Sanskrit literature -- Translations into English; Tales -- India
But Jihva, who loved the thief and did not want him to be punished,
refused to go until Hari-Sarman promised that he would not tell the
king who the man was or where he lived. “I would rather,” she said,
“bear all the punishment than that he should suffer.” Even Hari-Sarman
was touched at this, and fearing that if he kept Jihva longer, she
would be found in the prison by messengers from the king, he promised
that no harm should come to her or the thief, and let her go.
Very soon after this, messengers came to take Hari-Sarman once more
before the king; who received him very coldly and began at once to
threaten him with a terrible punishment, if he did not say who the
thief was, and where the gold and jewels were. Even now Hari-Sarman
pretended to be unwilling to speak. But when he saw that the king would
put up with no more delay, he said, “I will lead you to the spot where
the treasure is buried, but the name of the thief, though I know it, I
will never betray.” The king, who did not really care much who the
thief was, so long as he got back his money, lost not a moment, but
ordered his attendants to get spades and follow him. Very soon
Hari-Sarman brought them to the pomegranate tree. And there, sure
enough, deep down in the ground, was all that had been lost.
Nothing was now too good for Hari-Sarman: the king was greatly
delighted, and heaped riches and honours upon him. But some of the wise
men at the court suspected that he was really a deceiver, and set about
trying to find out all they could about him. They sent for the man who
had been on guard at the prison, and asked him many questions. He did
not dare tell the truth, for he knew he would be terribly punished if
he let out that Jihva had been allowed to see his prisoner; but he
hesitated so much that the wise men knew he was not speaking the truth.
One of them, whom the king loved, and trusted very much, whose name was
Deva-Jnanin, said to his master: “I do not like to see that man, about
whom we really know nothing, treated as he is. He might easily have
found out where the treasure was hidden without any special power. Will
you not test him in some other way in my presence and that of your
chief advisers?”
The king, who was always ready to listen to reason, agreed to this; and
after a long consultation with Deva-Jnanin, he decided on a very clever
puzzle with which to try Hari-Sarman. A live frog was put into a
pitcher; the lid was shut down, and the man who pretended to know
everything was brought into the great reception room, where all the
wise men of the court were gathered together round the throne, on which
sat the king in his royal robes. Deva-Jnanin had been chosen by his
master to speak for him; and coming forward, he pointed to the small
pitcher on the ground, and said: “Great as are the honours already
bestowed on you, they shall be increased if you can say at once what is
in that pitcher.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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