The Panchatantra (Purnabhadra's Recension of 1199 CE)/Book 5/The Credulous Fiend
THE CREDULOUS FIEND
In a certain city lived a king whose name was Fine-Army. He had a daughter named Pearl, blessed with the thirty-two marks of perfect beauty.
Now a certain fiend, who wished to carry her off, came every evening and abused her, but he could not carry her off because she protected herself by drawing a magic circle. However, at the hour when he embraced her, she experienced trembling, fever, and the like, the feelings that arise in the presence of a fiend.
While matters were in this state, the fiend once took his stand in a corner and revealed himself to the princess, who thereupon said to a girl friend: "Look, my dear! This is the fiend who comes every evening at twilight's hour and torments me. Is there any means of keeping the ruffian at a distance?"
When he heard this, the fiend thought: "Aha! I am not the only one. There is someone else—and his name is Twilight—who comes every day to carry her off. But he cannot do it either. Suppose I take the form of a horse, go to the stable, and find out what he looks like and what power he has."
When he had done so, a horse-thief came to the palace at dead of night. He examined all the horses, found the fiend-horse the finest, put a bit in his mouth, and mounted. Meanwhile the fiend was thinking: "I presume this is the fellow named Twilight. He thinks me a vile creature, he is angry, he has come to kill me. What shall I do?"
While he was thinking, the horse-thief struck him with a whip. And he was terrified and started to run. The thief, for his part, after traveling some distance, tried to stop him by tugging at the bit. And he thought: "Now if he were a horse, he would mind the bit. Instead, he goes faster and faster."
When the thief perceived how little he minded the tugging at the bit, he reflected: "Well, well! Horses are not like this. This must be a fiend in equine form. So if I find a spot thick with dust, I will drop. It is my one chance of life."
While the horse-thief was thinking and praying to his favorite god, the fiend-horse passed under a banyan tree. And the thief caught a branch and stuck. So both of them gained the hope of life from their separation, and were filled with extreme delight.
Now in the banyan was a monkey, a friend of the fiend, who said when he saw the fiend making off: "Look here! Why do you run from an imaginary danger? This is your natural food, a man. Eat him."
On hearing this, the fiend took his own form and turned about—but his mind was disturbed and his purpose shaky. And when the thief saw that the monkey had called him back, he was angry. As the monkey sat above, and his tail hung down, the thief took it in his mouth and started to chew very hard. Then the monkey concluded that he was dealing with one more powerful than the fiend, and was too frightened to utter a word. In dreadful pain, he could only shut his eyes tight, clench his teeth, and wait. And the fiend, observing him in this state, recited the stanza:
To judge by the expression,
Friend monkey, on your face,
You have been caught by Twilight—
He lives who wins the race.
Then the gold-finder continued: "Bid me farewell, I desire to go home. You may stay here and taste the fruit of the tree of your waywardness."
"Oh," said the wheel-bearer, "that is uncalled for. Good or evil comes by fate's decree to men well-behaved or wayward. As the old verse puts it:
Blind man, hunchback, and unblest
Princess with an extra breast—
Waywardness is prudence, when
Fortune favors wayward men."
"How was that?" asked the gold-finder. And the wheel-bearer told the story of