Indian Antiquary Vol 13

SR No.: 032505
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: John Faithfull Fleet, Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 492
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 22 MB

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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
more in the dark, the king of my country-over which my father is the minister-set out one day on savár. While passing a barber's street he saw a beautiful damsel of that caste. Bewitched by her beauty the king wanted to have her as his concubine, notwithstanding her low position in society. The fruit of that concubinage is your son-in-law. He being the son of a barber-mother acquired so very easily the art of medicine. That a king was his father makes him look like a prince. If he had been of pure birth why should he leave his kingdom, and come here to effect the cure of your daughter. Except this prince, or supposed prince, all those that came here were mere doctors by caste." Thus ended the vile Durbuddhi, and taking in his hand the papers, vanished out of the room quickly, like a serpent that had stung.
[OCTOBER, 1884.
tween himself and the prince about the loan for a day of the latter's wife for his beastly enjoyment. The excellent Subuddhi who always observed oaths most strictly was confused for a time. He did not know what to do. To stick to the oath and surrender his wife to another; or to break it and preserve the chastity of his own wife. At last, repeating in his own mind, "Charity alone conquers," and also thinking that heaven would somehow devise to preserve his wife's purity he went to her, explained to her how the matter stood, and ordered her to sleep with the minister's son that night in his own bed-chamber. She hesitatingly consented; for as a good wife she I could not disobey her husband's commands. Subuddhi then told Durbuddhi that he might sleep in his bed-room that night, and have his wife as his companion.
The sweet words in which the minister's son clothed his arguments, the rising passion at the thought that he had been falsely imposed upon by a barber's son, the shame or rather supposed shame that he thought had come over his family, and a thousand other feelings clouded for a time the clear reason of the old king. He saw no other way of putting an end to the shame than by the murder of his dear daughter and son-in-law first, and of his own self and queen afterwards. At once he ordered the executioner, who came in. He gave him his signet-ring, and commanded him to break open the bed-room of his son-in-law that midnight, and murder him with his wife while asleep. The hukums or orders given with signet rings ought never to be disobeyed. The executioner humbled himself to the ground as a sign of his accepting the order, and retired to sharpen his knife for his terrible duty.
Neither Subuddhi nor his affectionate wife had any reason to suspect this terrible order. The old queen and the treacherous Darbuddhi had equally no reason to know anything about it. The old man, after issuing the hukum shut himself in his closet, and began to weep and wail as if he had lost his daughter from that moment. Durbuddhi, after kindling the fire, as says the Tamil proverb, by means of his treachery, came back with the papers to the prince. A thought occurred in his mind that Subuddhi's fate was drawing near. He wanted to have fulfilled the engagement that took place be
The princess went to her mother crying that her husband had turned out mad. "Or else who would promise to give his wife to another for a night. He has ordered me to sleep this night with the minister's son. What does he mean by that ?" "My daughter! Fear nothing, perhaps in his boyhood, without knowing what the delicate duties of a wife are, he agreed to present you as a toy to the use of another for a night. The promise once made now pains. him. Unable to break it, and leaving it to yourself to preserve your chastity, he has so ordered you. And he would, nay, must excuse you, if you by some means or other save yourself, and apparently make good your husband's promise also. A thought just comes to me how to do that. There is your foster sister exactly resembling you. I shall send her in your place, ordering her to behave like yourself in your bed-room." So consoling her daughter, the old queen at once made all the requisite arrangements. And, of course, Subuddhi had no reason then to know anything about them.
The night came on and the minister's son went to the prince's bed-room and slept with the supposed wife of his friend, with his lovely motto, "Adharmamé jayam," but he was soon to learn that Adharmam never conquers. For at midnight, just a few minutes after he had thought that his Adharmam had fully conquered, the door is forced open, and a ruffian with a drawn sword blazing like lightning rushes in, and murders the pair. Thus in that very