Main Text

This ‘Indian fable’ is Indian only in the sense that Francis Bain was a professor of history at Deccan College in Pune when he wrote it. He sprinkled it with evocative images gathered from the Vedas, and claimed he had translated it from an ancient Sanskrit manuscript entrusted to him by a dying Brahman. Whether Bain expected anyone to believe him is unclear, but quite a few people did.

In the beginning, when Twashtri⁠ came to the creation of woman, he found that he had exhausted his materials in the making of man, and that no solid elements were left. In this dilemma, after profound meditation, he did as follows. He took the rotundity of the moon, and the curves of creepers, and the clinging of tendrils, and the trembling of grass, and the slenderness of the reed, and the bloom of flowers, and the lightness of leaves, and the tapering of the elephant’s trunk, and the glances of deer, and the clustering of rows of bees,⁠ and the joyous gaiety of sunbeams, and the weeping of clouds, and the fickleness of the winds, and the timidity of the hare, and the vanity of the peacock, and the softness of the parrot’s bosom, and the hardness of adamant, and the sweetness of honey, and the cruelty of the tiger, and the warm glow of fire, and the coldness of snow, and the chattering of jays, and the cooing of the kókila,⁠ and the hypocrisy of the crane,⁠ and the fidelity of the chakrawáka;⁠ and compounding all these together, he made woman, and gave her to man.

But after one week, man came to him, and said: Lord, this creature that you have given me makes my life miserable. She chatters incessantly, and teases me beyond endurance, never leaving me alone: and she requires incessant attention, and takes all my time up, and cries about nothing, and is always idle; and so I have come to give her back again, as I cannot live with her. So Twashtri said: Very well: and he took her back.

Then after another week, man came again to him, and said: Lord, I find that my life is very lonely since I gave you back that creature. I remember how she used to dance and sing to me, and look at me out of the corner of her eye, and play with me, and cling to me; and her laughter was music, and she was beautiful to look at, and soft to touch: so give her back to me again. So Twashtri said: Very well: and gave her back again.

Then after only three days, man came back to him again, and said: Lord, I know not how it is; but after all, I have come to the conclusion that she is more of a trouble than a pleasure to me: so please take her back again. But Twashtri said: Out on you! Be off! I will have no more of this. You must manage how you can. Then man said: But I cannot live with her. And Twashtri replied: Neither could you live without her. And he turned his back on man, and went on with his work. Then man said: What is to be done? for I cannot live either with or without her.⁠

Footnotes

Footnote

Twashtri

Twashtri is the name of a Hindu deity, the blacksmith of the gods, comparable to the Greek god Hephaestus (Vulcan in Roman folklore).

Footnote

Rows of bees

“Hindoo poets” remarked Bain in a footnote “see a resemblance between rows of bees and eye-glances.” He did not give any examples, but in the Vishnu Purana V.18 we read: “Bright is the morning that succeeds to this night for the women of Mathurá, for the bees of their eyes will feed upon the lotus face of Achyuta”. Many of the other expressions used of Woman by Bain may indeed be found in the Vedas.

Footnote

Kókila

Bain offered this brief footnote: “The Indian cuckoo”. This was typical of Bain, who would leave selected words untranslated in the body text and then footnote them in a learned manner, in order to heighten the feeling of authenticity. The Indian cuckoo is classified as Cuculus micropterus.

Footnote

Crane

  • Bain asserted, “The crane is a by-word for inward villainy and sanctimonious exterior.”

    • Footnote

    Chakrawaka

    A chakrawaka is a Brahmany duck, also known as the ruddy shelduck (Tadorna ferruginea). “The chakrawáka, or Brahmany drake,” Bain wrote in a footnote, “is fabled to pass the night sorrowing for the absence of his mate and she for him.”

    Footnote

    Without her

    “The very echo of Martial” noted Bain helpfully, leaving breadcrumbs to the Western classics. Martial (AD ?38-?103) was a poet from what is now Spain, known for his epigrams, such as this ‘on a friend’: “You are at once morose and agreeable, pleasing and repulsive. I can neither live with you, nor without you.”

    Author Details

    By Francis William Bain 1863-1940
    Source
    From
    ‘A Digit of the Moon’ (1898) by Francis William Bain (1863-1940).

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