One day, the Emperor said to Birbal, “Birbal, in your holy book, it is written somewhere that, once Lord Vishnu ran all alone, upon hearing the cries of an elephant. He didn’t even take his servants along. Why was it so? Weren’t there any servants?”Birbal said, “Huzoor, I shall answer your question at the right […]
Chapter 9 ‘Well,’—Hurree shrugged his shoulders—’there is no accounting for you taste. Mahbub was angry too. He has sold horses all about here, and he says old lady is pukka [thorough] old lady and would not condescend to such ungentlemanly things. I do not care. I have got the papers, and I was very glad
Chapter 8 Two hundred miles north of Chini, on the blue shale of Ladakh, lies Yankling Sahib, the merry-minded man, spy-glassing wrathfully across the ridges for some sign of his pet tracker—a man from Ao-chung. But that renegade, with a new Mannlicher rifle and two hundred cartridges, is elsewhere, shooting musk-deer for the market, and
Tenali Raman looked out to find that the plants in his garden needed watering. But as he looked out, he saw some strange men creeping stealthily in the bushes. They were thieves. He had to think fast.He called out loudly to his wife, “There are thieves in the kingdom, my dear. We must hide all
There was a lot of noise in the market–place. A merchant was in the middle of the crowd shouting at the top of his voice.“I have lost my purse! I have lost my purse with varahas in it! Oh, my money! Please find it! I will reward anyone who finds it!”A poor beggar who was
Often Krishnadeva Raya toured his kingdom to hear the complaints of his subjects and to set things right. Usually, Tenali Raman was also with him.One day, the King saw a peasant working in the field and asked Tenali Raman to go and talk to him. Tenali Raman returned after speaking to him and told the
A son was born to King Krishnadeva Raya. There was great celebration in the kingdom. Everyone came to bless the child and congratulate the King.Tenali Raman came too. He looked at the infant in his cradle and said, “Sir, your little son will be an even greater man than his father.”The King smiled but said,
Vijayanagara was once having a terrible time being overrun by mice. They made everyone’s life a misery, eating food, getting into granaries, biting the animals and even babies. The people asked the King for help, making no effort to deal with the mice on their own.The King was known to be generous. He immediately ordered
Chapter 7 In the dawn,’ the lama went on more gravely, ready rosary clicking between the slow sentences, ‘came enlightenment. It is here … I am an old man … hill-bred, hill-fed, never to sit down among my Hills. Three years I travelled through Hind, but—can earth be stronger than Mother Earth? My stupid body
Everyone in Vijayanagara knew that Tenali Raman was the King’s favourite. The King gave him many gifts and rewards. So, they knew he must be quite rich. This was good news for all the thieves of the kingdom, because they thought his house would be full of money, jewels and costly gifts.Once a thief decided
It was a custom to have intellectual debates in courts. A ruler would organize such debates to see which scholars were most learned. The ashtadiggajas of Vijayanagara’s court were famous for this.One day, their fame reached the ears of Ramachandra Naidu of Talikota, who himself was a great scholar. He had defeated many well-known intellectuals
King Krishnadeva Raya was holding court. Suddenly, an old man came in leading five little boys. Everyone looked around at them. They were all strangers. And all the five boys seemed like brothers. They were of the same height and dressed alike.“Who are you, my good old man?” asked the King, “And who are these
Chapter 6 At moonrise the cautious coolies got under way. The lama, refreshed by his sleep and the spirit, needed no more than Kim’s shoulder to bear him along—a silent, swift-striding man. They held the shale-sprinkled grass for an hour, swept round the shoulder of an immortal cliff, and climbed into a new country entirely
Krishnadeva Raya was a good King. He often travelled through his kingdom to check on the conditions in which his subjects lived. He enjoyed being flattered sometimes, but he was not so foolish that he got carried away by flattery. He wanted to know the truth.During one of his tours of the kingdom, he asked
Vijayanagara was a very prosperous kingdom. Naturally, that created a lot of enemies around it. The Muslim Bahamani Kings attacked the kingdom for religious reasons. The Gajapatis of Odisha were jealous neighbours and wanted to extend their own kingdom. Vijayanagara was, therefore, always fighting off its enemies.The King often discussed the problems of the kingdom