Kathakoca or Treasury of Stories

Author(s): C H Tawney
Publisher: Oriental Books Reprint Corporation New Delhi

Page 20

xviii
The queen and her new lover had set out on their journey, and reached a swollen river. The robber proposed to bring over first the queen's clothes and jewels, and then herself. But when he had crossed the river with everything the queen had on her body, he thought it safer to part company with so dangerous a woman, and left her naked like a new-born babe on the opposite bank. In this plight she was discovered by the Vyantara god, the late elephant-driver, * who had resolved on saving her soul. He therefore took the form of a jackal, who had a piece of flesh in his mouth. But seeing a fish, who had jumped out of the water and tumbled on the dry ground, he let go the flesh and rushed on the fish; the fish, however, jerked itself again into the water, while a bird, coming suddenly down, seized the piece of flesh. The queen, seeing this, laughed at the jackal, who had lost his flesh and missed the fish, whereupon the transformed god rejoined that she had lost her first and her second lovers. He exhorted her to repent of her sins and take refuge with the Jinas. The queen followed his advice, and became a nun.'
Curious to say, this story is found in China, in the socalled · Avadánas, translated from the Chinese by Stanislas Julien. It is called 'The Woman and the Fox. The following is a translation from the French :
Once on a time there was a woman rich in gold and silver who loved a man. She took with her, in order to follow him, her gold, her silver and her clothes ; then they set off together, and arrived on the brink of a rapid river. Her lover said to her, “Give me your riches, in order that I may carry them over first; I will subsequently come back for you."
The man, having carried over all these precious articles, took to his heels, and never came back again. The woman remained on the bank of the river, and gave herself up for lost, as no one came to her help. She saw & fox (renard sauvage) which had caught a hawk, and, having seen a fish
* One of her husbands.