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FOLK-TALES FROM NORTHERN INDIA
JANUARY, 1926]
Then the Pandit stood before him with folded hands and thanked him saying:"Learning is one thing and wisdom is another. A learned man destitute of wisdom is naught. Well did the poet write-
Ek lakh vidya, sawa lakh chaturdi;
Ek or châri Ved, ek or châturi.
"Learning is worth a lakh, and wisdom a lakh and a quarter. On one side are the four Vedas and cleverness on the other."
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90. The Fate of the Uncharitable.
(Told by Ram Ganesa, Dûbê Brahman of Mirzapur.)
There was once a beggar who used constantly to beg in the city. One day he came to the house of a woman, whose son and husband were absent from home on a journey. He stood at the door and cried: "Good luck to the charitable housewife. Give a poor man alms."
The woman said: "This rascal is always worrying me by asking alms every day. I will give him something which will prevent him from bothering me again."
So she put poison in some cakes which she gave to the beggar. He went back to his hut and put the cakes on a shelf, but he did not eat them, as he had other food which he had received as charity.
In the night the woman's husband and son came to his hut and said :
"Give us to eat, as there is no food in our house."
So he gave them the poisoned cakes, and when they had eaten them, they fell down dead. The beggar man raised an alarm and the neighbours assembled ; and when the woman arrived, she recognised her husband and son lying there dead. So she complained to the Raja that the beggar man had poisoned them. The Raja asked him why he had done so and he answered :
"I did not poison them. I only gave them the cakes which this woman had given me." The Raja had her house searched and found poison there: so he sentenced her to death. But the beggar man implored him to spare her life, as she had been sufficiently punished already. As the poet writes:
Jaisa karai, so taisa påwai; Put bhatár ke agê âwai; Sanghê karai sakarê påwai.
"As thou sowest, so shalt thou reap. It will come on thy husband and son. What thou doest in the evening, thou shalt receive next morning."
91. The saint and the dancing girl.
(Told by Brindaban, Brahman of Agra, and recorded by Kundan Lal, teacher of Mirakhur, Agra District.)
There was once a saint who used to practise austerities in a forest. One day a dancing girl was passing that way and said: "Jo ant men mati ho hai, soi gati práni ki hai." "What a person thinks of at the time of death, he becomes in the next life."
This she said every day as she passed the saint, till one day he was wroth and struck her with his tongs. She complained to the Raja, who, when he heard her story, asked what she meant by her words. She said :-" In my former life I was a Brahman girl and became a widow. I fell sick unto death and my mother sent for a physician. As he felt my pulse, I had evil thoughts, and so I died, and in the next birth I was born a dancer."
The Raja and the saint knew her words were true. So she was dismissed.
92. The wit of the Kayasth.
(Told by Bhola Ram, Bania, and recorded by Chiranji Lal, Brahman, of Mirakhur, Agra Dist?) The Raja was once passing through a village where a very wily Kayasth lived, and the Kayasth came up to him and said :-"Your kingdom is hollow."
