The Kathá Sarit Ságara; or, Ocean of the Streams of StorySomadeva Bhatta, active 11th century
General
The Kathá Sarit Ságara; or, Ocean of the Streams of Story
Somadeva Bhatta, active 11th century
Folk literature -- Themes, motives; Hindu mythology; India -- Social life and customs; Tales -- India
In our country, within the city, there is the shrine of a powerful
Yaksha named Manibhadra, established by our ancestors. The people
there come and make petitions at this shrine, offering various gifts,
in order to obtain various blessings. Whenever a man is found at night
with another man's wife, he is placed with her within the inner chamber
of the Yaksha's temple. And in the morning he is taken away from thence
with the woman to the king's court, and his behaviour being made known,
he is punished; such is the custom. Once on a time in that city a
merchant, of the name of Samudradatta, was found by a city-guard in
the company of another man's wife. So he took him and placed him with
the woman in that temple of the Yaksha, fastening the door firmly. And
immediately the wise and devoted wife of that merchant, whose name was
Saktimatí, came to hear of the occurrence; then that resolute woman,
disguising herself, went confidently at night to the temple of the
Yaksha, accompanied by her friends, taking with her offerings for
the god. When she arrived there, the priest whose business it was
to eat the offerings, through desire for a fee, opened the door and
let her enter, informing the magistrate of what he had done. And she,
when she got inside, saw her husband looking sheepish, with a woman,
and she made the woman put on her own dress, and told her to go
out. So that woman went out in her dress by night, and got off, but
Saktimatí remained in the temple with her husband. And when the king's
officers came in the morning to examine the merchant, he was seen by
all to be in the company of his own wife. [185] When he heard that,
the king dismissed the merchant from the temple of the Yaksha, as it
were from the mouth of death, and punished the chief magistrate. So
Saktimatí in old time delivered her husband by her wisdom, and in
the same way I will go and save my husband by my discretion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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