To hopefully cheer you up in this terrible cold wave that’s shrouded half the country, I would like to retell a charming, lesser-known Jataka that warms the heart. It tells us that the rules go back a long way about not only doing the right thing but being seen to do the right thing. It’s the strangely familiar story of Prince Subhash, meaning ‘well-spoken’ and Prince Shashi, meaning ‘the moon’. They had a younger step-brother called Prince Ravi, meaning ‘the sun’.
Prince Ravi’s mother, quite like the grievously misled Queen Kaikeyi of the Ramayana, wanted her son, Prince Ravi, to be king. To put pressure on the king, she stalked off to the kopa griha or anger room, which every palace and mansion was once equipped with. The anger room was the designated rage or sulk corner. When you were hopping mad you did not disturb the peace and order of the household by enacting nasty, vulgar scenes. Instead, ancient Indian etiquette required you to retreat to work it off and eventually resume normal, polite behaviour. Whoever had upset you duly came by to make up, for they knew the rules too. This code of behaviour is aimed at maximum damage control and also at keeping family spats private without spies and witnesses.
But unlike Raja Dasharatha, this king sternly said ‘No’ to the queen’s improper demand. Fearing, however, for the safety of his elder sons, he told them to go live in the forest until he could send for them. Shocked but obedient, Prince Subhash who was the Bodhisattva or Buddha in a previous birth, and Prince Shashi, took off their fine muslin clothes, ate a last good dinner and slept on their fine beds one last night.
They were gone before daybreak and made their way to the vast forest of saguan or teak trees across the River Ganga, carrying only their weapons and a few useful tools. Trailing them was their brother Prince Ravi, who had discovered what his mother had been up to in the anger room. Prince Ravi loved his brothers and was horribly embarrassed by his mother’s schemes. He kitted himself out like his brothers and went after them unobserved. When he caught up with them, he fell at their feet and begged pardon, making it clear that it was none of his doing, and insisted on going along.
Wandering north, the three princes reached the Himalayan foothills. They entered a lovely forest of sal trees and spotted a lake shimmering in the distance. Prince Ravi, still somewhat on the back foot, besides being the youngest and obliged by good manners to wait on his elders, offered to fetch water in leaf cups. When he made it to the lake, the thirsty and tired prince took a running jump into the lake’s cool waters. Just as in the Mahabharata, the lake’s resident yaksha or spirit sprang out and caught him in its sharp claws.
“Answer my question or I won’t let go of you,” it growled without preamble, but after all, yakshas are not known to be overly nice in these matters. “Very well,” stammered the prince.
“What is the teaching of the gods?” thundered the yaksha. The prince quaked, “The sun and the moon” at random, which, of course, was the wrong answer. So the yaksha locked him away in a cave to be eaten later.
After some time Prince Shashi came to the lake, also splashed in without a look, and was promptly taken captive. His equally random and incorrect answer to the yaksha’s query was “The four directions”. Into the cave, he went to join his brother.
Not long after, Prince Subhash came looking for his brothers. Being the smart prince, he looked around carefully and saw two sets of footprints going into the lake but none coming out. So he went around the lake with his sword drawn, looking for clues.
The yaksha, which had been lying in wait behind a fat clump of lotuses and smacking its lips, looked him up and down, taking his measure. Figuring that this prince was not easy prey, it assumed the form of a villager and accosted the prince politely with offers of food and drink.
“You must be the yaksha of this lake. What have you done with my brothers?” said the prince coldly. Shocked at being found out so quickly, the yaksha explained that it was empowered to eat any human being who entered the lake without knowing the right answer to its question ‘What is the teaching of the gods?’.
“That’s a very basic question,” snapped the prince, justly annoyed by the impertinence of it all.
“But you have to answer. Nobody got it right,” said the yaksha, miffed at being put in its place by a mere mortal.
“Good deeds bring glory. Bad deeds bring shame,” said the prince, with a weary air of indulging someone who was not very bright.
“Hmpf. Clever, aren’t we? So choose one brother,” said the wily yaksha, secretly delighted by this exchange which was a refreshing break in the monotony of its easy life.
“Prince Ravi, of course, because he’s my step-brother, and everyone will say we killed him otherwise,” said Prince Subhash.
Deeply pleased by this proof of common sense and self-preservation, the yaksha let the prince have both his brothers back. After that, they all had jolly times with nice swims, picnics and campfires. The yaksha told the best and funniest stories for it was really very travelled and had only accepted lake duty as a retirement plan. These merry days went on until the royal messengers found the princes and took them home, much to the yaksha’s disappointment.
The meddlesome queen was dispatched on a long pilgrimage south of the Vindhya Mountains. The king, as he had planned all along, swiftly had Prince Subhash installed as the yuvaraj or crown prince, and put the kingdom firmly on track; and the Jataka continued to shed its light.
Renuka Narayanan