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Cached August 24, 2011, from
The Tale Each day, for a period of ten years, a beggar ascetic appears in the audience chamber of the king. Silently giving him a simple gift of a piece of fruit, he then withdraws into the crowd. Each time this happens the trifling present is taken away by the king's servants and cast aside. Then, one day, after the beggar has made his offering and left, a rascal monkey who has escaped from the women's quarters in the inner palace jumps into the arms of the king and is playfully handed the piece of fruit given to him that day by the ascetic. When the animal bites into it, a jewel drops out and rolls across the floor. Curious about the other pieces of fruit, the King investigates and discovers that they have all been carelessly tossed through a window into a locked chamber in his treasury. When he enters the room, he finds amidst a pile of rotten fruit ten years worth of priceless gems. The next day, when the beggar arrives with his offering, the king refuses to accept it until the man stops to talk with him. The visitor requests a private audience, in which he reveals to the king that he needs a hero who can assist him in a magic enterprise of great importance. This person must be a true hero, one with the powers of an exorcist, explains the ascetic, and invites him to come to the funeral ground on the evening of the next full moon. On the appointed night, the king seeks out the beggar in this uncanny place filled with specters and demons. There he finds the holy man occupied in drawing a magic circle on the ground - a mandala. 'Here I am', says the king. 'What can I do for you?' He is told to fetch a corpse from the other side of the funeral grounds, where it is hanging in a tree. The king cuts down the corpse, which seems to moan when it hits the ground. Thinking the body must be alive, he begins to treat it more carefully. But a shrill voice, coming from the throat of the corpse, laughs at him, and the king realizes that the body is actually possessed by a ghost. 'What are you laughing at?' he demands. But by speaking he causes the corpse to fly back to the tree where it hangs in the same position as before. Again the king cuts it down, and this time SILENTLY hoisting it over his shoulder, he begins to make his way back to the ascetic. 'Let me shorten your trip with a tale', the ghost offers. The king, apparently wary about speaking, lest he cause the corpse to once more magically fly back to the tree, remains silent. He is treated to a story which ends in a riddle that the ghost poses. 'If you cannot answer it', the ghost threatens, 'your head will explode'. So the king finds a solution, which he describes in words to the ghost. But this, as might have been expected, causes the corpse to fly from the king's shoulder back to the tree, where it hangs once again. The king returns to the tree, cuts the corpse down, and begins his trek across the cemetery yet another time. But the same thing happens. Another tale, another riddle which the king solves, causing the corpse to fly back to the tree. This occurs a total of 25 times. The last time, however, the king cannot answer the riddle, as hard as he might try. But his head does not burst, at least not literally, and in fact his inability to come up with a solution is what prompts the ghost to quit the corpse, thereby permitting the king to successfully carry it back to the ascetic's magic circle. But before he arrives at his destination the ghost reveals that the beggar is in fact a sorcerer, a necromancer who is preparing the mandala in order to achieve an evil end. The ascetic intends to bind the ghost to the corpse, place it in the center of the circle, and worship it as a deity. To achieve this goal he will have to sacrifice the king - which he will accomplish by getting him to enter the circle and bow, at which time his head will be chopped off. The necromancer, having recieved the corpse from the king, washes and decorates it, puts it in the magic circle, and with powerful incantations summons the ghost to enter it. Having been warned of what is about to happen, and also having been given instructions by the ghost about precisely what he must do at this critical juncture if he is to avoid his demise, the king feigns ignorance when the ascetic commands him to enter the circle and worship the dead body with a bow. He asks the beggar to show him how he wishes this to be done. When the beggar enters the circle and bends over, the king cuts his head off, and offers it, along with the man's heart, up to the corpse. Then all of the spirits in the cemetery rejoice, since 'by this deed he had redeemed the supernatural powers from the threat of the necromancer, who had been on the very point of reducing them all to slavery and enchantment'. 1 'What the necromancer sought', the ghost now informs the king, 'was absolute power over souls and ghouls and over all the spiritual presences of the supernatural domain'. 'That power now shall be yours, O King, and when your life on earth is ended', says the ghost, 'dominion over the whole earth, will be given you'. He also offers the king the fulfillment of one wish. 'I have tormented you; I shall therefore now make atonement. What do you wish? Announce your desire and it shall be yours'. 2 In reply, the king simply asks that the 25 tales and the overall story of this night's adventures become known the whole world over and remain eternally famous. 1. Page 215 in The King and the Corpse: Tales of the Soul's Conquest of Evil, by Heinrich Zimmer, edited by Joseph Campbell, Princeton University Press, 1973/1956. 2. Page 215, op. cit. |