Read Ebook: Eastern Stories and Legends by Davids T W Rhys Thomas William Rhys Author Of Introduction Etc Moore Anne Carroll Author Of Introduction Etc Shedlock Marie L Editor

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INTRODUCTION

To this new and enlarged edition of Eastern Stories and Legends, Miss Shedlock has brought years of dramatic experience in the telling of stories to children and grown people in England and America, and united with it a discriminating selection from the work of a great Oriental scholar.

The result is a book of intrinsic merit for the general reading of children and of great practical value to all who are concerned with moral or ethical training.

"I feel a great joy in what these stories can unconsciously bring to the reader," says Miss Shedlock in a personal letter, "the mere living among the stories for the past few weeks has given me a sense of calm and permanence which it is difficult to maintain under present outward conditions."

I have observed with growing interest, extending over a period of years, the effect of such stories as "The Folly of Panic" and "The Tree Spirit" upon audiences of adolescent boys and girls in the public schools, public libraries, social settlements, Sunday schools and private schools, I have visited with Miss Shedlock. There is in Miss Shedlock's rendering something more than a suggestion of kinship with Nature and the attributes of animal life. The story is told in an atmosphere of spiritual actuality remote from our everyday experience yet confirming its eternal truths.

My familiarity with the earlier edition of Eastern Stories and Legends and my personal introduction of "The True Spirit of a Festival Day" and other stories to audiences of parents and teachers, enables me to speak with confidence of the value of the book in an enlarged and more popular form.

In rearranging and expanding her selection of stories Miss Shedlock has wisely freed the book from limitations which gave it too much the appearance of a text book. In so doing she has preserved the classical rendering of her earlier work. Her long experience as a teacher and story-teller in England and America informs her notes and arouses in the mature reader a fresh sense of the "power to educate" which rises out of all great literature at the touch of a true interpreter.

July 14, 1920.

THE HARE THAT RAN AWAY

And the little Hare said: "I have no time to stop and tell you anything. The Earth is falling in, and I am running away."

Now the wise Lion heard all this noise and wondered at it. "There are no signs," he said, "of the Earth falling in. They must have heard something." And then he stopped them all short and said: "What is this you are saying?"

And the Elephant said: "I remarked that the Earth was falling in."

"How do you know this?" asked the Lion.

"Why, now I come to think of it, it was the Tiger that remarked it to me."

"You saw it?" said the Lion. "Where?"

"Yonder, by the tree."

NOTE.--This story I have told in my own words, using the language I have found most effective for very young children.

THE MONKEY AND THE CROCODILE

Once upon a time, while Brahmadatta was king of Benares, the Bodhisatta came to life at the foot of Himalaya as a Monkey. He grew strong and sturdy, big of frame, well-to-do, and lived by a curve of the river Ganges in a forest haunt.

Now at that time there was a Crocodile dwelling in the Ganges. The Crocodile's mate saw the great frame of the monkey, and she conceived a longing for his heart to eat. So she said to her lord: "Sir, I desire to eat the heart of that great king of the monkeys!"

"Good wife," said the Crocodile, "I live in the water and he lives on dry land: how can we catch him?"

"All right," answered the Crocodile, consoling her, "don't trouble yourself. I have a plan; I will give you his heart to eat."

So when the Bodhisatta was sitting on the bank of the Ganges, after taking a drink of water, the Crocodile drew near, and said:

"Sir Monkey, why do you live on bad fruits in this old familiar place? On the other side of the Ganges there is no end to the mango trees, and labuja trees, with fruit sweet as honey! Is it not better to cross over and have all kinds of wild fruit to eat?"

"Lord Crocodile," the Monkey made answer, "deep and wide is the Ganges: how shall I get across?"

"If you will go, I will mount you on my back, and carry you over."

The Monkey trusted him, and agreed. "Come here, then," said the other, "up on my back with you!" and up the Monkey climbed. But when the Crocodile had swum a little way, he plunged the Monkey under the water.

"Good friend, you are letting me sink!" cried the Monkey. "What is that for?"

Said the Crocodile, "You think I am carrying you out of pure good nature? Not a bit of it! My wife has a longing for your heart, and I want to give it to her to eat!"

"Friend," said the Monkey, "it is nice of you to tell me. Why, if our heart were inside us when we go jumping among the tree-tops, it would be all knocked to pieces!"

"Well, where do you keep it?" asked the other.

The Bodhisatta pointed out a fig-tree, with clusters of ripe fruit, standing not far off. "See," said he, "there are our hearts hanging on yon fig-tree."

"If you will show me your heart," said the Crocodile, "then I won't kill you."

"Take me to the tree, then, and I will point it out to you hanging upon it."

The Crocodile brought him to the place. The Monkey leapt off his back, and climbing up the fig-tree sat upon it. "O silly Crocodile!" said he, "you thought that there were creatures that kept their hearts in a tree-top! You are a fool, and I have outwitted you! You may keep your fruit to yourself. Your body is great, but you have no sense." And then to explain this idea he uttered the following stanzas:

"Rose-apple, jack-fruit, mangoes too across the water there I see; Enough of them, I want them not; my fig is good enough for me!

"Great is your body, verily, but how much smaller is your wit! Now go your ways, Sir Crocodile, for I have had the best of it."

The Crocodile, feeling as sad and miserable as if he had lost a thousand pieces of money, went back sorrowing to the place where he lived.

THE SPIRIT THAT LIVED IN A TREE

Now in the King's Park was a lordly Sal tree, straight and well-grown, worshiped by village and town, and to this tree even the Royal Family also paid tribute, worship, and honor. And then suddenly there came an order from the King that the tree should be cut down.

And the people were sore dismayed, but the woodmen, who dared not disobey the orders of the King, came to the Park with hands full of perfumed garlands, and encircling the tree with a string, fastened to it a nosegay of flowers, and kindling a lamp, they did worship, exclaiming: "O Tree! on the seventh day must we cut thee down, for so hath the King commanded. Now let the Deities who dwell within thee go elsewhither, and since we are only obeying the King's command, let no blame fall upon us, and no harm come to our children because of this."

And the Spirit who lived in the tree, hearing these words, reflected within himself and said: "These builders are determined to cut down this tree, and to destroy my place of dwelling. Now my life lasts only as long as this tree. And lo! all the young Sal trees that stand around, where dwell the Deities my kinsfolk--and they are many--will be destroyed! My own destruction does not touch me so near as the destruction of my children: therefore must I protect their lives."

Accordingly, at the hour of midnight adorned in divine splendor, he entered into the magnificent chamber of the King, and filling the whole chamber with a bright radiance, stood weeping beside the King's pillow. At the sight of him, the King, overcome with terror, said: "Who art thou, standing high in the air, and why do thy tears flow?"

And the Tree-God made answer: "Within thy realm I am known as the Lucky-Tree. For sixty thousand years have I stood, and all have worshiped me, and though they have built many a house, and many a town, no violence has been done to me. Spare thou me, also, O King."

Then the King made answer and said: "Never have I seen so mighty a trunk, so thick and strong a tree; but I will build me a palace, and thou shalt be the only column on which it shall rest, and thou shalt dwell there for ever."

And the Tree said: "Since thou art resolved to tear my body from me, I pray thee cut me down gently, one branch after another--the root last of all."

And the King said: "O Woodland Tree! what is this thou askest of me? It were a painful death to die. One stroke at the root would fell thee to the ground. Why wouldst thou die piecemeal?"

And the Tree made answer: "O King! My children, the young Sal trees, all grow at my feet: they are prosperous and well sheltered. If I should fall with one mighty crash, behold these young children of the forest would perish also!"

And the King was greatly moved by this spirit of sacrifice, and said: "O great and glorious Tree! I set thee free from thy fear, and because thou wouldst willingly die to save thy kindred, thou shalt not be cut down. Return to thy home in the Ancient Forest."

THE HARE THAT WAS NOT AFRAID TO DIE

And it came to pass that the Buddha was born a Hare and lived in a wood; on one side was the foot of a mountain, on another a river, on the third side a border village.

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