A story · Yoga Vasishtha · Yoga Vasishtha — Stories of Creation

King Lavana and the Magician

Yoga Vasishtha 3.104

The story · English

Vasishtha said to Rama, listen, and I will tell you a story that shows the world to be an enchanted city, built by the magician called Mind. In the north there was a wide, green country called Northern Pandava, full of deep forests. Hermits lived in the thick woods, and Vidyadhara maidens made swings from the creepers. Pollen from lotuses piled up like small red hills, and doves called from the groves while streams ran under blossoming trees. Siddhas and seers sang hymns outside their mountain caves, and Kinnaras and Gandharvas made music under the plantain trees. It was a country that seemed made for happiness, and over it ruled a king named Lavana, a descendant of Harish Chandra, as bright on earth as the sun in the sky.

King Lavana was brave and generous. His sword had ended his enemies, and they shook at the mere sound of his name. His people spoke it the way they would speak the name of Hari. Apsaras sang his praises from the Himalayan peaks. He had no cunning in him and no arrogance, and he held to his own greatness as Brahma holds to his beads. Each day he sat on his throne among his courtiers. Chieftains saluted him, singers played lutes, and maids waved fans over him. Ministers as wise as Vrihaspati and Sukra sat beside him, and pandits recited old legends. Into this court walked a magician in strange clothes, loud and boastful as a thundercloud. He bowed low, like a tree bending with fruit, and said, "Sire, let me show you one wonder of my art, the trick of Kharolikika."

He began to twirl a staff set with peacock feathers, and it traced a shining circle of light, as bright as Indra's rainbow. The king watched. Just then a chieftain of Sinde, master of the horse, came in leading a swift and beautiful horse. "My lord," he said, "this horse is a match for Indra's Uchcha Srava. It flies as fast as the mind and as fast as the wind. My master sends it to you, because the best of gifts belongs with the best of men." The magician added, "Ride this horse, my lord, and travel as you please, shining as the sun does in his round of the sky." The king had the horse brought close. He gazed at it without blinking, as though he had turned into a painting himself, and then he climbed onto its back.

Once he was seated, the king closed his eyes and did not move. For two hours he sat like a man lost in deep meditation, and nobody could rouse him. The fans stopped waving. The courtiers went still. The noise in the courtyard died away, like thunder at the end of the rains. The ministers were sick with worry, and the people were afraid, because their king sat with shut eyes like a lotus that has lost its beauty. Then he came back to himself, as a lotus opens when the mist clears. He shook on his seat as a mountain shakes in an earthquake, and he nearly fell from the horse. His attendants caught him. He asked quietly, "What place is this, and whose court?" like a bee trapped in a closing flower asking where it is.

The courtiers asked him gently what had happened. "Lord," they said, "we were frightened to see you like that, for even the strongest hearts break when trouble comes from nowhere. What pleasure had so taken hold of your mind? You know that pleasures which look sweet now turn bitter in the end. Your mind has been steadied by wise teaching, so how could it be caught by a fool's fancy?" They reminded him that a mind trained to reason does not shake, any more than Mount Meru shakes in a storm. Comforted, the king's face brightened like the full moon. Yet it still held astonishment and some fear, as the moon looks pale after an eclipse. He saw the magician and said with a smile, "You trickster, what snare was that you caught me in?"

The king marveled at how strongly a spell could overpower even a steady mind. "What are these bodies, always open to death and sickness," he said, "and what are these minds, so easily led into error? Even the wisest can be fooled." Then he turned to his court. "Listen, all of you, to what happened to me from the moment I first met this magician. In one single moment I have lived through so many scenes." And he began, still smiling, to tell them. "The land I rule, with its forests and streams, is a small copy of the whole earth. Right here, in this court, the sorcerer appeared and whirled his wand. I stared at the spinning wand and at the horse, and in my dizziness I climbed on its back."

"Sitting on that horse, which never moved from its place, I seemed to gallop like a storm cloud over the mountain tops. I rode over a wild empty desert, and then through the air, carried as people are carried by their endless desires. At last my tired horse and I came to the edge of a desert as bare as a poor man's mind. Not a bird flew over it, not a tree, not a drop of water. It was like a sea with the bed dried up, and there was no footprint in it and no blade of grass. Water shimmered in the mirage, and I passed that dreadful place gasping until sunset. Beyond it lay a thick forest where birds sang among the jamb and kadamba trees. I sat under a Jambira tree, as glad as Markandeya on the mountain in the great flood."

"I took hold of the hanging roots, and the horse slid out from under me and was gone, the way a man's sins slip away when he trusts the Ganges. Night fell. I curled up in the hollow of a branch, with my head on moss, like a bird in its nest, and slept like a man struck dead. That one night seemed as long as an age. I tossed in dreams of danger and shook like a branch in the wind, and I thought of no bath, no food and no prayer. Then dawn came, red in the east. I climbed down and wandered the empty forest until midday. There I saw a girl carrying food and a jug of water. She had dark skin and wore black. I begged her, "Good maid, hunger is eating me from inside. Give me some of your food."

"She gave me nothing, and I followed her from wood to wood, close as her own shadow. At last she turned. "I am a Chandala girl," she said, "and my name is Harakeyuri. My people are as cruel as Rakshasas and eat the flesh of men and horses. You cannot get food from me just by asking, O King. But I will give you some if you agree to be my husband." She told me her father was ploughing nearby, and the food was his. I answered, "I will marry you. What fool keeps his family's customs when his life is in danger?" She gave me half the food. I ate it and drank the juice of jambu fruit, then fell asleep. She took me by the hand to her father, a fat, ugly man, and whispered our news in his ear. He said, "Be it so," and the wedding was set for that very dusk."

"We reached the Chandalas' home at evening. Slaughtered monkeys, cocks and crows lay about, with flies swarming over the blood. Entrails hung out to dry, and birds circled for them. Children held scraps of meat and old Chandalas scolded them. I felt like a ghost standing beside the lord of death. I was given a plantain leaf to sit on, and my squint-eyed mother-in-law stared at me with red eyes and muttered gladly, "Is this our son-in-law to be?" The food they served tasted like the reward of my sins. Then, on a clear starlit night, they gave me cloths as a dowry and handed me the frightening girl, and we were joined like black and white, like sin and its punishment. The Chandalas feasted on wine, shouted, and beat their drums at the wedding."

कथा · हिन्दी

In this book

• Before: The Boy and the Three Princes · Yoga Vasishtha 3.101
• Next: King Lavana Among the Outcastes · Yoga Vasishtha 3.107
• All of Yoga Vasishtha · Ask Krishna about it

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