The Evil Eye of Sani

Once upon a time Sani, or Saturn, the god of bad luck, and Lakshmi,

the goddess of good luck, fell out with each other in heaven. Sani said

he was higher in rank than Lakshmi, and Lakshmi said she was higher in

rank than Sani. As all the gods and goddesses of heaven were equally

ranged on either side, the contending deities agreed to refer the

matter to some human being who had a name for wisdom and justice. Now,

there lived at that time upon earth a man of the name of Sribatsa,

[18] who was as wise and just as he was rich. Him, therefore, both the

god and the goddess chose as the settler of their dispute. One day,

accordingly, Sribatsa was told that Sani and Lakshmi were wishing to

pay him a visit to get their dispute settled. Sribatsa was in a fix. If

he said Sani was higher in rank than Lakshmi, she would be angry with

him and forsake him. If he said Lakshmi was higher in rank than Sani,

Sani would cast his evil eye upon him. Hence he made up his mind not to

say anything directly, but to leave the god and the goddess to gather

his opinion from his action. He got two stools made, the one of gold

and the other of silver, and placed them beside him. When Sani and

Lakshmi came to Sribatsa, he told Sani to sit upon the silver stool,

and Lakshmi upon the gold stool. Sani became mad with rage, and said

in an angry tone to Sribatsa, "Well, as you consider me lower in rank

than Lakshmi, I will cast my eye on you for three years; and I should

like to see how you fare at the end of that period." The god then went

away in high dudgeon. Lakshmi, before going away, said to Sribatsa,

"My child, do not fear. I'll befriend you." The god and the goddess

then went away.

Sribatsa said to his wife, whose name was Chintamani, "Dearest, as the

evil eye of Sani will be upon me at once, I had better go away from the

house; for if I remain in the house with you, evil will befall you and

me; but if I go away, it will overtake me only." Chintamani said, "That

cannot be; wherever you go, I will go, your lot shall be my lot." The

husband tried hard to persuade his wife to remain at home; but it was

of no use. She would go with her husband. Sribatsa accordingly told

his wife to make an opening in their mattress, and to stow away in

it all the money and jewels they had. On the eve of leaving their

house, Sribatsa invoked Lakshmi, who forthwith appeared. He then

said to her, "Mother Lakshmi! as the evil eye of Sani is upon us,

we are going away into exile; but do thou befriend us, and take

care of our house and property." The goddess of good luck answered,

"Do not fear; I'll befriend you; all will be right at last." They

then set out on their journey. Sribatsa rolled up the mattress and

put it on his head. They had not gone many miles when they saw a

river before them. It was not fordable; but there was a canoe there

with a man sitting in it. The travellers requested the ferryman to

take them across. The ferryman said, "I can take only one at a time;

but you are three--yourself, your wife, and the mattress." Sribatsa

proposed that first his wife and the mattress should be taken across,

and then he; but the ferryman would not hear of it. "Only one at a

time," repeated he; "first let me take across the mattress." When the

canoe with the mattress was in the middle of the stream, a fierce gale

arose, and carried away the mattress, the canoe, and the ferryman,

no one knows whither. And it was strange the stream also disappeared,

for the place, where they saw a few minutes since the rush of waters,

had now become firm ground. Sribatsa then knew that this was nothing

but the evil eye of Sani.

Sribatsa and his wife, without a pice in their pocket, went to a

village which was hard by. It was dwelt in for the most part by

wood-cutters, who used to go at sunrise to the forest to cut wood,

which they sold in a town not far from the village. Sribatsa proposed

to the wood-cutters that he should go along with them to cut wood. They

agreed. So he began to fell trees as well as the best of them; but

there was this difference between Sribatsa and the other wood-cutters,

that whereas the latter cut any and every sort of wood, the former cut

only precious wood like sandal-wood. The wood-cutters used to bring

to market large loads of common wood, and Sribatsa only a few pieces

of sandal-wood, for which he got a great deal more money than the

others. As this was going on day after day, the wood-cutters through

envy plotted together, and drove away from the village Sribatsa and

his wife.

The next place they went to was a village of weavers, or rather

cotton-spinners. Here Chintamani, the wife of Sribatsa, made herself

useful by spinning cotton. And as she was an intelligent and skilful

woman, she spun finer thread than the other women; and she got more

money. This roused the envy of the native women of the village. But

this was not all. Sribatsa, in order to gain the good grace of

the weavers, asked them to a feast, the dishes of which were all

cooked by his wife. As Chintamani excelled in cooking, the barbarous

weavers of the village were quite charmed by the delicacies set

before them. When the men went to their homes, they reproached their

wives for not being able to cook so well as the wife of Sribatsa,

and called them good-for-nothing women. This thing made the women of

the village hate Chintamani the more. One day Chintamani went to the

river-side to bathe along with the other women of the village. A boat

had been lying on the bank stranded on the sand for many days; they

had tried to move it, but in vain. It so happened that as Chintamani

by accident touched the boat, it moved off to the river. The boatmen,

astonished at the event, thought that the woman had uncommon power,

and might be useful on similar occasions in future. They therefore

caught hold of her, put her in the boat, and rowed off. The women of

the village, who were present, did not offer any resistance as they

hated Chintamani. When Sribatsa heard how his wife had been carried

away by boatmen, he became mad with grief. He left the village, went to

the river-side, and resolved to follow the course of the stream till

he should meet the boat where his wife was a prisoner. He travelled

on and on, along the side of the river, till it became dark. As there

were no huts to be seen, he climbed into a tree for the night. Next

morning as he got down from the tree he saw at the foot of it a cow

called a Kapila-cow, which never calves, but which gives milk at all

hours of the day whenever it is milked. Sribatsa milked the cow, and

drank its milk to his heart's content. He was astonished to find that

the cow-dung which lay on the ground was of a bright yellow colour;

indeed, he found it was pure gold. While it was in a soft state he

wrote his own name upon it, and when in the course of the day it

became hardened, it looked like a brick of gold--and so it was. As

the tree grew on the river-side, and as the Kapila-cow came morning

and evening to supply him with milk, Sribatsa resolved to stay there

till he should meet the boat. In the meantime the gold-bricks were

increasing in number every day, for the cow both morning and evening

deposited there the precious article. He put the gold-bricks, upon

all of which his name was engraved, one upon another in rows, so that

from a distance they looked like a hillock of gold.

Leaving Sribatsa to arrange his gold-bricks under the tree on the

river-side we must follow the fortunes of his wife. Chintamani was a

woman of great beauty; and thinking that her beauty might be her ruin,

she, when seized by the boatmen, offered to Lakshmi the following

prayer----"O Mother Lakshmi! have pity upon me. Thou hast made me

beautiful, but now my beauty will undoubtedly prove my ruin by the loss

of honour and chastity. I therefore beseech thee, gracious Mother, to

make me ugly, and to cover my body with some loathsome disease, that

the boatmen may not touch me." Lakshmi heard Chintamani's prayer; and

in the twinkling of an eye, while she was in the arms of the boatmen,

her naturally beautiful form was turned into a vile carcase. The

boatmen, on putting her down in the boat, found her body covered

with loathsome sores which were giving out a disgusting stench. They

therefore threw her into the hold of the boat amongst the cargo,

where they used morning and evening to send her a little boiled rice

and some water. In that hold Chintamani had a miserable life of it;

but she greatly preferred that misery to the loss of chastity. The

boatmen went to some port, sold the cargo, and were returning to their

country when the sight of what seemed a hillock of gold, not far from

the river-side, attracted their attention. Sribatsa, whose eyes were

ever directed towards the river, was delighted when he saw a boat turn

towards the bank, as he fondly imagined his wife might be in it. The

boatmen went to the hillock of gold, when Sribatsa said that the gold

was his. They put all the gold-bricks on board their vessel, took

Sribatsa prisoner, and put him into the hold not far from the woman

covered with sores. They of course immediately recognised each other,

in spite of the change Chintamani had undergone, but thought it prudent

not to speak to each other. They communicated their ideas, therefore,

by signs and gestures. Now, the boatmen were fond of playing at dice,

and as Sribatsa appeared to them from his looks to be a respectable

man, they always asked him to join in the game. As he was an expert

player, he almost always won the game, on which the boatmen, envying

his superior skill, threw him overboard. Chintamani had the presence

of mind, at that moment, to throw into the water a pillow which she

had for resting her head upon. Sribatsa took hold of the pillow,

by means of which he floated down the stream till he was carried

at nightfall to what seemed a garden on the water's edge. There he

stuck among the trees, where he remained the whole night, wet and

shivering. Now, the garden belonged to an old widow who was in former

years the chief flower-supplier to the king of that country. Through

some cause or other a blight seemed to have come over her garden, as

almost all the trees and plants ceased flowering; she had therefore

given up her place as the flower-supplier of the royal household. On

the morning following the night on which Sribatsa had stuck among

the trees, however, the old woman on getting up from her bed could

scarcely believe her eyes when she saw the whole garden ablaze with

flowers. There was not a single tree or plant which was not begemmed

with flowers. Not understanding the cause of such a miraculous sight,

she took a walk through the garden, and found on the river's brink,

stuck among the trees, a man shivering and almost dying with cold. She

brought him to her cottage, lighted a fire to give him warmth, and

showed him every attention, as she ascribed the wonderful flowering

of her trees to his presence. After making him as comfortable as

she could, she ran to the king's palace, and told his chief servants

that she was again in a position to supply the palace with flowers;

so she was restored to her former office as the flower-woman of the

royal household. Sribatsa, who stopped a few days with the woman,

requested her to recommend him to one of the king's ministers for a

berth. He was accordingly sent for to the palace, and as he was at

once found to be a man of intelligence, the king's minister asked

him what post he would like to have. Agreeably to his wish he was

appointed collector of tolls on the river. While discharging his

duties as river toll-gatherer, in the course of a few days he saw the

very boat in which his wife was a prisoner. He detained the boat, and

charged the boatmen with the theft of gold-bricks which he claimed as

his own. At the mention of gold-bricks the king himself came to the

river-side, and was astonished beyond measure to see bricks made of

gold, every one of which had the inscription--Sribatsa. At the same

time Sribatsa rescued from the boatmen his wife, who, the moment she

came out of the vessel, became as lovely as before. The king heard

the story of Sribatsa's misfortunes from his lips, entertained him

in a princely style for many days, and at last sent him and his wife

to their own country with presents of horses and elephants. The evil

eye of Sani was now turned away from Sribatsa, and he again became

what he formerly was, the Child of Fortune.

Thus my story endeth,

The Natiya-thorn withereth, etc.