Sham S Misri
Once there
was a king. He was married to a very beautiful lady but against her own will. She
was a lady of large eyes and heavy lashes. The king had developed a lot of sudden
passion for her. Though married to a king, this lady was sad. So when they were
united, horror and the hatred of life entered and inhabited her soul. And every
time the king approached her, she would faint, and, for the king it resembled a face of
death. Then finding it impossible to come near her, that king was amazed. And
he said to himself: Surely there must be for this extraordinary opposition some
extraordinary cause, buried in the mysterious darkness of the past. The king
thought that if I get married to some other woman she would love to have my
embraces. I am quite handsome and healthy and above all the king. He tried to
find out the cause of this woman’s aversion for him.
And he went
and offered sacrifice in the temple of Maheshwara. And standing before the
image, he exclaimed: O god, you know of my past, present, and future, if you do
not reveal to me the cause of this aversion, I will this very moment cut off my
own head. Then the image of the deity uttered a loud laugh. And it said:
O foolish
king, this is a very simple thing. Know, that long ago, in a former birth, you and
she fell by reason of sins previously committed into the bodies of brutes. And
she became a snake, and you a peacock. Hence she cannot tolerate even your closeness,
for you still retain a strain of the nature of the peacock, and its vanity.
Then the king
said: But why, then, do I feel no corresponding aversion for her ? And the god
said : Because in another birth you were a bird of the race of Garuda, of which
snakes are the appropriate food. Moreover, women retain traces of these affections
and abhorrence’s more permanently than men, because emotion is of the essence
of their soul: and plunged in bodies, like vats, they carry away, like pure
water, the stain of the dye. So learning the truth, the king took another wife,
and lived with her in peace.
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