Madhumala’s story — different approach to Feminism?

Question is why do we talk about stories from unknown past which are nothing but fantasy, speaks of monarchy and polygamy, both obsolete practices? Why do we at all need to know about them?

Yes the story talks about kings and princes and princesses. But what kind of kings they are? In Madhumala, we see the sweeper of the royal palace expresses disappointment as he had to see the face of the childless king at dawn. Old Indian society considered childless person ill omen, especially if one had to see one in the morning, be him the king of the land. But here the humblest employee who is supposed to serve the king has right to express, “What a bad luck! I have seen the childless one at dawn. My meal will be spoiled, I will be unlucky today.” And the king locks himself inside the room in shame! He tries to avoid disappointing people by showing his face. Isn’t it a people’s Republic?

This illustrious King’s palace shows the sign of abundance of wealth. His palace is crowded with people. Yet — and this ‘yet’ is vital everywhere in India — he does not have a child. The uniqueness in this story from the eastern part of India is that the precious child is a particular god’s gift to the pious one. Here a child is gifted by Bidhata — the god who decides ones fate with the club of judgement in one hand and pen in the other. But how he grants the gift?

We see sadness engulfs the king so much that he doesn’t open the door. His courtiers, ministers and all assemble before his chamber, but he sticks to his decision of not showing up in public. Entire state starts crying with him, the royal seat covers with dust, and finally the Bidhatapurush feel pity. Note Bidhata’s profession. He works as gatekeeper at the king’s lion-gate. The King doesn’t need to worship this powerful God to get the boon. Bidhatapurush dressed as a monk helps householder with a boon to have child. We have seen childless kings praying to sages and performing yajnas for child in Puranas, but here the king is not even praying, Bidhata the god of luck comes to his rescue him seeing his pain. Note the dependence of householder on the monk — not the puranic hermit who performs a Yagna to attract a god’s boon in form of a child. In Puranas, these hermits are sometime married sages and most important, they invoke gods, whereas here the monk himself is god, only in disguise of a mortal monk. Doesn’t the notion make us remember some old monastic religion of the land which had cultural influence in eastern part of the country more than thousand years back?

Another important point is writing fate in a newborn’s forehead. Fate written on one’s forehead is a belief we see in many regions outside India — also in middle-east and eastern Europe. Yet we have reason to believe that this belief travelled from east to west. Our stories narrate detail of how fate is written on a newborn’s forehead. Not only someone writes fate here, he can also change it if he wants. Here the generous monk-Bidhatapurush keeps his stick of judgement aside and takes pen to rewrite the king’s fate, comes to the palace without being evoked and feels happy changing the king’s fate for good.

How many of ancient gods, viz. Vedic gods are so generous that they come on their own seeing the pain of the mortals? I found none.

The monk-Bidhatapurush foretells the birth of a prince with 9 qualities. Why nine and not ten or twelve? Is it because Buddha the supreme God had nine qualities according to Theravada Buddhism? Refer to Buddhasmriti. We can only assume while folktales do not come to us with date and time and references.

As we find in many mythical references, seven is a number that carries fortune. Hence the king doesn’t sleep for seven days and seven nights, he eats seven items with the bird-meat.

But from where comes the reference of twelve Vedas and eight lessons (Astapaath). Are these eight lessons same to Buddha’s Astangik Marga? What are twelve Vedas then? We do not know the name of 12 Vedas but know that 12 is sacred number in Buddhism.

Let’s look at the polygamy issue. Yes the prince marries four princesses. But does he decide to marry them? Answer is not even single one. First one Madhumala was probably written in his fate, of which he did not have any idea — two female fairies carried him to Madhumala’s well-protected palace via magic and Madhumala the princess proposes him — did he had any option to run away if he did not fell in love with her. Probably no; it was the bed-chamber of a princess in a guarded palace in the middle of the ocean. Well yes, after the fairies brought him back o the forest again via magic, he took an oath of adventure. All the other princesses came on his way — they were all needed to find out Madhumala and again he had to marry them as per their choice to meet Madhumala again. Yes the prince is little stubborn, but is there any sign of misbehaviour while he deals with women? No, he only obliges the princesses’ orders. There lies a big difference between this story and later folktales which were developed post 15th century Bengal. Later Princes resolved to monogamy, went to adventure as they wanted to — not because their fate forced them to so directly. Secondly they found the princes by themselves without other women’s help. Here all the four ladies are daughters of the kings and supporting the prince to find out his first love and ask him to take care of them too in return. Don’t we have feminist story here where only women are decision makers and men listen to them? Remarkable is all women have the soul purpose of preserving the contemporary societal norm. They are selfless — of course decision makers need to be selfless for a greater cause- here may be uniting five states together which is possible by strengthening the dynasty ruling Ujaninagar.

Also check the metaphors. As we have discussed in previous article, female beauty is never described elaborately but a couple is repeatedly compared with sun and moon. We see reference of dowry — that is old practice anyway.

Another interesting point is absence of villain character or even antagonist. There is reference of Daitya and Danav but they never appear. Whereas all our later fairy tales refer to man-eater Rakshasas, at least one magician step-mother who is actually a Rakshasi in disguise of beautiful queen, here is none who is trying to harm the prince and princesses. All subjects love the royal stature, which is more than fear and everyone he meets on his way to the unknown helps him to reach there. Even Ramayan stories refer to Rakshas and jealous stepmother like Kaikeyi and her ill-advisor Manthara. Here the prince fights only against nature and the unknown. Imagination, time and sleep fairies influence him with their magical power. But while moving towards his destiny, he does not need to confront an enemy. He goes hunting, but does not kill any animal and finally throws his bow and arrow. Isn’t the idea implying non-violence surprising?

Surprise awaits us even at the end. Usually fairy tales end with happily ever after with a marriage or maximum with the coronation of the prince as king after his father. Here the prince is announced as crown prince and his father’s rule extends till four yugas. We don’t know what the life-expectancy imagined here, but there is clearly no indication of transferring power even though four wives of the prince give the king the chance to see grandchildren.

Last but not the least, the fairies come down to earth to work under king Dandadhar leaving Indra’s paradise — indicating preferability of humans to gods?

Translating the stories is difficult because of their language — colloquial format is not at all possible to convert to another language. I wanted to draw attention of folktale lovers towards these old Bengali stories which are not yet translated. These are not many in number but illustrate a different era, different society, different values than that we confront in puranic stories or the later fairy tales.