Ch. 1: The King in the Burning Ground

In the city of Pratishthana, on the banks of the Godavari, there once reigned a king named Trivikramasena, the son of Vikramasena. He was brave in war and patient in judgement, and his people said of him that he slept less than his own watchmen, for he was always thinking of some duty not yet done.

Every day, as the king sat in his hall of audience, a mendicant came before him. He was lean and grave, with ash upon his brow and a beggar‘s bowl at his side, and his name was Kshantisila, which means “he whose nature is patience.” He never asked for anything. He only bowed, laid a single fruit in the king’s hand, and went away again.

The king, out of courtesy, accepted each fruit and handed it to the superintendent of his treasury, who put it away in a storeroom and thought no more about it. So it went for ten years. The fruits came, the fruits were stored, and no one wondered why.

Then one morning a tame monkey, which had slipped away from the women's apartments, ran into the hall just as Kshantisila made his offering. The king, amused, tossed it the fruit. The monkey bit into it, and the rind split, and out rolled a jewel so clear and so bright that the whole hall seemed to catch its breath.

The king turned to his treasurer. “Where have you put all the other fruits this man has given me?”

The treasurer went pale and hurried to the storeroom. He came back running. “My lord,” he said, “the fruits have all rotted away. But where they lay there is a heap of jewels, gleaming like coals in the dark.”

The king gave those jewels to the treasurer, for he did not care to keep what he had not earned. But the next day, when Kshantisila came with his fruit, the king would not take it.

“Holy man,” he said, “for ten years you have given me treasure and asked nothing in return. I will not accept another gift until you tell me what it is you want.”

Kshantisila drew him a little apart, so that no courtier could hear. “Great king,” he said, “I have an incantation to perform, and it requires the aid of a brave man. I ask that you be that man. On the fourteenth night of the dark fortnight, come alone to the great cremation ground outside the city. I shall be waiting for you beneath the banyan tree.”

The king had given his word to no one, yet he felt that ten years of silent gifts were a kind of promise. “I will come,” he said. Kshantisila bowed and went away, and the king returned to his throne and heard the petitions of his people until evening as though nothing had passed between them.

When the night arrived, Trivikramasena wrapped his head in a dark cloth, took his sword in his hand, and slipped out of the palace by a side gate. No guard went with him. The moon had gone from the sky, and the road to the burning ground was as black as a well.

He knew he was near when he smelled the smoke. The cremation ground lay under a heavy pall of darkness, broken here and there by the red mouths of funeral pyres. Their light showed him bones scattered in the grass, and skulls that seemed to watch him pass. Jackals cried in the scrub. Shapes he could not name moved at the edges of the firelight, spirits of the dead and the creatures that feed upon such places, and he heard them whispering as he went by. He did not quicken his step, nor did he slow it.

Under the banyan tree he found Kshantisila, drawing a circle upon the ground. The ascetic looked up and smiled.

“You have come, O king. Now listen. Some way to the south of here stands a solitary asoka tree. A dead man hangs from its branches. Bring that body to me, and the rite can begin.”

The king nodded and went south. He found the asoka tree standing alone, its leaves blackened by the smoke of the pyres, and from one of its boughs hung the body of a man. Trivikramasena climbed the trunk, cut the cord with his sword, and let the body fall. Then he climbed down after it.

As he bent over the corpse and touched it, the dead mouth opened, and out of it came a laugh. It was not the laugh of any living thing. It rattled like dry seeds in a gourd.

The king understood at once. A Vetala, a spirit that takes up its dwelling in the bodies of the dead, had entered this corpse. He was not afraid. “Why do you laugh?” he said. “Come, we have a journey to make.”

But before the words were out of his mouth, the body had gone. He looked up, and there it hung again from the branch of the asoka tree, swaying a little, as if nothing had happened.

Trivikramasena climbed the tree once more. Once more he cut the body down. This time he did not stop to question it. He lifted it onto his shoulder and set off toward the banyan tree in silence.

He had not gone twenty paces when the voice spoke again, close to his ear.

“King,” said the Vetala, “the road is long and the night is dull. Let me tell you a story to pass the time. Only remember this. When my story is done, I shall ask you a question. If you know the answer and keep silent, your head will split into a hundred pieces. But if you speak, you will have broken your silence, and I shall be gone.”

The king said nothing. He walked on, and the Vetala laughed softly, and began.

Five times already, the old tellers say, it went this way. Five times the Vetala told a tale and asked its question. Five times the king, who could not bear to leave a true answer unspoken, gave his judgement, and five times the corpse slipped from his shoulder and flew back to its branch. And five times Trivikramasena turned around, walked back through the smoke and the bones, climbed the asoka tree, and took up his burden again.

Now, for the sixth time, he settled the cold weight on his shoulder and set his face toward the banyan tree. The pyres hissed. A jackal barked once and fell quiet.

“Are you listening, king?” whispered the Vetala. “This is a tale of a washerman, and a goddess, and a girl who was in too great a hurry. Hear it, and then tell me what you think.”

And this is the Vetala's sixth tale.