in amazement and then slowly said- “you’re passing on the palace stay and the food and wine and you want to give the king a gift anyway? No quid pro quo?”

“Yes, that’s right” said the rishi.

“Oh my God, this is one for the record books, I am going to tell my grandchildren all about this. Mac, Hold the queue!” he shouted just as another rishi was about to be let into the courtroom after a 2 day wait. 

“We gotta fast track this guy” said the secretary indicating the rishi.

The rishi walked in and the king and everyone  else bowed, because that’s how rishis and kings worked back then. The rishi without a word presented the gift to the king. A mango. It was ripe.

“Um, thanks” said the king, but the rishi was already walking out.

The king didn’t want to eat the mango, he gave it to his treasurer because who doesnt keep perishable fruit mixed in with their money?  And nothing further was said about it. 

The next day the rishi was back. 

“Changed your mind about the food?” asked the secretary, but no. The rishi wanted to give the king another gift. It was another mango, and again, pretty much the same thing happened again, the mango went to the treasury.

This happened for a number of days, until one day, the King was in his garden when the rishi arrived and presented the mango of the day.

After he’d left, the King was actually finally tempted to eat it. His minister, who was a bit paranoid advised him not to. “It could be poisoned” he warned.

The king didnt like the idea – “its a raw mango with the skin on – how could it be poisoned?” he asked the minister.

“Snow white’s mother did it” said his minister.

“You have a point” said the king. “Conveniently there’s this monkey in the garden I cant stand”

He tossed the mango to the monkey. The monkey picked up the mango and started eating it. And soon it finished eating it and tossed away the seed. Except it wasnt a seed. It was a large ruby. Very shiny and very real.

The royal jeweler examined it and declared it to be the most valuable gem he had ever seen.

The surprised king immediately called the treasurer and asked for the rest of the mangoes. The treasurer who hadnt been in the garden was only too happy, he had been wondering if by asking him to store the mangoes the king was subtly hinting that he was planning to demote the treasurer to the position of the royal grocer or something.

Every mango was sliced upon and every one of them contained a huge precious jewel.

“We’ve hit the jackpot” exclaimed the treasurer. 

“Indeed” said the King “but we must distribute the extra wealth to the people. And I must speak to the rishi tomorrow when he arrives again.”

“No, no no” said the treasurer. “You cant do that. What if he stops? He’s like the goose with the golden egg. We should keep receiving the eggs and not ask any more questions.”

“I cant in my good conscience do that. I cant accept anything of value from people without knowing their motives.” said the King.
He had a point of course.

So when the rishi arrived the next day, the King bowed before him and asked him what he could do for the rishi in exchange for the generous gifts.

The rishi said “I have only one request for you King. On the next new moon night, you must come to the crematorium. I will wait for you there and give you further instruction”
The king readily agreed.

While in the background the secretary shook his head and thought to himself, quid pro quo after all.

And on the appointed night, the king arrived and saw the rishi. The rishi had started a little fire and was chanting some prayers.

He paused, and instructed the King to go fetch him a Betaal from the Banyan tree on the other side of the crematorium. A Betaal is a re-animated corpse that loves to hang upside down on trees like a bat.

The King quickly reached the tree and caught one without much difficulty. But within minutes, the Betaal managed to escape and go back to his tree.

This happened a few times until the King realized that the Betaal only managed to escape the moment the King said something.

The king’s voice made the Betaal less solid briefly and allowed him to escape

Since I have universal knowledge I could try to explain the mechanics behind how that works, but you wouldn’t understand it because some of the underlying science hasn’t been discovered yet. Maybe in the 25th century when I’m telling this story to a different audience I might throw in those details.

So anyway on the next iteration of capture the flag, i mean capture the betaal, the King did not speak a word. But the Betaal spoke to him instead. 

He said “we have a long way to go”.

“We don’t” thought the king, but wouldn’t say it, because he thought the betaal was just trying to trick him into saying something so he could escape back to his tree. 

The Betaal continued – to pass the time, let me tell you a story.

This is the story that follows.

The Three Fastidious men

Once upon a time, said Betaal – there were 3 holy men. They were known to be very fastidious, which means they were fussy and paid great attention to very minor details.

They wandered about the land palace hopping like many back then.

Once at the palace of a famous king, the first holy man showed up. He was received warmly and even sat at the king’s table for dinner. And the food was rich, at least the king himself never  had any cause for complaint.

However after the very first bite, the rishi was offended. “I refuse to eat rice that is grown from ash” he said.

Everyone was surprised that the holy man could discern something like that from one bite of the rice. The king immediately launched an investigation and it was discovered that the rice did indeed grow in a field right next to a crematorium.

Speaking from my unlimited knowledge I can positively assert that there are no nutritional differences between rice grown near a cemetery and rice grown further away, but psychologically there was a huge difference. The king ordered a change of supplier right away.

The holy man left, and after a while the second holy man showed up at the same palace. He too was warmly received. As he was being served food and drink, he remarked to the serving girl that she must have drunk a lot of goat’s milk. “I didn’t” said the serving girl afraid now because the king might think she’d been drinking out of his stock.

The king was curious and had someone investigate. No, the serving girl never drank goat’s  milk from the king’s supplies said the investigators. But, we talked to her mother, and in her childhood she fed almost exclusively on goat’s milk, a fact that the serving girl herself didn’t recall.

Again, everyone was amazed by this rishi’s powers. 

He left after a while and then the third holy man showed up. He too was warmly received but this time dinner passed by without incident. 

When it was bedtime the rishi was shown to his room, and he had a great big luxurious bed with seven mattresses. The maid had just laid out brand new sheets for him and everything. 

the next morning the king like the good host that he was  stopped by to ask if the rishi had slept well. The rishi said, no he hadn’t, and showed him a big red mark on his back. Again the matter was investigated and it was discovered that under the seven mattresses there was a single human hair.the shape and length of the hair exactly matched that of the mark on the rishi’s back.

The king apologized for the discomfort and the rishi went on his way.

“That’s the story” said the betaal. “All three were sensitive to some sort of stimulus – the taste of the rice, the smell from the serving girl’s hands and the presence of the hair.
Now, Vic can you tell me with certainty which of the three rishis was the most sensitive?”

I have already said a number of times that Vic was smart and here he proves it.

“The third one” said Vic right away. “The first two rishis could have gotten their information about the rice and the serving girl some other way too, not necessarily from tasting the food or from the smell of the girl’s hands. But the third one had a visible physical effect on him. I’d put my money on him”

“Bingo!” said the betaal. “Your answer is right. But also, you spoke, so now I am off”
And he flew off back to his tree.

We’ll leave it here this week.

The king did go back and grab him again and again and heard more stories but those are for future episodes. 

Notes

A betaal is not a vampire, a vampire is a fictional character that was mostly made famous by bram stoker’s Dracula. A betaal is a corpse that can fly and talk and tell stories and listen to some extent. It’s not a zombie either. It mostly hangs out or rather hangs down from trees near cemeteries.

Vic and the betaal do this a number of times- 25 in the most common versions, but more or less in some retellings.

The rishi and king relationship is an interesting one. It is rooted in caste division in ancient Indian society

There are a few different terms rishi, rishi, sanyasi. Jogi, but it’s easy to think of them simply as wise men though they may not sometimes act wisely. 

The Character of the Week

The character this week is a legend. King Poros ruled parts of the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent around 3rd century BC. He was a great warrior and is often depicted riding an elephant.

When a great army arrived from the northwest,  Porus did his best to defend his land. Since the army was that of one of the greatest conquerors of all time, Porus’s best was not good enough. Alexander the Great had him in chains.

When Porus was brought before him, he could see a marked difference between Porus and all of the other kings Alexander had defeated. 

Seeing his proud and dignified stance, Alexander asked Porus how he would like to be treated. 

Porus answered that he would like to be treated no differently than how Alexander himself expected to be treated. 

This impressed Alexander so much that not only did he let Porus go, he even gave him some of his lands back.

Today, this incident is what Porus is mostly known for.

Next Week

Next week, we’ll start on the Ramayana – this is one of the two greatest epics of Indian mythology and I am so excited to start this!

The character next week is a girl who abducted a prince so she wouldn’t have to marry his cousin.

Since I’m several thousands of years old, my memory may be imperfect at times. So if you see any errors in my podcast I’d appreciate it if you could point them out to me.

As always I am grateful to family and friends for all the support and help. And thank you all for listening, and a special thanks to all of you who have provided feedback so far.

I’ll see you next week