1. Golden Temple
Abolakara | Children’s stories from Odisha
In the northern corners of the ancient kingdom of Kalinga there was a city called Tarapur. In that village lived a pundit by the name of Upananda. Upananda wished to go for a pilgrimage, but no one wanted to go with him. So he asked the barber’s son who readily agreed. That boy was named ‘Abolakara’ for he would not obey. Clever and brave he was but he had a condition for his master- Upananda had to explain anything strange or unusual that he found during the journey. The master, not pondering over it too much, agreed. And together they set out for the pilgrimage.
On the way they stopped near a pond in the outskirts of a small city. The master gave a coin to Abolakara so that he could get some rations from the city nearby. When he returned, the master could sense his unease. When asked, Abolakara told the master that he’d seen two golden temples in the city; one complete and one incomplete. The complete one was empty whereas the incomplete one had a deity. Now the master had to explain this, or else the boy would leave him and return. The master blurted,
Spread the mat and hold the umbrella, and listen, Abolakara, as I tell you the tale.
In the country of Karnata ruled the king Somvant. The queen herself forced the king to remarry since they had no one to continue the clan. The king uttered a proverb,
A business on rent, two wives or a second home — this is what to do if you want a fight.
Another proverb went like this,
No fights in your life? Get a second wife. Too much money to spend? Build another home.
But the queen wouldn’t budge. She would see to it that the royal bloodline wouldn’t die out. And so the king now had two queens — the elder Hiravati and the younger Malavati. Hiravati looked after Malavati like a sister; but Malavati remained suspicious. She told the king that Hiravati was cheating on him. The king thought to himself and nodded away her jealous ramblings, although he did not attempt to understand a bit.
A few days later the elder queen got pregnant. The younger queen, already frustrated got even angrier.
This old crook, childless since the last 20 years is now pregnant and why should a 20-year old young girl remain like this?
Where strength had failed wit would win. She got a girl to steal the king’s ivory sandals and replace them with a pair of wooden ones. The next morning the king woke up and walked straight towards his younger queen. He was surprised when the younger queen sent him away for a bath since she thought he’d come to her after a night spent with an adulteress. The confused king asked her how she knew that the elder queen was an adulteress. To this, Malavati could now point out the king’s sandals, which were wooden; he had not cared to look at them. Her reasoning was that Hiravati’s secret lover had ran out of the inner chambers when the king woke up, taking his ivory sandals by mistake. The wooden sandals were his.
Now the king got suspicious. He never again even glanced at either Hiravati or her newborn named Chandraketu. The boy had no one to celebrate for him.
As time went by Malavati gave birth to a boy. This time there were grand arrangements. The king arranged for a tutor for this boy since he wanted Malavati’s son to be his successor. Hiravati’s son had no clue; his mother told she couldn’t do anything, for the king himself did not care for his education. The boy decided to spend his time overhearing his cousin’s lessons outside the school. His cousin however had no interest in learning. For thirteen years the tutor taught subjects from politics, rhetorics, law, grammar, maths & science. Then he took his money and left.
The king had now grown frail and weak. Anticipating his death he called the court to choose his successor. Both his sons came. Now, the king had a trick up his sleeve- he would ask difficult questions. Since the elder had no education, he’d fail the test and he’d declare his beloved Malavati’s son to be the next king. However, since the actual situation was the exact opposite, the king’s trick was foiled. The younger failed the test and the elder passed it in a breeze. Now, what would the old king do? He told both of his sons to go build a temple of gold; the one whose temple would be ready first would get the throne. The court approved of this practical test.
The younger son got the gold from the king but not the elder one. He told his mother that he’ d wage a battle to reclaim his rightful throne. Hiravati shunned him.
If you are one person, meditate
Two, study
Three, earn
Four, travel
Five, farm
and many, fight.
Where would he find the people to fight for him?
So the queen told his son to go to her father’s kingdom. There he’d find a sage. That sage would tell him a way out. And so Chandraketu served the sage and in due time, revealed his identity. The sage gave him a piece of Paras stone. The prince happily galloped on his horse but lost his way in a jungle. Mistaking a dacoit’s house for an inn, he rapped on the door asking for some water. The dacoit’s daughter was allured by his beauty. She went to fetch a glass. Chandraketu walked inside their hut and the Paras stone accidentally touched a well. The stone well instantly turned to gold. Inside the well he saw human corpses and rotting heads. Sensing trouble, the prince fled away with his horse.
When the dacoit returned, he scorned at his daughter for being so foolish. How could she let him leave? He asked her to dress like a bride. Meanwhile, he got some poison and a cow’s hoof. Then they followed the horse’s footprints and grabbed the prince. People from the nearby village came running due to the commotion.
Now, the dacoit claimed that the boy had married his daughter but was running away from them. The boy refused. The villagers decided that they would listen to none of them- they wanted the answer from the girl herself. The young girl, as trained, told that she’d been married since three months. They told the prince to take his rightful bride. The prince thought,
In a country of monkeys, the donkey is a singer, the frog a sage, the crow a heartthrob, the cat a doctor and the cattle lawyers. This is what is my situation.
Helpless, he gave in to their ‘decision’. And so the dacoit’s daughter and Chandraketu rode away on their horse.
As dusk set in they halted in the shade of a tree. Chandraketu arranged food for them. Savita, as she was called poisoned the food. The prince trembled and fell down like a log. As she went to slit his throat with the cow-hoof Chandraketu regained his conscience and begged for his life, telling her not to destroy the fate of his kingdom. Now that she knew he was a prince, why would she kill him and ruin her chances of becoming the queen? Instead, she uttered a chant to revert the poison. Then the prince went to a flower-selling lady whom he knew very well; Savita would live with her until he regained his kingdom. And no one must know their secret.
Meanwhile, Chandraketu went to his mother Hiravati and told her all about the sage and his magical stone. The queen hastily kept the stone in a corner and went to fetch food for her son. A crafty servant snuck away with the gem and sold it to the minister’s son who wore it as a pendant. By the time the prince knew his stone was lost, he burst into tears; Savita consoled him by saying one only gets what is in one’s fate.
A pitcher fetches the same amount of water from the sea as it does from a pond. No use trying to alter one’s fate.
Savita would get all the gossip from the palace thanks to the flower-seller who used to provide flowers to the royalty every morning. She knew when one day the king scoured at his younger son for roaming around with the guard’s son, the general’s son and the minister’s son. He ordered him to resume building the golden temple. The next day the minister’s son was showing off his new gem-necklace. The following day the younger prince, with his lewd pals, was said to be looking for a girl.
This was a chance. Savita rented a small chamber and stood at the doorstop. When the young prince came, she winked lasciviously at them. Overcome by lust, the prince came to her and asked her who she was. “I’m a prostitute from Vidisha” she replied. The prince would have to get her a thousand coins and a gem-studded golden necklace for an hour. She repeated the same thing for each of the prince’s friends, albeit giving them separate times. Then she instructed the old lady to sit by the door and take a thousand coins from anyone who wished to enter the house.
Savita now rubbed soot all over her body, wore a dark saree and sat like the goddess Kali herself. Besides her were a bucket of oil and another of cotton. In a pan she fried crispy badis.
Now the prince arrived. As he walked lustily into the room, the image of the goddess Kali frying things in a pan frightened the life out of him. He fell down on her feet and told her that he had been misguided by a prostitute. Meanwhile, Savita, as Kali said that this was Patala and the asura Ghantaraba would eat him up. The only way he could be saved was by tying brass bells around himself and she would charge him another thousand bucks for that. He agreed.
Next came the minister’s son. Now the prince begged Savita to give him a hiding place. She pointed at the pitchers. The prince jumped into the pitcher full of oil. He hastily pulled himself out and then switched to the one with cotton. The cotton stuck to him with the oil. As the minister’s son screamed after seeing the horrific sight of ‘Kali’, Savita shed off his gem-necklace from him and in order to hide him, rolled him in a carpet. Then came the general’s son. His condition was the same. Savita told him to crouch in a corner. She put an earthen lamp on his head. Terrified, he remained silent.
At last came the guard’s son. Taking his ornaments, Savita told that it was too late to save him. She told him to bring the lamp so she could test his ornaments on the touchstone. As he picked up the lamp, the general’s son shrieked in fear. That triggered a similar response from the guard’s son. The minister’s son flung his carpet away and rushed. Savita quickly there the frying basis onto the prince who jumped out of the pitcher in pain. Covered in cotton and with bells on him, he looked like the asura himself. The prince tried to flee with his friends but mistaking him to be the man-eating creature, they ran away. He chased them further, and by the time they knew who the asura was, Savita had left the room. They could not find any trace of her.
Savita now called Chandraketu and showed him his lost stone. He immediately had a stone temple made. It turned to gold as soon as he touched it with the stone. Its mission accomplished, the stone vanished into thin air.
The next day, the king saw that his elder son had succeeded while the younger indulged in nonsense. He died of the shock. The elder prince enshrined his remains in the half-built temple.
Here ends the story, Abolakara.
Notes
- The name ‘Abolakara’ means ‘one who doesn’t do what is said’, that is, one who doesn’t obey until his curiosity is satiated. In the stories, Abolakara even threatens the master to desert him if he does not get a satisfactory explanation. Does this remind you of Vikram-Betal?
- The opening line “Spread the mat and hold the umbrella, and listen, Abolakara, as I tell you the tale” is a classic in the case of Abolakara stories.
- The reason these stories have so many proverbs is because of an oral tradition. It is common to use a proverb or saying while you narrate a story or explain a twist of the plot.
- The town of Tarapura is an actual place in Odisha. There are Ashokan stupas in the site and there is a strong Buddha connection. Research reveals that the Buddha may have physically visited the place. That the Abolakara stories start with a Buddhist place might actually have some unknown link.
- The plot line of two sons (or groups of sons), one neglected and one appreciated is common. We find it in the stories of Dhruv, the Mahabharat and the Ramayana.
- The motif of two jealous wives is not rare either. We find this among Rukmini-Satyabhama, Lakshmi-Saraswati, Gayatri-Savitri and Ganga-Gauri.
- The idea of the Paras stone, a stone with the ability to turn any substance into gold is a very old and popular concept. This is similar to alchemy which started with similar concepts, but then evolved into the present science of chemistry.
- The flower-selling lady, called a ‘Maluni’ in Odia has tantric associations. This is due to the sata-bhauni; a group of seven tantric sisters that lived in 11th century Odisha. They performed various mysterious displays of magic which appeared evil but were actually for the public good. All seven of them came from the lower ranks of the then social hierarchy; a washerwoman, a tribal woman, a ironsmith-woman, an oil-woman, a leatherworker-woman, a milk-woman and a flower-selling lady.
- Of the sata-bhauni, Jnanadei Maluni was the flower-selling lady. She was known for turning men into goats by making them sniff magic flowers. When the public blamed her for turning men into sex-slaves by applying evil chants on them, the king summoned her. It was then revealed that she had done no such thing and that her power came from Jaganntha himself. This is how closely Tantra was associated with the now chiefly-Vaishnavite shrine of Jagannatha Puri.
- These magical historical accounts seeped into folklore and thus, we find the figure of the Maluni frequently in Odia folklore.
- Badis are sun-dried lentil dumplings, an essential component of Odia cuisine. They are fried crisp and generally eaten along with spinach or curries.
- Note that the goddess Kali is freely associated with human sacrifice, man-eating asuras and slyly taking money. That was the way people perceived her- a mother who disobeys all rules of society.
- Man-eating asuras are fairly common in folk traditions, more so in children’s stories.
- Ghantaraba literally translates to the ‘sound of a bell’. That is exactly why Savita ties bells around the prince. It is also the name of a traditional Odia musical metre.
- The king’s remains are enshrined in the incomplete temple because he is incomplete himself; his soul having left the body. For this reason, deities inside a temple are always consecrated with the prana-pratistha, the process which imbibes them with life. Only a deity complete in all respects is worshipped.
This project was created to make traditional children’s literature in Odia available to everyone.
The stories have been translated into English by Prateek Pattanaik. It is supported by Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik.
