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SEPTEMBER, 1888.]
"My child!" said Brahmâ, "I will inform you what it wrote; but if you disclose it to anyone your head will split into a thousand pieces. The child is a male child. It has before it a very hard life. A buffalo and a sack of grain will be its livelihood. What is to be done? Perhaps it had not done any good acts in its former life, and as the result of its sin then it must undergo miseries now."
FOLKLORE IN SOUTHERN INDIA.
"What! Your supreme Holiness, the father of this child is a great sage. And is this the fate reserved to the son of a sage ?" wept the true disciple of the sage.
"What have I to do with the matter? The fruits of acts in a former life must be undergone in the present life. But, remember, if you should reveal this news to anyone your head will split into a thousand pieces."
Having said this Brahmâ went away, leaving Subrahmanya extremely pained to hear that the son of a great sage was to have a hard life. He could not even open his lips on the subject, for if he did his head would be split. In sorrow he passed some days, when Jñânanidhi returned from his pilgrimage and was delighted to see his wife and the child doing well, and in the learned company of the old sage our young disciple forgot all his sorrow.
Three more years passed away in deep study, and again the old sage wanted to go on a pilgrimage to the sacred source of the Tunga bhadra. Again was his wife pregnant, and he had to leave her and his disciple behind with the usual temporary female assistance. Again, too, did Brahmâ come at the moment of birth, but found easy admittance as Subrahmanya had now become acquainted with him owing to the previous confinement. Again did Brahmâ take an oath from him not to communicate the fortunes of the second child, with the curse that if he broke his oath his head would split into a thousand pieces. This child was a female, and the nail had written that her fate was to be that of a courtezan! She would obtain her living after her attaining maturity by prostitution. Extremely vexed was our young philosopher. The most shameful and sinful life of lives was. to be the lot of a daughter of a most holy sage. The thought vexed him to such a degree that language has no words to express it. After worrying a great deal he consoled himself with
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the soothing philosophies of the fatalists that fate alone governs the world.
The old sage in due course returned, and our young disciple spent two more happy years with him. After a little more than ten years had been thus spent the boy reached to five years and the girl to two. The more they advanced in years the more did the recollection of their future fate pain Subrahmanya. So one morning he humbly requested the old sage to permit him to go on a long journey to the Himalayas and other mountains, and Jñânanidhi, knowing that all that he knew had been grasped by the young disciple, permitted him with a glad heart to satisfy his curiosity.
Our hero started, and after several years, during which he visited several towns and learned men, reached the Himalayas. There he saw many sages, and lived with them for some time. He did not remain in one place, for his object was more to examine the world. So he went from place to place, and after a long and interesting journey of twenty years he again returned to the banks of the Tungabhadrâ, at the very place where he lived for ten years and imbibed philosophical knowledge from Jñânanidhi. But he saw there neither Jñânanidhi nor his old wife. They had long since fallen a prey to the lord of death. Much afflicted at heart to see his master and mistress no more, he went to the nearest town, and there after a deal of search he found a coolie with a single buffalo. The fate which Brahmâ's nail had written on his master's son rushed into the mind of Subrahmanya. He approached the coolie, and, on closely examining him from a distance, our hero found distinct indications of his master's face in the labourer. His pain knew no bounds to see the son of a great sage thus earning his livelihood ont of a buffalo. He followed him to his home, and found that he had a wife and two children. One sack of corn he had in his house and no more, from which he took out a portion every day and gave to his wife to be husked. The rice was cooked, and with the petty earnings of a coolie, he and his family kept body and soul together. Each time the corn in the sack became exhausted he used to be able to save enough to replenish it again with corn. Thus did he, according to the writing of Brahmâ's nail, pass his days. Kapali was the name of this coolie, the sage's son.
