Part 21

In the Chinese Buddhist version of Gellert we are told that a very poor Brahman who had to beg his bread possessed a pet mungoose, which, as he had no children, became as fondly loved as if it had been his son. How true is this touch which shows the love of animals as the _katharsis_ of the heart-ache or heartbreak of the childless! But, by and by, to the great joy of the Brahman, his wife bore him a son; after this happy event he cherished the mungoose even more than ever, for he said to himself that it was the fact of his having treated it as if it had been his child which had brought him the unhoped-for good luck of having a real child of his own. One day the Brahman went out to beg, but before he went out he told his wife to be sure and take good care of the child and carry it with her if she left the house even for a minute. The woman fed the child with cream and then remembered that she had to grind some rice; she went into the garden to grind it and forgot to take the little boy with her. After she was gone, a snake, attracted by the smell of the cream, crept quite close to where the child lay and was going to bite it, when the mungoose perceived what was going on and reflected: “My father has gone out and my mother too and now this poisonous snake wishes to kill my little brother.” So the mungoose attacked the poisonous snake and tore it into seven pieces. Then it thought that, since it had killed the snake and saved the child, it ought to acquaint its father and mother of what had happened and rejoice their hearts. Therefore it went to the door and waited for them to return, its mouth still covered with blood. Just then the Brahman came home and he was not pleased to see his wife without the child in the out-house, where the mill was. Thus, though this is left for the hearer to infer, he was already vexed and anxious, when he met the mungoose waiting by the door with blood on its mouth. The thought rushed into his mind, “This creature, being hungry, has slain and eaten the child! “He took up a stick and beat the mungoose to death. (Such a little thing, it is so easily killed!) After that he went into the house, where he found the baby sitting up in his cradle playing merrily with his fingers, while the seven pieces of the dead snake lay beside him! Sorrow filled the Brahman now; alas, for his folly! The faithful creature had saved his child and he, thoughtless wretch that he was, had killed it!

Only in this version are we informed of just what the devoted animal thought; which may be a sign of its Buddhist origin. In the modern Indian variant, the mungoose, tied by a string, does not succeed in getting free till after the child has been bitten by the snake with which he had been playing, thinking it a new toy. The cobra took the play in good part till the child accidentally hurt it; then, angry with the pain, it bit him in the neck. When the mungoose got loose the deed was done and the cobra had slunk back into its hole. Off ran the mungoose into the jungle to find the antidote which the Indian natives believe that this creature always uses when it is itself bitten by snakes. The mother comes in at the moment when the mungoose is returning with the antidote: she sees the child lying motionless, and thinking that the mungoose has killed it she seizes it and dashes it to the ground. It quivers for a few seconds, then it dies. Only when it is dead, does the mother notice the snake-root which it still holds tightly in its mouth. She guesses the whole truth and quickly administers the antidote to the child, who recovers consciousness. The mungoose “had been a great pet with all the children and was greatly mourned for.”

In the Sanscrit version preserved in the _Panchatantra_ collection the mother has brought up an ichneumon with her only child, as if it had been his brother; nevertheless, a sort of fear has always haunted her that the animal might hurt the child sooner or later. I must interrupt the story to remark how often the inglorious Shakespeare of these poor little folk-tales traces with no mean art the psychological process which leads up to the tragic crisis. What more true to life than the observation of the two opposing feelings balancing each other in the same mind till some accident causes one of them to gain uncontrollable mastery?

When the woman has killed her innocent little favourite she is bitterly unhappy, but instead of blaming her own hastiness, she says it was all her husband’s fault: what business had he to go out begging, “through a greedy desire of profit,” instead of minding the baby as she had told him to do, while she went to the well to fetch water? And now the reprobate has caused the death of the ichneumon, the darling of the house!

The touching trait of the creature, which runs to its master or mistress after saving the child, with the charming confidence and pride which any animal shows when it knows that it deserves praise, appears in nearly all the versions. Prince Llewellyn’s greyhound goes out to meet him “all bloody and _wagging his tail_.” The ichneumon ran joyously to meet its mistress, and the cat, in the Persian version, came up to its master “rubbing against his legs.” In the Persian tale the child’s mother dies at its birth, and it is stated that she was very fond of the cat, which made the man even more grieved that he had killed it.

In German folk-lore the story of the dog “Sultan” sounds as if it were invented by some happy-souled humorist who had the Llewellyn motive in his mind, but who wanted to tell a merry tale instead of a sad one. “Sultan” is so old that his master wishes to kill him, though much against the advice of his wife. So “Sultan” consults a wolf of his acquaintance, who proposes the stratagem of pretending that he is going to eat the good people’s child, while “Sultan” pretends to come up just at the nick of time to save it. The plan is carried out with complete success, and “Sultan” lives out his days surrounded by respect and gratitude.

There are several Eastern tales which are of the same family as Llewellyn’s hound, but in which the animal, instead of saving a child, confers some other benefit on its possessor. In a Persian fable a king kills his falcon because it spilled a cup of water which he is about to drink: of course, the water was really poisoned. A current folk-tale of Bengal makes a horse the victim of its devotion in preventing its master from drinking poisonous water.

Rather different is the following Chinese tale, which is to be found, told at more length, in Dr. Herbert H. Giles’s delightful book, “Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio”:—

There was a man of Lu-ngan who had scraped together enough money to release his father from prison, where he was like to die of all the untold miseries of Chinese durance. He got on a mule and set out for the town where his father was languishing, taking the silver with him. When he was well on his way, he was much annoyed to see that a black dog which belonged to the family was following him; he tried in vain to make it go back. After riding on for some time, he got off the mule to rest and he took the opportunity for throwing a large stone at the dog, which ran away, but as soon as he was on the road again the dog trotted up and took hold of the mule’s tail, as if trying to stop it. The man beat it off with the whip, but it only ran round in front of the mule, and barked frantically so as to impede its progress. The man now reflected, “This is a very bad omen,” and he got fairly into a rage and beat the dog off with such violence that it did not come back. So he continued his journey without further incidents, but when he reached the city in the dark of the evening, what was not his despair on finding about half his money gone! He did not doubt that he must have dropped it on the way, and after passing a night of terrible distress he remembered, towards dawn, the strange way in which the dog behaved, and he began to think that there might be some connexion between this and the loss of his money. Directly the gates were open he retraced his steps along the road, though he hardly hoped to find any clue to his loss, as the route was traversed by many travellers. But at the spot where, on the previous day he dismounted from his mule to rest, he saw the dog stretched dead on the ground, its hair still moist with perspiration, and when he lifted up the body by one of its ears, he found his lost silver safely concealed underneath it! His gratitude was great, and he bought a coffin, in which he placed the dog and then buried it. The place is known as “the Grave of the Faithful Dog.”

It is not true that every one in China eats dogs, but some do, and the trade in such animals is a recognised business. There are several cat and dog restaurants at Canton. This unenviable habit gives rise to the story of a merchant who had made a good stroke of business at Wu-hu and was going home in a canal boat, when he noticed on the bank a butcher who was tying up a dog previous to killing it. It is not stated if the merchant had always a tender heart or if his good fortune in the town made him wish to do a good turn to some living thing; anyhow, he proposed to buy the dog. The butcher was no fool; he guessed that the trader would never leave the dog to its fate after thinking about rescuing it—what dreadful sleepless nights such a proceeding would cost any of us! So he boldly asked a great deal more than the dog was worth, which was paid down, and the animal was untied and put on the boat with his new master. Now it so happened that the boatman had been a brigand, and, though partially reformed, the feeling that he had on board a traveller with a large sum of money was too strong a temptation for him. So he stopped the boat by running it among the rushes and drew out a long knife, with which he prepared to murder his passenger. The merchant begged the brigand not to mutilate him or cut off his head, because such treatment causes the victim to appear in the next world as no one would like to. Brigands are generally religious, and this one was no exception; he was willing to oblige the merchant and tied him up, quite whole, in a carpet, which he threw into the river. The dog, which had been looking on, was in the water in a moment, hugging and tugging at the bundle till he got it to a shallow place. Then he barked and barked till people came to see what was the matter, and they undid the carpet and found the trader still alive. The first thought of the rescued man was to track the thief, for which purpose he started at once to go back to Wu-hu. At the time of starting, much to his distress, he missed the dog. On arriving at Wu-hu he hunted among the endless boats and shipping for the boat by which he had travelled, but unfortunately he could see nothing of it, and at last he gave up the search and was going home with a friend when what should he see but his lost dog, which barked in a curious way as if to invite him to follow it. The merchant did so, and the dog led him to a boat that was lying close to the quay. Into this boat the dog jumped and seized hold of one of the boatmen by the leg. In spite of blows the animal would not let go, and then the merchant, on looking hard at the boatman, recognised him as the very man who tried to murder him, though he had a nice new suit of clothes and a new boat. The thief was arrested and the money found at the bottom of the boat. “To think,” says the story-teller, “that a dog could show gratitude like that!” To which Dr. Giles adds that dogs in China are usually “ill-fed, barking curs” which, if valued as guardians of house and chattels, are still despised. But beautiful moral qualities have the power to conquer loathing, and even in those countries where the dog is regarded generally with aversion it is still the chosen type of sublime fidelity and love.

I can never think of Chinese dogs without remembering a story told by my cousin, Lord Napier of Magdala, of an incident which, he said, gave him more pain than anything that had ever happened to him in his life. When he was in China he chanced to admire a dog, which was immediately offered to him as a gift. He could not accept the offer, and next day he heard that the owner of the dog with all his family, five persons, had drowned himself in a well. Probably they imagined that he was offended by their offering him a mere dog.

In India, to return to that home of legend, the two most sublime Beast Stories are to be found in the Great Epic of the Hindu race, the _Mahabharata_. They are both stories of the faithfulness of man to beast, and they afford consolation for the sorry figure presented by the human actor in the martyred mungoose tale. The first of these stories is the legend of the Hawk and the Pigeon. A pigeon pursued by a hawk flies for protection to the precinct of sacrifice, where a very pious king is about to make his offering. It clings to the king’s breast, motionless with fright. Then up comes the hawk, which, perching on a near vantage-ground, begins to argue the case. All the princes of the earth declare the king to be a magnanimous chief; why, therefore, should he fly in the face of natural laws? Why keep its destined food from the hawk, which feels very hungry? The king answers that the pigeon came flying to him, overcome by fear and seeking to save its life. How can he possibly give it up? A trembling bird which enters his presence begging for its life? How ignoble it would be to abandon it! Surely it would be a mortal sin! In fact, that is exactly what the Law calls it!

The hawk retorts that all creatures must eat to live. You can sustain life on very little, but how are you going to live on nothing at all? If the hawk has nothing to eat, his vital breath will depart this very day “on the road where nothing more affrights.” If he dies, his wife and children will die too for want of their protector. Such an eventuality cannot be contemplated by the Law: a law which contradicts itself is a very bad law and cannot be in accordance with eternal truth. In theological difficulties one has to consider what seems just and reasonable and interpret the point in that sense.

“There is a great deal to be said for what you say, best of fowls,” replies the king, who is impressed by the hawk’s forensic skill and begins to think him a person not to be trifled with; “you are very well informed; in fact, I am inclined to think that you know everything. How _can_ you suppose, then, that it would be a decent thing to give up a creature that seeks refuge? Of course, I understand that with you it is a question of a dinner, but something much more substantial than this pigeon can be prepared for you immediately; for instance, a wild boar, or a gazelle or a buffalo—anything that you like.”

The hawk answers that he never, by any chance, touches meat of that sort: why does the king talk to him about such unsuitable diet? By an immutable rule hawks feed on pigeons, and this pigeon is the very thing he wants and to which he has a perfect right. In a delicate metaphor he hints that the king had better leave off talking nonsense.

The king, who sees that arguments are no good, now declares that anything and everything he will give the hawk by way of compensation, but that as to the pigeon, he will not give it up, so it is no good going on discussing the matter.

The hawk says, in return, that if the king is so tenderly solicitous on the pigeon’s account, the best thing he can do is to cut out a piece of his own flesh and weigh it in the scales with the pigeon—when the balance is equal, then and then only will the hawk be satisfied. “As you ask that as a favour,” says the king, “you shall have what you wish”—a consent which seems to contain a polite hint that the hawk might have been a little less arrogant, for in the hawk’s demand there was no mention of favours.

The king himself cuts out the piece of his flesh (no one else would have dared do it). But, alas! when it is weighed with the pigeon, the pigeon weighs the most! The king went on cutting pieces of his flesh and throwing them into the scales, but the pigeon was still the heaviest. At last, all lacerated as he was, he threw himself into the scales. Then, with a blast of revelation, the esoteric sense of the story is made plain. There is something grand in the sudden antithesis.

The hawk said: “I am Indra, O prince, thou that knowest the Law! And this pigeon is Agni! Since thou hast torn thy flesh from thy limbs, O thou Prince of Men, thy glory shall shine throughout all worlds. As long as there be men on earth they will remember thee, O king. As long as the eternal realms endure thy fame shall not grow dim.”

So the gods returned to heaven, to which the pious Wusinara likewise ascended with his renovated body, luminously bright. He needs not to complete his sacrifice—himself has he offered up.

The listeners (Eastern stories are for listeners, not for readers) are exhorted to raise their eyes and behold with the mind’s vision that pure and holy abode where the righteous dwell with the gods in glory ineffable.

This beautiful fable belongs to the general class of the ancient stories of Divine visitants, but it has a more direct affinity with the lovely legends of the Middle Ages, in which pious people who give their beds to lepers or others suffering from loathsome disease find that it was Christ they harboured. Though the story of the Hawk and the Pigeon may be used simply as a fairy tale, the moral of it is what forms the essential kernel of other-worldly religions. Through the mazes of Indian thought emerges the constant conviction—like a Divine sign-post—that martyrdom is redemption. The gods themselves are less than the man who resigns everything for what his conscience tells him to be right. Indra bows before Wusinara and seeks to learn the Law from him. India’s gods are Nature-gods, and Nature teaches no such lesson:—

“There is no effort on _my_ brow— I do not strive, I do not weep, I rush with the swift spheres and glow For joy, and when I will, I sleep.”

Higher religions are a criticism of Nature: they “occupy the sphere that rational interpretation seeks to occupy and fails, and fails the more the more it seeks,” and if they change with the change of moral aspirations they are still the passionate endeavour of the soul to satisfy them.

The Buddhists took the story of the Hawk and the Pigeon and adapted it to their own teaching. Indra, chief of the gods, feels that his god-life is waning—for the gods of India labour, too, under the sense of that mysterious fatality of doom which haunted Olympus and Walhalla. Indra, knowing his twilight to be near, desired to consult a Buddha, but there was not one at that time upon the earth. There was, however, a virtuous king of the name of Sivi, and Indra decides to put him to the ordeal, which forms the subject of the other story, because, if he comes out scathless, he will be qualified to become a full Buddha. King Sivi had a severe struggle with himself, but he conquered his weakness, and when he feels the scale sink under him he is filled with indescribable joy and heaven and earth shake, which always happens when a Buddha is coming into existence. A crowd of gods descended and rested on the air: the sight of Sivi’s endurance caused them to weep tears that fell like rain mingled with divine flowers, which the gods threw down on the voluntary victim.

Indra puts off the form of a dove and resumes his god-like shape. What, he asks, does the king desire? Would he be universal monarch? Would he be king of the Genii? _Would he be Indra?_ There is a fine touch in this offer from the god of his godship to the heroic man, and, like most Buddhist amplifications of older legends, it might be justified from Brahmanical sources, as by incredible self-denial it was always held to be possible to dethrone a god and put oneself in his place. But Sivi replies that the only state he craves is that of a Buddha. Indra inquires if no shade of regret crosses the king’s mind when he feels the anguish reaching to his bones? The king replies, “I regret nothing.” “How can I believe it,” says Indra, “when thy body trembles and shivers so that thou canst hardly speak?” Sivi repeats that from beginning to end he has felt no shadow of regret; all has happened as he wished. In proof that he speaks truth, may his body be as whole as before! He had scarcely spoken when the miracle was effected, and in the same instant King Sivi became a Buddha.

There is a Russian folk-tale which seems to belong to this cycle. A horse which was ill-treated and half-starved saves the child of one of his masters from a bear. He has a friend, a cat, who is also half-starved. After he has saved the child he is better fed and he gives the cat part of his food. The masters notice this and again ill-treat him. He resolves to kill himself so that the cat may eat him, but the cat will not eat her friend and resolves to die likewise.

The second great story of man and beast contained in the _Mahabharata_ is that of Yudishtira and his dog. Accompanied by his wife and by his brethren, the saintly king started upon a pilgrimage of unheard-of difficulty which he alone was able to complete, as, on account of some slight imperfections that rendered them insufficiently meritorious to reach the goal, the others died upon the way. Only a dog, which followed Yudishtira from his house, remains with him still. At the final stage he is met by Indra, who invites him to mount his car and ascend to heaven in the flesh. The king asks if his brethren and the “tender king’s daughter,” his wife, are to be left lying miserably upon the road? Indra points out that the souls of these have already left their mortal coil and are even now in heaven, where Yudishtira will find them when he reaches it in his corporeal form. Then the king says, “And the dog, O lord of what Is and Is to be—the dog which has been faithful to the end, may I bring him? It is not my nature to be hard.” Indra says that since the king has this day obtained the rank of a god together with immortality and unbounded happiness, he had better not waste thoughts on a dog. Yudishtira answers that it would be an abominably unworthy act to forsake a faithful servant in order to obtain felicity and fortune. Indra objects that no dogs are allowed in heaven; what is a dog? A rough, ill-mannered brute which often runs away with the sacrifices offered in the temples. Let Yudishtira only reflect what wretched creatures dogs are, and he will give up all idea of taking his dog to heaven. Yudishtira still asserts that the abandonment of a servant is an enormous sin; it is as bad as murdering a Brahman. He is not going to forsake his dog whatever the god may say. Besides, it is not violent at all, but a gentle and devoted creature, and now that it is so weak and thin from all it has undergone on the journey and yet so eager to live, he would not leave it, even if it cost him his life. That is his final resolve.

Arguing in rather a feminine way, Indra returns to the charge that dogs are rough, rude brutes and quite ignores the good personal character given to this dog by its master. He goes on to twit Yudishtira with having abandoned his beloved Draupadi and his brothers on the road down there, while he makes all this stand about a dog. He winds up with saying, “You must be quite mad to-day.”