It was a long time ago, a very long time ago. There lived one formidable and powerful king named Karan, and this king took an oath to distribute ten pounds of gold to the poor every day, and without this he would not eat or drink.
And so every day, half an hour before Raja Karan sat down to eat, the royal servants came out of the palace with a large basket and scattered handfuls of gold coins to the gathered crowd of poor people. Needless to say, the invitees never kept themselves waiting and crowded at the gates of the palace from early morning.
They jostled and argued and made noise and worried, and when the last coin was caught, Raja Karan sat peacefully at his meal and ate with a pleasant sense of accomplishment.
The people looked at such unprecedented generosity and quietly shook their heads. After all, sooner or later the royal treasury was supposed to be depleted? And then the rajah will probably have to die of starvation: he, apparently, is not the kind of person to break his oath. However, months and years passed, and every day the servants generously provided specie to the assembled crowd. And when the people dispersed, everyone could see how the magnanimous ruler calmly and cheerfully sat down to the meal and ate, apparently with great appetite.
I must say that the matter was not as simple as it seemed at first glance. King Karan entered into an agreement with one very pious, but always hungry fakir, who settled on the top of a nearby hill; The agreement was of this kind: the rajah agreed to allow himself to be fried and eaten daily, and for this he received from the fakir, also daily, ten pounds of pure gold.
If the fakir had been a mere mortal, the agreement would have been too unfavorable for the rajah, but this was a very special fakir! He ate the king with pleasure, even gnawed all the bones, and then carefully collected them, folded them, uttered two or three spells - and he was done! Raja Karan again stood in front of him, cheerful and cheerful, as always. The fakir, of course, had nothing to do with all this, but the rajah, in essence, could not give much pleasure to throwing himself every day alive into a huge hot frying pan with boiling oil, and he could say with full consciousness that he was honestly earning his ten pounds of gold. Suppose, over time, he got used to his situation and calmly walked every morning to the house of the pious hungry old man, where a huge frying pan was already hanging over the sacred fire and hissing. Here he kindly informed the fakir what time it was, so that he could not blame him for carelessness, and carefreely plunged into the boiling oil bath. How nicely it crackled and hissed there! The fakir waited until it was thoroughly fried and browned, slowly ate his special roast, gnawed the bones, folded them neatly, chanted his spell, and then brought out his old greasy robe to the waiting rajah and shook it until he shook the promised heap of gold.
This is how Raja Karan received his generous alms every day, and one must agree that the way of earning money was not entirely ordinary.
Far, far away from there lay a wonderful country, and in it the great lake Mansarabor. On this lake there were strange birds, like wild swans, and they ate exclusively pearl grains. They had a famine, pearls suddenly became so rare that one pair of these birds decided to try their luck elsewhere and left their native land. They flew over the gardens of the great Raja Bikramajita and went down to rest. The palace gardener saw them. He really liked the snow-white birds, and he began to lure them with grains. But in vain he threw them all kinds of grains and other food: the birds did not touch anything. Then the gardener went to the palace and reported to the rajah that strange birds had appeared in the garden and were not being eaten for any kind of food.
Raja Bikramajita himself came out to look at them, and since he could speak bird language, he asked the visiting guests why they did not want to taste the grain offered?
“We cannot eat either grain or fruit,” answered the birds, “we only eat pure, unfinished pearls.”
Then the Raja ordered to immediately bring a basket of pearls and from then on every day he went to the garden to feed the birds from his own hands.
Once among the pearls there was one pierced: the birds immediately noticed it and decided that, probably, the rajah’s supply of pearls was beginning to deplete and that it was time for them to leave him. No matter how the Raja begged them, the birds insisted on their own, spread their wide white wings, stretched their flexible necks towards their native land and disappeared into the blue of the sky. But, rising, they sang loudly and praised the magnanimous Bikramajita.
They flew over the palace of Raja Karan. Just at that time he was sitting on the terrace, waiting for his servants with gold coins, and heard loud singing above him:
— Praise be to Bikramajita! Praise be to Bikramajita!
“Who is this, whom even the birds praise? I allow myself to be roasted and eaten every day so that I can give out alms every day, but, however, not a single bird praises me!” - the Raja thought.
He immediately ordered the birds to be caught and put in a cage. The order was carried out, and the cage was hung in the palace. Raja laid out all kinds of food in front of the birds, but the birds sadly drooped their snow-white heads and sang:
— Praise be to Bikramajita! He fed us pure pearls!
Raja Karan did not want anyone to be more generous than him, and sent for pearls, but the proud birds turned away contemptuously.
- What is this! - the Raja exclaimed angrily, - is Bikramajita more generous than me?
Then the female stood up and said proudly:
“You call yourself a raja, but what kind of raja are you?” The Raja does not imprison innocent people. The Raja does not wage war on women. If Bikramajit were here, he would free me at any cost!
- So fly to freedom, you obstinate creature! - said Karan, opening the cage. He did not want to yield to Bikramajita's generosity.
And the bird flapped its wide wings, flew back to Bikramajita and informed the rajah that her dear husband was languishing in captivity of the formidable rajah Karan.
Bikramajita, the most generous of rajas, immediately decided to free the unfortunate bird, but he knew that he could not persuade the stubborn Karan. And he decided to act with cunning. For this purpose, he persuaded the bird to return to his husband and wait for him there, and he himself dressed up as a servant and went to the state of Raja Karan.
There, under the name Bikru, he entered the service of the king and began, like others, to carry baskets with gold treasury.
He soon became convinced that there was some kind of secret hidden here, and began to keep an eye on the rajah. One day, hiding, he saw Raja Karan enter the fakir's house, saw how he plunged into boiling oil, how he hissed there and turned red; I saw how a hungry fakir pounced on the roast and gnawed at the bones, and then saw how the same Raja Karan, alive and well, descended from the hill with his precious burden.
Then he immediately realized what he should do. The next day he got up at dawn, took a kitchen knife, made himself several deep cuts, then took pepper, salt, various spices, crushed pomegranate seeds and pea flour; I mixed it all and diligently rubbed it in all directions, despite the burning pain. In this form, he sneaked unnoticed into the fakir's house and lay down on the prepared frying pan. The fakir was still sleeping, but the hissing and crackling of the roast soon woke him up. He stretched and wiggled his nose:
- Oh, gods! How incredibly delicious the Raja smells today!
Indeed, the smell was so tempting that the fakir could not wait for the roast to brown, and attacked it with such greed, as if he had not eaten anything for a century. And no wonder: after the bland food to which the fakir was accustomed, the rajah with seasoning seemed to him something completely unusual. He cleanly gnawed and sucked all the bones, and, perhaps, would have been ready to eat them too, but he was afraid to kill the goose with the golden eggs. When everything was ready, and the Raja stood in front of him again, healthy and unharmed, the fakir looked at him tenderly:
- What a feast you gave me today! What a smell, what a taste! How did you manage this? Explain, I'll give you whatever you want.
Bikru explained how it happened and promised to do the same again if the fakir gave him his old robe.
“You see, there really isn’t much pleasure in being roasted!” And on top of that, I have to carry ten pounds of gold on myself. Give me the robe, I can shake it myself.
The fakir agreed, and Bikru left, taking his robe with him.
Meanwhile, Raja Karan slowly walked up the hill. Imagine his surprise when, upon entering the fakir’s house, he found the fire extinguished, the frying pan overturned, and the fakir himself, as always immersed in piety, but not at all hungry.
- What is this? - thundered the Raja.
- A? Who's there? - asked the fakir meekly. He was always nearsighted, but here he was still sleepy after a hearty lunch.
- Who? Yes, it’s me, Raja Karan, who came to get fried! Don't you need breakfast today?
- I already had breakfast! - and the fakir sighed with regret. “You were terribly tasty today... really, it’s much better with seasoning.”
- With what seasoning? I haven’t seasoned myself with anything in ages, you must have eaten someone else!
“But, perhaps, it’s so,” the fakir muttered sleepily, “I myself thought... it can’t be... that just one seasoning... so...” It was impossible to make out further: the fakir was already snoring.
- Hey, you! - the Raja shouted, furiously shaking the fakir. - Eat me too!
- I can’t! - muttered the satisfied fakir. - I can’t! Not a bit... no... no, thank you!
- So give me the gold! - Raja Karan roared. - You are obliged to give it: I am ready to fulfill my condition!
- Really, it’s a pity... I can’t... the other one... ran away with the robe!
Raja Karan went home in despair and ordered the royal treasurer to give him the required amount of gold, after which, as usual, he sat down to eat.
A day passed, then another: the rajah still distributed gold and dined, but his heart was sad and his eyes were darker than night.
The third day finally arrived; the royal treasurer appeared on the terrace, pale and trembling, and fell prostrate before the rajah.
- Oh, sir! Be merciful! There is not a single speck of gold in the entire state.
Then the rajah slowly got up and locked himself in his bedchamber, and the crowd, after waiting for several hours at the closed gates of the palace, went home, loudly indignant - how shameful is it to deceive such an honest people!
The next day, Raja Karan became noticeably haggard, but firmly decided not to break his oath. In vain did Bikru persuade him to taste something; the Raja sadly shook his head and turned his face to the wall.
Then Bikru, that is, Bikramajita, brought out a magic robe and, shaking it in front of the king, said:
“Take your gold, my friend, or better yet, take yourself a robe, just release that bird that you are keeping in captivity.”
The amazed Raja immediately ordered the birds to be released, and they took off and rushed to their native lake Mansarabor, and their joyful song sounded in the air for a long time:
- Praise be to you, Bikramajita! Praise be to you, most magnanimous of rajas!
And Raja Karan thoughtfully lowered his head and thought to himself: “The divine birds are right! I cannot be equal to Bikramajita. I allowed myself to be roasted for the sake of gold and my own dinner, and he decided to stuff himself with his own hands in order to return freedom to one single bird.”
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru