The fruit of immortality (IFS - 2)

So we all know that Vikram has to get Betal down from the tree and in the course of things a story is told. Vikram answers correctly, the ghoul escapes and we’re back to square one. And this is captured in a series of twenty five tales… But where does the story really begin, and where does it really end?

I’ve been reading a version of the text by John Platts, translated to English from Hindi (where the tales are called Baital Pachchisi) which was translated from the Braj version, which was originally the Sanskrit text - Vetala Panchavimsati. The origins of the English text prompt two conclusions – this text has been translated many times rendering it pretty full of holes and inaccuracies; there is no really definitive English text.

Sadly I do not know Sanskrit, so digging up a comprehensive text is an archeological exercise (which I might pursue later if I find any leads) and I will continue working with the text I currently have first published in 1881 and with an Indian edition printed in 2000. A quick disclaimer – I’m basing my conclusions on a slippery text so I don’t know how much of what I’ve deduced can be authentically verified. The plan is to engage with enough matter to use as a point of departure for my own re-imagining. I’ve made the archeological side of it a second priority for now. However I would really appreciate any advice or pointers or information on this front.

The text opens by establishing Vikram as a wanderer figure. He is ruler of Dharanagar. But he has left the throne having chosen to “wander from land to land and forest to forest.” In his place his younger brother Bharthari rules. The story snap-shifts gears and speaks of a holy mendicant who chances upon a fruit of immortality gifted to him by a deity. He gives the fruit to his wife, who freaks out. “This is a great evil we have to suffer! For becoming immortal, how long shall we go on begging alms. Nay to die is better than this; (for) if we die, then we escape from the trials of the world.” (All direct speech in the text sounds like this – god help me!)

So the mendicant says immortality is a gift for the King. So he gifts the fruit to the King. The King is pleased and rewards him for the gift and decides to bless his queen with eternal youth and gives the fruit to his Queen. The Queen gives the fruit to her ‘paramour’ – a certain kotwal (an official of the court). He in turn gives it to his mistress – a courtesan. The courtesan - thinking like the mendicant - decides that immortality is a gift for the King and presents the fruit to the King. After this passing the parcel session the King challenges the Queen on the fruit. She lies and says she ate it and (predictably) the king produces the fruit that has come full circle and calls her a liar, to which the Queen has no response.

The King in true dramatic fashion says “The perishable wealth of the world is of no use whatever; for through it one must ultimately fall into hell.” (The usage of hell here is such a clear indication of conflicting theosophical sensibilities, continually at work.) Bharthari says – I quit – eats the fruit and assuming the guise of a devotee retires to the jungle.

This sets-up for the return of Vikram to his throne, but not before an encounter with a demon that was sent to guard the throne in his absence. But more on this later...

For now I remain fascinated with this seemingly innocuous tale of the immortal fruit. I immediately reacted to its predictability. And then found its circular narration mildly interesting. But I wasn’t really sure of why we were being told of Vikram’s brother and this strange fruit. Then the placement of the story allowed me to make a connection.

By placing this mini-story at the prologue of the text, the authors of the piece are hinting via metaphor at the essential construction of the entire text. Viewed as an extraneous preamble it becomes superfluous and can be ignored. But regarding it as a self-referential device (much like the punning of character names in the openings of Sanskrit drama) the story becomes an incredibly stunning prologue to twenty-five tales of the ghoul. If we view the ‘fruit of immortality’ as the symbolic equivalent of an orally transmitted story, the story becomes richly dialogic with the main cycle of stories.

And isn’t this the nature of stories? Handed from the old to the young, from the oppressed to the powerful, given with devotion as the token of lovers, received with dismay as the machinations of infidelity, causing suffering, sorrow and joy in equal measure in differing circumstances?

I feel that the radial nature of Indian mythology is richly present in this set of stories, within stores, within stories… And like all classics, the end may well be predictable but the journey undergone in one cycle of the tale is the most interesting aspect.

By placing the story of Bharthari as a prologue, we are given a taste of things to come. In addition to presenting us a miniature structure of the larger tales as a reference point, it raises several thematic concerns that are explored later. Sexual infidelity, suffering caused by dishonesty, the nature of responsibility and the futility of material gain – all enclosed within a fantastical world of moral collapse.

This story is a microcosmic prologue within the cycle of tales, and for the writer in me – food for thought in creating my own little microcosm of the world around me.