Kathasaritasagara – Princess to the Rescue – {Ep.226} – Stories From India – Podcast

A story from the Kathasaritasagara about a Prince on a quest to retrieve a golden arrow from a crane-demon. Featuring chases, impossible tasks, clever disguise, and kits to instantly grow your own mountains and rivers and forests

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 doing a story from the Kathasaritasagara, which is the Ocean of the stream of Stories. And if you’re wondering what an Ocean of streams looks like, it looks like a regular Ocean. But the one here is metaphorical.

The story begins with a King. Let’s call him Raja. Raja had a hundred wives. Not nearly as many as Krishna, but a hundred was a pretty big number. Contrary to what you might expect, he had no children at all.

He was pretty worried about this situation. As ruler of a Kingdom, he had complete and utter freedom to do anything he wished. He could, for example, spend taxpayer money anyway he wished. The only expectation from the peasantry was that the Kingdom would have a successor who could tax them just as the incumbent was doing. And that only expectation was not being met. And he had so far failed miserably at that.

Time passed, and in desperation, he found an astrologer to solve the problem for him. A common reaction back in those days. The astrologer said he knew exactly how to solve this problem. He would prepare a magic potion for the Raja’s wives to drink.

The ingredients of the potion were goats. Lots and lots of goats. As luck had it, the astrologer had a farm and a herd of goats. What’s more he had just the kind of goat that would make the best potion. And he could sell those to the King for a tiny markup of only 200%.

The unsuspecting King bought them all. And a few days later the Astrologer handed out vials of strange liquid, which needed to be mixed with oats and hot water for best effect. 

So that was done. And after all the wives in the room had consumed their Goat-meal, the Astrologer suddenly realized he had one vial left over. Raja looked around and realized that his favorite queen, Rani, was not present in the dining room. Which might call into question her status as his favorite. But to give him the benefit of doubt, I guess it was difficult to notice a single missing wife out of the normal 100-strong crowd.

When Rani entered, she was quite upset that they had started without her. It’s behavior like this that really got her goat.

The astrologer assured her that she hadn’t missed anything. In fact, the last remaining vial was the best of all! It was the most powerful of all and had the highest chance of success. The other 99 wives grumbled at that in the background, but no one paid them any attention.

The King was also eager to pacify Rani. He assured her that the Astrologer was first-rate and so was his potion. He had recently won a reality show that everyone in the country seemed to be addicted to – what was it called? Oh yes. India’s Goat Talent.

Rani finally had the Goat-meal. But her reaction was meh.

The Astrologer wasn’t happy but he couldn’t show it in front of the King of course.

But almost a year later, he did become happy. Because every one of Raja’s 100 wives gave birth to a child. Rani’s son was the youngest because she was the last to consume her potion. I know and you know that that’s not how childbirth normally works, but hey – this is a work of fiction by a person who wasn’t exactly a doctor. So let’s give it some slack.

Perhaps influenced by the Goat-ly intervention,  many of the wives decided to teach their children Karate as soon as possible. I guess they each wanted to bring up a Karate Kid. But bad Goat jokes aside, all of the 100 children got a great education! All the best lessons that taxpayer money could buy.

The situation was not exactly like that of the Kauravas in the Mahabharata. Because the children in today’s story each came from a different mother. That’s just a subtle distinction but I wanted to make it clear because unlike the Kauravas there was intense rivalry amongst the siblings.

Rani’s son, whose name was Rajkumar, did the best amongst them all. Unlike many other princes who chose Karate, Rajkumar opted for Archery. He was really good at it. He had won the Arjun award for the Mahabharata warrior who was an expert with the bow and arrow. And as he grew up to be an adult, he got better at everything, when compared to all his brothers!

That left 99 children deeply jealous of Rajkumar. They needed him out of the way if they even wanted a shot at the throne themselves. Besides, these 99 children were simply imitating their moms. You see, 99 wives had convinced Raja that Rani was up to no good. And through some subtle maneuvering they had him imprison Rani.

Rajkumar’s brothers found an opportunity soon enough. One day, while all 100 of them were in the palace gardens, a giant crane swooped down and landed on a tree. The crane was so massive that the tree bent under its weight. It was a wonder that it did not collapse. It was a strange crane too. It was quite misshapen. To the point that it seemed closer to looking like a mechanical crane than like the bird.

The children’s teacher knew the bird well. He said it was a Demon that likes to roam around in bird form. A well-placed arrow from the best archer amongst them may get rid of it. It might have simply angered the Demon but the teacher didn’t mention that.

Rajkumar was hesitant. So far the crane had made no sinister moves. He figured it was just resting on the branch. How would he feel if after a tiring run, he rested on a park bench only to find someone firing an arrow at him? But he didn’t say anything.

His half-brothers however, said many things. The crane was looking at them with an evil eye. It might carry them off, or eat them, or both! Some of the half-brothers had heard that the only effective weapon against a demon in disguise was a golden arrow. Just like the one Raja had recently commissioned. He had almost emptied the treasury to have it made.

Rajkumar was urged to fire at the crane with that golden arrow. He gave in, as impressionable young adults sometimes do. The arrow hit the crane right in the wing. But it didn’t seem to impact its ability to fly. The crane flew off with the Golden arrow still stuck in its wing.

All of Rajkumar’s brothers collectively exclaimed. Oh no. The arrow was lost now. Rajkumar was in big trouble.

It didn’t matter that Rajkumar hadn’t wanted to fire the arrow in the first place. He had fired it and lost it, so he must bear responsibility.

Rajkmar cursed the whole concept of the golden arrow. Why did it need to be golden and expensive? You fire it and don’t normally get it back. He would have understood it if they had made a boomerang golden. Those aren’t easy to lose. But a golden arrow made no sense.

His brothers informed him that he was right. But be that as it may, the only way he could fix this situation was to go after the demon and bring back the arrow. And he should leave. Right now. They said they would make some sort of an excuse to Raja if he inquired either about his arrow or his favorite son. They’d say Rajkumar took it out to polish it or something.

They did no such thing. They instead blamed Rajkumar for everything, so that Raja decided that if the prince returned he would be welcomed by his mother in the dungeons. The other princes were very happy. The chances of Rajkumar returning were practically zero, because the demon would probably eat him up.

Rajkumar hadn’t taken any weapons with him when he left. His brothers insisted weapons were powerless against the demon. Even though they had all seen it getting hurt by an arrow. Rajkumar went on foot in the direction that the crane had flown in. Luckily for the Prince the demon had left a trail of blood that he could follow. It took many days to cover the distance that the crane had covered in an hour.

Rajkumar finally reached a castle that looked grand but sinister at the same time. It was decorated in a demon aesthetic.

There were no guards around, but before he reached the palace gates, someone called out to him. He turned around and saw the most beautiful woman he had seen in his life. The girl was obviously a princess. She asked him what he wanted. And after he had told his whole story, the girl asked him….to marry her.

Rajkumar was taken aback. And then realization dawned on him. He said, “this is a prank isn’t it? Bakra as we call it in our Kingdom. You’ve got people hidden in the bushes ready to jump out and laugh at me.”

The lady said no. That was not it. But what he described was a really good idea for a reality show in the future when TV and MTV in particular would get invented.

Rajkumar hesitated and said, before they made a major life changing decision shouldn’t they at least know each other’s names? So they did. The girl said she was a Princess, her name was Rajkumari. And her father was the Demon that changed into a crane.

Rajkumar was shocked that a demon girl could be so beautiful and appear so human, to which the Princess blamed propaganda. They were not all monsters. But they did all have extra special powers. 

The Prince did ask her what his special powers were, but she asked him to simply wait and watch. She could get him his golden arrow. But he must marry her first. And for now, if he was willing, they could go to her father and announce their engagement.

Rajkumar was fine with that. When the Princess and the Prince walked into the throne room, the Demon King wasn’t in his evil crane form. But that didn’t make him any less unpleasant. Nevertheless, after introductions, Rajkumar expressed concern for the Demon’s arm which seemed badly injured.

The Demon King, whose name was Danav, cursed the blighter with the arrow who had hit him a few days ago. Imagine that – there he was just getting a little flying exercise in, and out of the blue someone hit him. What was the world coming to? He had a good mind to report this action to the SPCA.

The Princess interrupted to say that all that was fine, but the good thing is that they got a golden arrow out of it. And more importantly, she was ready now to marry this Prince. Could they get started with all that?

Danav was skeptical. To Demons, humans were food. How would a human father feel if their daughter walked in and said they wanted to marry a cauliflower? Not an exact analogy, because honestly, Danav would have preferred it if Rajkumari wanted to marry a cauliflower. 

He thought about it and told Rajkumar that if he wanted to marry Rajkumari, he would have to get through a few tasks first. Nothing major, but if he was as smart and resourceful as Rajkumari claimed him to be, he’d have no problem. First go and bathe.

“Alright, that’s a task I’m confident of accomplishing. Direct me to the bathroom, sir!” The prince said.

“No, no, no. It’s not a task. I just mean go take a shower. You humans all have odor I know, but with you it’s particularly strong”

So with Rajkumar dismissed, Danav asked his daughter to go fetch all her sisters and assemble them in the great ballroom.

Rajkumari went and did that, but before she did, she cheated a bit. She went to Rajkumar’s room and gave him some very specific instructions. This was his first task. Rajkumari had 99 sisters and they all looked identical and dressed identical. Danav was surely going to ask him to pick her out of the crowd.

Rajkumar was concerned. How could he do that? He was used to seeing a large group of siblings – he had 99 brothers himself. But they were not identical. 

The princess told him that she was going to make things easy for him. She would wear her necklace on her head instead of around her neck.

Rajkumar observed that it would become a headlace instead of a necklace if she did that. But yeah, that might work.

It did. Danav set him the task, and Rajkumar feigned surprise, so as to not give away that he had a little help. Rajkumar looked carefully over every identically dressed Princess and finally picked Rajkumari because she really was the only one wearing her necklace on her head.

Danav did not notice that. He was surprised. Through sorcery he had arranged to have his 100 daughters look identical just so that he could set such a difficult task for any prospective sons-in-law. And yet, at the first time of asking, it hadn’t worked. He couldn’t figure out what had gone wrong. Maybe humans were just more perceptive than he had imagined them to be.

No matter, Rajkumar would fail tomorrow’s task for sure.

The second task was assigned to Rajkumar the next morning. He was given a hundred bags of seeds and was told to plant them uniformly, with an exactly 2 cm spacing between seeds. No more, no less.

Also, because it was hot outside, Danav was going to go inside and laze by the pool, sipping an iced tea. “Come and tell me when you’re ready to give up,” he added.

Rajkumar despaired, but Rajkumari came to the rescue again. She simply waved her hand, and magically every seed out of every bag rose and planted itself neatly in rows with exactly a 2 cm spacing between neighboring seeds. She explained that this was magic 101. Children did this when they got bored.

Rajkumar reflected that this by itself was a great reason to marry Rajkumari. Imagine the agricultural revolution they could spark back in his Kingdom.

Anyway, he thanked her and rushed to tell Danav the news. Danav spilled his iced tea when he heard the job was done. He came over with a measuring tape and indeed Rajkumar had done it. This was shocking. How had this puny human managed such a difficult task?

Well, no matter. He was going to up the stakes here. He told Rajkumar that he had changed his mind, and that he wanted all the seeds back in the bags. Every last one! 

And he could just stay and observe how Rajkumar was going to do it. But it was still hot, and he hadn’t finished his iced tea, so he was going back inside. There would be time enough to come back and gloat at Rajkumar as he picked out each seed from the ground and collected it.

Rajkumari stepped out of the shadows. “Is this also magic 101?” Rajkumar asked her. But Rajkumari said “No. To sow is easy, to un-sow is one of the most difficult pieces of magic. I would have to rely on my insect friends.” She chanted some spell and suddenly, millions and perhaps billions of ants suddenly emerged from the ground, they all quickly found the seeds and deposited them in the bags. 

15 mins later, Rajkumar was again back to where Danav was lazing in his comfy chair. And causing him to spill yet another drink.

Danav was surprised, but he couldn’t really think of any other difficult tasks.

The next morning he instructed Rajkumar that the wedding was on. The only thing he had to do was to invite Danav’s brother, Rakshas, to the wedding. He lived over the mountains. There was a hill with a bell on top. Rajkumar had to ring the bell, and announce the time and place of the wedding. Rakshas would follow.

Sounded simple enough. Rajkumar got on a horse and was ready to depart when Rajkumari stopped him. She said, “It’s a trick obviously. My uncle eats anyone who rings the bell. But don’t worry – take these with you.” 

She handed him some dirt, some water in a jar, some thorns, and, curiously, a ball of fire in another jar. 

“Ring the bell, and run! When my uncle, Rakshas, pursues you, throw these things one at a time. It’ll slow him down”

Rajkumar still didn’t see what the problem was. It was just her uncle. How frightening could Rakshas be, even if he was a demon. But he was soon about to find out. Rajkumar scaled several mountains to reach the hill with the massive bell. One of the mountains looked oddly smoother than the rest and had no trees growing on it, but Rajkumar paid it no mind. He climbed the steps to the hill, observing the carvings around the bell – there was the holy trinity of Indian mythology – Brahma the creator of the Universe, Shiva its destroyer and Vishnu the preserver.

Rajkumar stepped up and rang the bell. He wasn’t particularly worried that the bell was the size of a house. That probably just meant that Rakshas could be roaming over a wide area and needed to hear the bell if someone came calling. It was only when the oddly-shaped, treeless mountain suddenly stood up that Rajkumar realized the size of the demon he was dealing with. Rakshas would have made Godzilla look like a bug by comparison.

The Prince didn’t wait. He jumped in the saddle and dashed off. He was trying to put distance between himself and the demon, but every step the demon took seemed to almost completely close the gap.

He remembered the things Rajkumari had given him. First he scattered the dirt behind him. Instantly mountains sprang up where the dirt landed. One of them caught Rakshas square on the jaw. But that didn’t stop the demon. He hopped over the mountains quickly enough. Rajkumar tossed the fire next. It was quite warm, but the demon managed to jump over it with just minor burns. He still kept coming.

Rajkumar smashed the jar of water next which instantly changed into a roaring river. It took longer for the demon to swim across this one. But he kept coming. Finally the prince tossed the thorns. These changed into a forest of thorns, sort of like Maleficent’s thorn forest in the story of Sleeping Beauty. Rakshas tried to squeeze through it but the thorns poked a lot. He decided to give up and go devour a village somewhere instead. After all, he was sure that Rajkumar would taste sour anyway.

Danav was surprised to see him back. And skeptical whether he had gone at all. He only believed it when Rajkumar described the carvings around the bell.

Which left the Prince wondering why hadn’t Rajkumari simply given him detailed notes about the carvings, if that was enough to satisfy Danav.

The wedding finally happened. Danav could resist it no longer.

But he could resist sending his son-in-law and daughter off. He insisted that they stay with him.

That was okay for a day or two. But after that Rajkumar couldn’t handle it for much longer. He needed to get back to his home. He had a golden arrow to return, he had a Kingdom of his own that he was going to rule over. He also preferred human food. And the most important reason of all – he was always worried that with 99 women in the castle who looked identical to his wife, he was sure to make a mistake at some point.

So one day Rajkumar and Rajkumari sneaked out of the castle, and headed back to Rajakumar’s kingdom. Obviously, they took the golden arrow with them.

Danav was angry when he found out. He ordered his fastest horse and went racing behind them. In my opinion, he should have opted for a bird’s eye view when searching for them. He could have changed to a crane. Better visibility through an aerial search. But the horse was faster than Rajkumari’s. So he soon caught up on them. Except it wasn’t them. It was just a woodman chopping wood. He hadn’t realized it, but through her magic, Rajkumari had made the Prince and the horse invisible and disguised herself as a woodman.

Danav asked why the woodman was chopping wood today, which was an odd question if you think about it. Does anyone ask a farmer why they are farming on any particular day, or a carpenter why they are doing woodwork?

The woodman, really Rajkumari, replied that she… she meant he was cutting wood for the cremation of Danav who had just passed away. That confused Danav, quite uncharacteristically. He went back wondering if he had died. When did that happen? You’d think he might have noticed it.

When he reached his castle, Danav asked his servants if he was dead. They suppressed their giggles at his foolishness but answered that he wasn’t.

He was still confused, but he hopped back in the saddle and chased his daughter again.

This time he came across a mailman. Again, it was Rajkumari disguised. He again asked a very odd question – why was the mailman delivering mail?

Rajkumari said that she….I mean he was carrying a message to Danav’s relatives because he was lying, mortally wounded on the battlefield.

That again confused Danav. Was he mortally wounded in a battlefield? What battlefield? If he were in a battle, he should have known about it! Why was he the last person to be informed when such important things happened to him? It was an outrage!

He went back home, still confused. He did not set out after them again.

Rajkumar was supposed to have been welcomed with a trip to the dungeon. And he was. But not as a prisoner. He was sent there to release his mother. Because, you see, Raja had come to the conclusion that Rajkumar was not at fault. There were too many inconsistencies in the stories he heard from his 99 remaining sons.

Raja upon seeing Rajkumar, and Rajkumari riding into town, held out his arms and said “Come to papa”. He hugged his precious golden arrow very dearly. And he did give a little nod to his son and new daughter-in-law too.

All was well after that. Raja tried to punish his 99 evil queens and 99 evil sons but at Rajkumar’s insistence he forgave them.

That’s all for now

Some notes on the show

As is traditional on this show, the names of the characters are based on the roles they play. Rajkumar is the Hindi word for Prince, as Rajkumari is for Princess. Raja is King. Danav and Rakshas both mean demon.

The Kathasaritasagara has an interesting story about how it was composed. That itself is a tale that fits well into the category of stories that it includes. It features Shiva and Parvati. I’ll cover that in a separate story.

Elements of this quest – in many previous stories that we have seen. There are elements that are common with many European fairy tales – including the quest, the two chases, first from Rakshas and later from Demon, the retrieval of something lost, and of course the part where the villain morphs from evil mastermind to just a very foolish and confused person.

That’s all for now. 

Next Time

In the next episode, we’ll do a story from history that some of you have asked for. It’s about a 15th century Rajput King, who was one of the most powerful rulers of his time.

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.

Rez, Hiranmayee, Munish, and Moshroom, thank you for the kind words!

Samay, yes – we’ll get back to the Ramayana soon.

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, and on X.

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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!