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 Linux Pocket Guide
Daniel J. Barrett
Editor
Mike Loukides
Editor
Andy Oram
Copyright © 2012 Daniel Barrett
O’Reilly books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. Online
editions are also available for most titles (http://my.safaribooksonline.com). For more
information, contact our corporate/institutional sales department: (800) 998-9938 or
[email protected].
Nutshell Handbook, the Nutshell Handbook logo, and the O’Reilly logo are registered
trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc. Linux Pocket Guide, Second Edition, the cover image of a
roper, and related trade dress are trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc.
Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products
are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and O’Reilly
Media, Inc., was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed in caps or
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While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and
author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the
use of the information contained herein.

O'Reilly Media
Chapter 1. Linux Pocket Guide
Welcome to Linux! If you’re a new user, this book can serve as a quick
introduction, as well as a guide to common and practical commands. If
you have Linux experience, feel free to skip the introductory material.

What’s in This Book?

This book is a short guide, not a comprehensive reference. We cover
important, useful aspects of Linux so you can work productively. We do
not, however, present every single command and every last option (our
apologies if your favorite was omitted), nor delve into detail about
operating system internals. Short, sweet, and essential, that’s our motto.
We focus on commands, those pesky little words you type on a command
line to tell a Linux system what to do. Here’s an example command that
counts lines of text in a file, myfile:
wc -l myfile

We’ll cover the most important Linux commands for the average user,
such as ls (list files), grep (search for text in a file), amarok (play audio
files), and df (measure free disk space). We touch only briefly on
graphical windowing environments like GNOME and KDE, each of which
could fill a Pocket Guide by itself.
We’ve organized the material by function to provide a concise learning
path. For example, to help you view the contents of a file, we introduce
all file-viewing commands together: cat for short text files, less for longer
ones, od for binary files, acroread for PDF files, and so on. Then we
explain each command in turn, briefly presenting its common uses and
options.
We assume you have an account on a Linux system and know how to log
in with your username and password. If not, speak with your system
administrator, or if the system is your own, use the account created when
you installed Linux.
What’s Linux?
Linux is a popular, open source operating system that competes with
Microsoft Windows and the Apple Macintosh. There are two ways to work
with a Linux system:
 A graphical user interface with windows, icons, and mouse
control.
A command-line interface, called the shell, for typing and
running commands like the preceding wc.

Windows and Mac OS computers can be operated by command line as

well (Windows with its cmd and PowerShell command tools, and OS X with
its Terminal application), but most of their users can survive without
typing commands. On Linux, however, the shell is critical. If you use Linux
without the shell, you are missing out.
What’s a Distro?
Linux is extremely configurable and includes thousands of programs. As a
result, different varieties of Linux have arisen to serve different needs and
tastes. They all share certain core components but may look different and
include different programs and files. Each variety is called a distro (short
for “distribution”). Popular distros include Ubuntu Linux, Red Hat
Enterprise Linux, Slackware, Mint, and more. This book covers core
material that should apply to every distro.
What’s a Command?
A Linux command typically consists of a program name followed by
options and arguments, typed within a shell, like this:
$ wc -l myfile

The program name (wc, the “word count” program) refers to a program
somewhere on disk that the shell will locate and run. Options, which
usually begin with a dash, affect the behavior of the program. In the
preceding command, the -l option tells wc to count lines rather than
words. The argument myfile specifies the file that wc should read and
process. The leading dollar sign ($) is a prompt from the shell, indicating
that it is waiting for your command.
Commands can have multiple options and arguments. Options may be
given individually:
$ wc -l -w myfile Two individual options
or combined behind a single dash:
$ wc -lw myfile Same as -l -w
though some programs are quirky and do not recognize combined
options. Multiple arguments are also OK:
$ wc -l myfile1 myfile2 Count lines in two files
Options are not standardized. The same option letter (say, -l) may have
different meanings to different programs: in wc -l it means “lines of text,”
but in ls -l it means “longer output.” In the other direction, two
programs might use different options to mean the same thing, such as -q
for “run quietly” versus -s for “run silently.”
Likewise, arguments are not standardized, unfortunately. They usually
represent filenames for input or output, but they can be other things too,
like directory names or regular expressions.
Commands can be more complex and interesting than a single program
with options:

Commands can run more than one program at a time, either in

sequence (one program after another) or in a “pipeline” with the
output of one command becoming the input of the next. Linux
experts use pipelines all the time.
The Linux command-line user interface—the shell—has a
programming language built in. So instead of a command saying
“run this program,” it might say, “if today is Tuesday, run this
program; otherwise, run another command six times for each file
whose name ends in .txt.”

Reading This Book

We’ll describe many Linux commands in this book. Each description
begins with a standard heading about the command; Figure 1-1 shows
one for the ls (list files) command. This heading demonstrates the
general usage in a simple format:
ls [options] [files]

which means you’d type “ls” followed, if you choose, by options and then
filenames. You wouldn’t type the square brackets “[” and “]”: they just
indicate their contents are optional; and words in italics mean you have to
fill in your own specific values, like names of actual files. If you see a
vertical bar between options or arguments, perhaps grouped by
parentheses:
 (file | directory)

This indicates choice: you may supply either a filename or directory name
as an argument.
The special heading also includes six properties of the command printed
in black (supported) or gray (unsupported):

Figure 1-1. Standard command heading

stdin
The command reads from standard input, i.e., your keyboard, by
default. See Input and Output.
stdout
The command writes to standard output, i.e., your screen, by
default. See Input and Output.
- file
When given a dash (-) argument in place of an input filename,
the command reads from standard input; and likewise, if the
dash is supplied as an output filename, the command writes to
standard output. For example, the following wc command line
reads the files file1 and file2, then standard input, then file3:
$ wc file1 file2 - file3

-- opt
If you supply the command-line option “--” it means “end of
options”: anything appearing later on the command line is not an
option. This is sometimes necessary to operate on a file whose
name begins with a dash, which otherwise would be (mistakenly)
treated as an option. For example, if you have a file named -foo,
the command wc -foo will fail because -foo will be treated as an
(invalid) option. wc -- -foo works. If a command does not
support “--”, you can prepend the current directory path “./” to
the filename so the dash is no longer the first character:
 $ wc ./-foo

--help
The option --help makes the command print a help message
explaining proper usage, then exit.
--version
The option --version makes the command print its version
information and exit.
Shell prompts
Some commands in this book can be run successfully only by the
superuser, a special user with permission to do anything on the system.
In this case, we use a hash mark (#) as the shell prompt:
# superuser command goes here

Otherwise, we will use the dollar sign prompt, indicating an ordinary user:
$ ordinary command goes here

Keystrokes
Throughout the book, we use certain symbols to indicate keystrokes. Like
many other Linux documents, we use the ^ symbol to mean “press and
hold the Control (Ctrl) key,” so for example, ^D (pronounced “control D”)
means “press and hold the Control key and type D.” We also write ESC to
mean “press the Escape key.” Keys like Enter and the space bar should be
self-explanatory.
Your friend, the echo command
In many of our examples, we’ll print information to the screen with the
echo command, which we’ll formally describe in Screen Output. echo is
one of the simplest commands: it merely prints its arguments on standard
output, once those arguments have been processed by the shell.
$ echo My dog has fleas
My dog has fleas
$ echo My name is $USER Shell variable USER
My name is smith
Getting Help
If you need more information than this book provides, there are
several things you can do.
Run the man command
The man command displays an online manual page, or
manpage, for a given program. For example, to learn about
listing files with ls, run:
$ man ls

To search for manpages by keyword for a particular topic,

use the -k option followed by the keyword:
$ man -k database

Run the infocommand

The info command is an extended, hypertext help system
covering many Linux programs.
$ info ls

While info is running, some useful keystrokes are:

To get help, type h

To quit, type q
To page forward and backward, use the space bar and
Backspace keys
To jump between hyperlinks, press TAB
To follow a hyperlink, press Enter

If info has no documentation on a given program, it

displays the program’s manpage. For a listing of available
documentation, type info by itself. To learn how to
navigate the info system, type info info.
Use the --help option (if any)
Many Linux commands respond to the option --help by
printing a short help message. Try:
 $ ls --help

If the output is longer than the screen, pipe it into the less
program to display it in pages (press q to quit):
$ ls --help | less

Examine the directory /usr/share/doc

This directory contains supporting documents for many
programs, usually organized by program name and version.
For example, files for the text editor emacs, version 23, are
likely found (depending on distro) in
/usr/share/doc/emacs23.
GNOME and KDE Help
For help with GNOME or KDE, visit http://www.gnome.org
or http://www.kde.org.
Distro-specific websites
Most Linux distros have an official site that includes
documentation, discussion forums for questions and
answers, and other resources. Simply enter the distro name
(e.g., “Ubuntu”) into any popular search engine to find its
web site. You can also visit the web site for this book:
http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920023029.do.
Linux help sites
Many web sites answer Linux questions, such as
http://www.linuxquestions.org,
http://unix.stackexchange.com, http://www.linuxhelp.net,
and http://www.linuxforums.org.
Web search
To decipher a specific Linux error message, enter the
message into a web search engine, word for word, and you
will likely find helpful results.
Linux: A First View
Linux has four major parts:
The kernel
The low-level operating system, handling files, disks,
networking, and other necessities we take for granted.
Most users rarely notice the kernel.
Supplied programs
Thousands of programs for file manipulation, text editing,
mathematics, web browsing, audio, video, computer
programming, typesetting, encryption, DVD burning…you
name it.
The shell
A user interface for typing commands, executing them, and
displaying the results. Linux has various shells: the Bourne
shell, Korn shell, C shell, and others. This book focuses on
bash, the Bourne-Again Shell, which is often the default for
user accounts. However, all these shells have similar basic
functions.
X
A graphical system that provides windows, menus, icons,
mouse support, and other familiar GUI elements. More
complex graphical environments are built on X; the most
popular are KDE and GNOME. We’ll discuss a few programs
that open X windows to run.
This book focuses on the second and third parts: supplied programs
and the shell.
The Graphical Desktop
When you log into a Linux system, you’re likely to be greeted by a
graphical desktop[1] like Figure 1-2, which contains:

A main menu or taskbar. Depending on your distro and

system settings, this might be at the top, bottom, or side of
the screen.
Desktop icons representing the computer, a folder
representing your home directory for personal files, a trash
can, and more.
Icons to run applications, such as the Firefox web browser
and the Thunderbird email program.
Controls for opening and closing windows and running
multiple desktops at once.
A clock and other small, informational icons.
 Figure 1-2. Graphical desktops (CentOS Linux with GNOME, Ubuntu with KDE).
Desktops can look wildly different, depending on your distro and system settings.

Linux systems have several graphical interfaces, the most common

being GNOME and KDE. Identify yours by clicking your system’s
equivalent of a main menu or start menu and looking for the words
GNOME, KDE, Kubuntu (KDE on Ubuntu Linux), or similar.

[1]
Unless you’re logging in remotely over the network, in which case you’ll see just a
command prompt, waiting for you to type a command.
Running a Shell
The icons and menus in GNOME and KDE are, for some users, the
primary way to work with Linux. This is fine for simple tasks like
reading email and browsing the Web. Nevertheless, the true power
of Linux lies beneath this graphical interface, in the shell.
To get the most out of Linux, take the time to become proficient
with the shell. (That’s what this book is all about.) It might initially
be more difficult than icons and menus, but once you’re used to it,
the shell is quite easy to use and very powerful.
To run a shell within GNOME, KDE, or any other graphical interface
for Linux, you need to open a shell window: a window with a shell
running in it. Figure 1-2 shows two shell windows with “$” shell
prompts, awaiting your commands. Look through your system
menus for an application to do this. Typical menu items are
Terminal, xterm, gnome-terminal, konsole, and uxterm.
Don’t confuse the window program (like konsole) with the shell
running inside it. The window is just a container—possibly with fancy
features of its own—but the shell is what prompts you for commands
and runs them.
If you’re not running a graphical interface—say, you’re logging in
remotely over the network, or directly over an attached terminal—a
shell will run immediately when you log in. No shell window is
required.
This was just a quick introduction. We’ll discuss more details in The
Shell, and cover more powerful constructs in Programming with Shell
Scripts.
Input and Output
Most Linux commands accept input and produce output. Input can
come from files or from standard input, which is usually your
keyboard. Likewise, output is written to files or to standard output,
which is usually your shell window or screen. Error messages are
treated specially and displayed on standard error, which also is
usually your screen but kept separate from standard output.[2] Later
we’ll see how to redirect standard input, output, and error to and
from files or pipes. But let’s get our vocabulary straight. When we
say a command “reads,” we mean from standard input unless we say
otherwise. And when a command “writes” or “prints,” we mean on
standard output, unless we’re talking about computer printers.

[2]
For example, you can capture standard output in a file and still have standard error
messages appear on screen.
Users and Superusers
Linux is a multiuser operating system: multiple people can use a
single Linux computer at the same time. On a given computer, each
user is identified by a unique username, like “smith” or “funkyguy,”
and owns a (reasonably) private part of the system for doing work.
There is also a special user named root—the superuser—who has
the privileges to do anything at all on the system. Ordinary users are
restricted: though they can run most programs, in general they can
modify only the files they own. The superuser, on the other hand,
can create, modify, or delete any file and run any program.
To become the superuser, you needn’t log out and log back in; just
run the su command (see Becoming the Superuser) and provide the
superuser password:
$ su -l

Password: *******

The superuser prompt (#) indicates that you’re ready to run

superuser commands. Alternatively, run the sudo command (if your
system is configured to use it), which executes a single command as
the superuser, then returns control to the original user:
$ sudo ls /private/secrets View a protected directory
Password: *******

secretfile1 secretfile2 It worked!

$
The Filesystem
To make use of any Linux system, you need to be comfortable with
Linux files and directories (a.k.a. folders). In a “windows and icons”
system, the files and directories are obvious on screen. With a
command-line system like the Linux shell, the same files and
directories are still present but are not constantly visible, so at times
you must remember which directory you are “in” and how it relates
to other directories. You’ll use shell commands like cd and pwd to
“move” between directories and keep track of where you are.
Let’s cover some terminology. As we’ve said, Linux files are collected
into directories. The directories form a hierarchy, or tree, as in
Figure 1-3: one directory may contain other directories, called
subdirectories, which may themselves contain other files and
subdirectories, and so on, into infinity. The topmost directory is
called the root directory and is denoted by a slash (/).[3]

Figure 1-3. A Linux filesystem (partial). The root folder is at the top. The “dan”
folder’s full path is /home/dan.

We refer to files and directories using a “names and slashes” syntax

called a path. For instance, this path:
/one/two/three/four

refers to the root directory /, which contains a directory called one,

which contains a directory two, which contains a directory three,
which contains a final file or directory, four. If a path begins with the
root directory, it’s called an absolute path, and if not, it’s a relative
path. More on this in a moment.
Whenever you are running a shell, that shell is working “in” some
directory (in an abstract sense). More technically, your shell has a
current working directory, and when you run commands in that
shell, they operate relative (there’s that word again) to the directory.
More specifically, if you refer to a relative file path in that shell, it is
relative to your current working directory. For example, if your shell
is “in” the directory /one/two/three, and you run a command that
refers to a file myfile, then the file is really /one/two/three/myfile.
Likewise, a relative path a/b/c would imply the true path
/one/two/three/a/b/c.
Two special directories are denoted . (a single period) and .. (two
periods in a row). The former means your current directory, and the
latter means your parent directory, one level above. So if your
current directory is /one/two/three, then . refers to this directory
and .. refers to /one/two.
You “move” your shell from one directory to another using the cd
command:
$ cd /one/two/three

More technically, this command changes your shell’s current working

directory to be /one/two/three. This is an absolute change (since the
directory begins with “/”); of course you can make relative moves as
well:
$ cd d Enter subdirectory d
$ cd ../mydir Go up to my parent, then into directory mydir

File and directory names may contain most characters you expect:
capital and lowercase letters,[4] numbers, periods, dashes,
underscores, and most symbols (but not “/”, which is reserved for
separating directories). For practical use, however, avoid spaces,
asterisks, parentheses, and other characters that have special
meaning to the shell. Otherwise, you’ll need to quote or escape
these characters all the time. (See Quoting.)
Home Directories
Users’ personal files are often found in /home (for ordinary users) or
/root (for the superuser). Your home directory is typically
/home/your-username: /home/smith, /home/jones, etc. There are
several ways to locate or refer to your home directory.
cd
With no arguments, the cd command returns you (i.e., sets
the shell’s working directory) to your home directory.
HOME variable
The environment variable HOME (see Shell variables)
contains the name of your home directory.
$ echo $HOME The echo command prints its arguments
/home/smith

˜
When used in place of a directory, a lone tilde is expanded
by the shell to the name of your home directory.
$ echo ˜
/home/smith

When followed by a username (as in ~fred), the shell

expands this string to be the user’s home directory:
$ cd f̃red
$ pwd The “print working directory” command
/home/fred

[3]
In Linux, all files and directories descend from the root. This is unlike Windows or DOS,
in which different devices are accessed by drive letters.
[4]
Linux filenames are case-sensitive, so capital and lowercase letters are not equivalent.
System Directories
A typical Linux system has tens of thousands of system directories.
These directories contain operating system files, applications,
documentation, and just about everything except personal user files
(which typically live in /home).
Unless you’re a system administrator, you’ll rarely visit most system
directories—but with a little knowledge you can understand or guess
their purposes. Their names often contain three parts, which we’ll
call the scope, category, and application. (These are not standard
terms, but they’ll help you understand things.) For example, the
directory /usr/local/share/emacs, which contains local data for the
emacs text editor, has scope /usr/local (locally installed system files),
category share (program-specific data and documentation), and
application emacs (a text editor), shown in Figure 1-4. We’ll explain
these three parts, slightly out of order.

Figure 1-4. Directory scope, category, and application

Directory path part 1: category

A category tells you the types of files found in a directory. For
example, if the category is bin, you can be reasonably assured that
the directory contains programs. Common categories are:

Categories for programs

bin Programs (usually binary files)

sbin Programs (usually binary files) intended to be run by the superuser

lib Libraries of code used by programs

libexec Programs invoked by other programs, not usually by users; think “library of
executable programs”

Categories for documentation

doc Documentation

info Documentation files for emacs’s built-in help system

man Documentation files (manual pages) displayed by the man program; the files
are often compressed, or sprinkled with typesetting commands for man to
interpret

share Program-specific files, such as examples and installation instructions

Categories for configuration

etc Configuration files for the system (and other miscellaneous stuff)

init.d Configuration files for booting Linux

rc.d Configuration files for booting Linux; also rc1.d, rc2.d, ...

Categories for programming

include Header files for programming

src Source code for programs

Categories for web files

cgi-bin Scripts/programs that run on web pages

html Web pages

public_html Web pages, typically in users’ home directories

www Web pages

Categories for display

fonts Fonts (surprise!)

X11 X window system files

Categories for hardware

dev Device files for interfacing with disks and other hardware

media Mount points: directories that provide access to disks

mnt Mount points: directories that provide access to disks

misc Mount points: directories that provide access to disks

Categories for runtime files

var Files specific to this computer, created and updated as the computer runs
lock Lock files, created by programs to say, “I am running”; the existence of a lock
file may prevent another program, or another instance of the same program,
from running or performing an action

log Log files that track important system events, containing error, warning, and
informational messages

mail Mailboxes for incoming mail

run PID files, which contain the IDs of running processes; these files are often
consulted to track or kill particular processes

spool Files queued or in transit, such as outgoing email, print jobs, and scheduled
jobs

tmp Temporary storage for programs and/or people to use

proc Operating system state: see Operating System Directories

Directory path part 2: scope

The scope of a directory path describes, at a high level, the purpose
of an entire directory hierarchy. Some common ones are:

/ System files supplied with Linux (pronounced “root”)

/usr More system files supplied with Linux (pronounced “user”)

/usr/games Games (surprise!)

/usr/local System files developed “locally,” either for your organization or your individual
computer
/usr/X11R6 Files pertaining to the X window system

So for a category like lib (libraries), your Linux system might have
directories /lib, /usr/lib, /usr/local/lib, /usr/games/lib, and
/usr/X11R6/lib.
There isn’t a clear distinction between / and /usr in practice, but
there is a sense that / is “lower-level” and closer to the operating
system. So /bin contains fundamental programs like ls and cat,
/usr/bin contains a wide variety of applications supplied with your
Linux distribution, and /usr/local/bin contains programs your system
administrator chose to install. These are not hard-and-fast rules but
typical cases.
Directory path part 3: application
The application part of a directory path, if present, is usually the
name of a program. After the scope and category (say,
/usr/local/doc), a program may have its own subdirectory (say,
/usr/local/doc/myprogram) containing files it needs.
Operating System Directories
Some directories support the Linux kernel, the lowest-level part of
the Linux operating system.
/boot
Files for booting the system. This is where the kernel lives,
typically named /boot/vmlinuz.
/lost+found
Damaged files that were rescued by a disk recovery tool.
/proc
Describes currently running processes; for advanced users.
The files in /proc provide views into the running kernel and have
special properties. They always appear to be zero sized, read-only,
and dated now:
$ ls -l /proc/version

-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Oct 3 22:55 /proc/version

However, their contents magically contain information about the

Linux kernel:
$ cat /proc/version

Linux version 2.6.32-71.el6.i686 ...

Files in /proc are used mostly by programs, but feel free to explore
them. Here are some examples:

/proc/ioports A list of your computer’s input/output hardware.

/proc/version The operating system version. The uname command prints the same
information.

/proc/uptime System uptime, i.e., seconds elapsed since the system was last booted. Run
the uptime command for a more human-readable result.

/proc/nnn
 Where nnn is a positive integer, information about the Linux process with
process ID nnn.

/proc/self Information about the current process you’re running; a symbolic link to a
/proc/nnn file, automatically updated. Try ls -l /proc/self several times in
a row: you’ll see /proc/self changing where it points.
File Protections
A Linux system may have many users with login accounts. To
maintain privacy and security, most users can access only some files
on the system, not all. This access control is embodied in two
questions:
Who has permission?
Every file and directory has an owner who has permission
to do anything with it. Typically the user who created a file
is its owner, but relationships can be more complex.
Additionally, a predefined group of users may have
permission to access a file. Groups are defined by the
system administrator and are covered in Group
Management.
Finally, a file or directory can be opened to all users with
login accounts on the system. You’ll also see this set of
users called the world or simply other.
What kind of permission is granted?
File owners, groups, and the world may each have
permission to read, write (modify), and execute (run)
particular files. Permissions also extend to directories,
which users may read (access files within the directory),
write (create and delete files within the directory), and
execute (enter the directory with cd).
To see the ownership and permissions of a file, run:
$ ls -l myfile

-rw-r--r-- 1 smith smith 7384 Jan 04 22:40 myfile

To see the ownership and permissions of a directory, run:

$ ls -ld dirname

drwxr-x--- 3 smith smith 4096 Jan 08 15:02 dirname

In the output, the file permissions are the 10 leftmost characters, a

string of r (read), w (write), x (execute), other letters, and dashes.
For example:
 -rwxr-x---

Here’s what these letters and symbols mean.

Position Meaning

1 File type: - = file, d = directory, l = symbolic link, p = named pipe, c =

character device, b = block device

2–4 Read, write, and execute permissions for the file’s owner

5–7 Read, write, and execute permissions for the file’s group

8–10 Read, write, and execute permissions for all other users

So our example -rwxr-x--- means a file that can be read, written,

and executed by the owner, read and executed by the group, and
not accessed at all by the rest of the world. We describe ls in more
detail in Basic File Operations. To change the owner, group
ownership, or permissions of a file, use the chown, chgrp, and chmod
commands, respectively, as described in File Properties.
The Shell
In order to run commands on a Linux system, you’ll need
somewhere to type them. That “somewhere” is called the shell,
which is Linux’s command-line user interface: you type a command
and press Enter, and the shell runs whatever program (or programs)
you’ve requested. (See Running a Shell to learn how to open a shell
window.)
For example, to see who’s logged in, you could execute this
command in a shell:
$ who

silver :0 Sep 23 20:44

byrnes pts/0 Sep 15 13:51

barrett pts/1 Sep 22 21:15

silver pts/2 Sep 22 21:18

(The dollar sign is the shell prompt, which means the shell is ready
to run a command.) A single command can also invoke several
programs at the same time, and even connect programs together so
they interact. Here’s a command that redirects the output of the who
program to become the input of the wc program, which counts lines
of text in a file; the result is the number of lines in the output of who:
$ who | wc -l

telling you how many users are logged in.[5] The vertical bar, called a
pipe, makes the connection between who and wc.
A shell is actually a program itself, and Linux has several. We focus
on bash (the Bourne-Again Shell), located in /bin/bash, which is
usually the default in Linux distros.
The Shell Versus Programs
When you run a command, it might invoke a Linux program (like
who), or instead it might be a built-in command, a feature of the shell
itself. You can tell the difference with the type command:
 $ type who

who is /usr/bin/who

$ type cd

cd is a shell builtin

It is helpful to know what the shell provides versus what Linux does.
The next few sections describe features of the shell.

[5]
Actually, how many interactive shells those users are running. If a user has two shells
running, like the user silver in our example, he’ll have two lines of output from who.
Selected Features of the bash Shell
A shell does much more than simply run commands. It also has
powerful features to make this task easier: wildcards for matching
filenames, a “command history” to recall previous commands quickly,
pipes for making the output of one command become the input of
another, variables for storing values for use by the shell, and more.
Take the time to learn these features, and you will become faster
and more productive with Linux. Let’s skim the surface and introduce
you to these useful tools. (For full documentation, run info bash.)
Wildcards
Wildcards are a shorthand for sets of files with similar names. For
example, a* means all files whose names begin with lowercase “a”.
Wildcards are “expanded” by the shell into the actual set of
filenames they match. So if you type:
$ ls a*

the shell first expands a* into the filenames that begin with “a” in
your current directory, as if you had typed:
$ ls aardvark adamantium apple

ls never knows you used a wildcard: it sees only the final list of
filenames after the shell expands the wildcard. Importantly, this
means every Linux command, regardless of its origin, works with
wildcards and other shell features.
Wildcards never match two characters: a leading period, and the
directory slash (/). These must be given literally, as in .pro* to
match .profile, or /etc/*conf to match all filenames ending in conf in
the /etc directory.
DOT FILES
Filenames with a leading period, called dot files, are special in Linux. When you name
a file beginning with a period, it will not be displayed by some programs:

ls will omit the file from directory listings, unless you provide the -a option
Shell wildcards do not match a leading period
 Effectively, dot files are hidden unless you explicitly ask to see them. As a result,
sometimes they are called “hidden files.”

Wildcard Meaning

* Zero or more consecutive characters

? Any single character

[ set] Any single character in the given set, most commonly a sequence of
characters, like [aeiouAEIOU] for all vowels, or a range with a dash, like [A-Z]

for all capital letters

[^ set] Any single character not in the given set (as in the earlier example)

[! set] Same as ^

When using character sets, if you want to include a literal dash in

the set, put it first or last. To include a literal closing square bracket
in the set, put it first. To include a ^ or ! symbol literally, don’t put it
first.
Brace expansion
Similar to wildcards, expressions with curly braces also expand to
become multiple arguments to a command. The comma-separated
expression:
{X,YY,ZZZ}

expands first to X, then YY, and finally ZZZ within a command line,
like this:
$ echo sand{X,YY,ZZZ}wich
sandXwich sandYYwich sandZZZwich

Braces work with any strings, unlike wildcards, which are limited to
filenames. The preceding example works regardless of which files
are in the current directory.
Shell variables
You can define variables and their values by assigning them:
$ MYVAR=3

To refer to a value, simply place a dollar sign in front of the variable

name:
$ echo $MYVAR

Some variables are standard and commonly defined by your shell

upon login.

Variable Meaning

DISPLAY The name of your X window display

HOME Your home directory, such as /home/smith

LOGNAME Your login name, such as smith

MAIL Your incoming mailbox, such as /var/spool/mail/smith

OLDPWD Your shell’s previous directory, prior to the last cd command

PATH Your shell search path: directories separated by colons

PWD Your shell’s current directory

SHELL The path to your shell, e.g., /bin/bash

TERM The type of your terminal, e.g., xterm or vt100

USER Your login name

To see a shell’s variables, run:

$ printenv

The scope of the variable (i.e., which programs know about it) is, by
default, the shell in which it’s defined. To make a variable and its
value available to other programs your shell invokes (i.e., subshells),
use the export command:
$ export MYVAR

or the shorthand:
$ export MYVAR=3

Your variable is now called an environment variable, since it’s

available to other programs in your shell’s “environment.” So in the
preceding example, the exported variable MYVAR is available to all
programs run by that same shell (including shell scripts: see
Variables).
To make a variable value available to a specific program just once,
prepend variable=value to the command line:
$ echo $HOME
/home/smith
$ HOME=/home/sally echo "My home is $HOME"
My home is /home/sally

$ echo $HOME
/home/smith The original value is unaffected

Search path
Programs are scattered all over the Linux filesystem, in directories
like /bin and /usr/bin. When you run a program via a shell
command, how does the shell find it? The critical variable PATH tells
the shell where to look. When you type any command:
$ who

the shell has to find the who program by searching through Linux
directories. The shell consults the value of PATH, which is a sequence
of directories separated by colons:
$ echo $PATH

/usr/local/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:/home/smith/bin

and looks for the who command in each of these directories. If it

finds who (say, /usr/bin/who), it runs the command. Otherwise, it
reports:
bash: who: command not found

To add directories to your shell’s search path temporarily, modify its

PATH variable. For example, to append /usr/sbin to your shell’s
search path:
$ PATH=$PATH:/usr/sbin
$ echo $PATH
/usr/local/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:/home/smith/bin:/usr/sbin

This change affects only the current shell. To make it permanent,

modify the PATH variable in your startup file ~/.bash_profile, as
explained in Tailoring Shell Behavior. Then log out and log back in.
Aliases
The built-in command alias defines a convenient shorthand for a
longer command, to save typing. For example:
$ alias ll='ls -l'

defines a new command ll that runs ls -l:

$ ll
total 436
-rw-r--r-- 1 smith 3584 Oct 11 14:59 file1

-rwxr-xr-x 1 smith 72 Aug 6 23:04 file2

...

Define aliases in your ~/.bashrc file (see Tailoring Shell Behavior) to

be available whenever you log in.[6] To list all your aliases, type
alias. If aliases don’t seem powerful enough for you (since they
have no parameters or branching), see Programming with Shell
Scripts, run info bash, and read up on “shell functions.”
Input/output redirection
The shell can redirect standard input, standard output, and standard
error to and from files. In other words, any command that reads
from standard input can have its input come from a file instead with
the shell’s < operator:
$ mycommand < infile

Likewise, any command that writes to standard output can write to a

file instead:
$ mycommand > outfile Create/overwrite outfile
$ mycommand >> outfile Append to outfile
A command that writes to standard error can have its output
redirected to a file as well, while standard output still goes to the
screen:
$ mycommand 2> errorfile

To redirect both standard output and standard error to files:

$ mycommand > outfile 2> errorfile Separate files
$ mycommand >& outfile Single file

Pipes
You can redirect the standard output of one command to be the
standard input of another, using the shell’s pipe (|) operator. For
example:
$ who | sort

sends the output of who into the sort program, printing an

alphabetically sorted list of logged-in users. Multiple pipes work too.
Here we sort the output of who again, extract the first column of
information (using awk), and display the results one page at a time
(using less):
$ who | sort | awk '{print $1}' | less

Combining commands
To invoke several commands in sequence on a single command line,
separate them with semicolons:
$ command1 ; command2 ; command3
To run a sequence of commands as before, but stop execution if any
of them fails, separate them with && (“and”) symbols:
$ command1 && command2 && command3

To run a sequence of commands, stopping execution as soon as one

succeeds, separate them with || (“or”) symbols:
$ command1 || command2 || command3

Quoting
Normally, the shell treats whitespace simply as separating the words
on the command line. If you want a word to contain whitespace
(e.g., a filename with a space in it), surround it with single or double
quotes to make the shell treat it as a unit. Single quotes treat their
contents literally, while double quotes let shell constructs be
evaluated, such as variables:
$ echo 'The variable HOME has value $HOME'

The variable HOME has value $HOME

$ echo "The variable HOME has value $HOME"

The variable HOME has value /home/smith

Backquotes (“backticks”) cause their contents to be evaluated as a

shell command. The contents are then replaced by the standard
output of the command:
$ whoami Program that prints your username
smith
$ echo My name is `whoami`

My name is smith

Escaping
If a character has special meaning to the shell but you want it used
literally (e.g., * as a literal asterisk rather than a wildcard), precede
the character with the backward slash “\” character. This is called
escaping the special character:
$ echo a* As a wildcard, matching “a” filenames
aardvark agnostic apple

$ echo a\* As a literal asterisk

 a*

$ echo "I live in $HOME" Dollar sign means a variable value

I live in /home/smith

$ echo "I live in \$HOME" A literal dollar sign

I live in $HOME

You can also escape control characters (tabs, newlines, ^D, and so
forth) to have them used literally on the command line, if you
precede them with ^V. This is particularly useful for tab (^I)
characters, which the shell would otherwise use for filename
completion (see Filename completion).
$ echo "There is a tab between here^V^I and here"

There is a tab between here and here

Command-line editing
Bash lets you edit the command line you’re working on, using
keystrokes inspired by the text editors emacs and vi (see File
Creation and Editing). To enable command-line editing with emacs
keys, run this command (and place it in your ~/.bash_profile to
make it permanent):
$ set -o emacs

For vi keys:
$ set -o vi

emacs keystroke vi keystroke (after ESC) Meaning

^P or up arrow k Go to previous command

^N or down arrow j Go to next command

^F or right arrow l Go forward one character

^B or left arrow h Go backward one character

^A 0 Go to beginning of line

^E $ Go to end of line

^D x Delete next character

^U ^U Erase entire line

Command history
You can recall previous commands you’ve run—that is, the shell’s
history—and re-execute them. Some useful history-related
commands are listed below.

Command Meaning

history Print your history

history N Print the most recent N commands in your history

history -c Clear (delete) your history

!! Re-run previous command

!N Re-run command number N in your history

!-N Re-run the command you typed N commands ago

!$ Represents the last parameter from the previous command; great for checking
that files are present before removing them:
$ ls a*

acorn.txt affidavit

$ rm !$
 !* Represents all parameters from the previous command:
$ ls a b c

a b c

$ wc !*

103 252 2904 a

12 25 384 b

25473 65510 988215 c

25588 65787 991503 total

Filename completion
Press the TAB key while you are in the middle of typing a filename,
and the shell will automatically complete (finish typing) the filename
for you. If several filenames match what you’ve typed so far, the
shell will beep, indicating the match is ambiguous. Immediately
press TAB again and the shell will present the alternatives. Try this:
$ cd /usr/bin
$ ls un<TAB><TAB>

The shell will display all files in /usr/bin that begin with un, such as
uniq, units, and unzip. Type a few more characters to disambiguate
your choice and press TAB again.

[6]
Some setups use a separate file, ~/.bash_aliases, for this purpose.
Shell Job Control

jobs List your jobs.

& Run a job in the background.

^Z Suspend the current (foreground) job.

suspend

Suspend a shell.
fg

Unsuspend a job: bring it into the foreground.

bg

Make a suspended job run in the background.

All Linux shells have job control: the ability to run programs in the
background (multitasking behind the scenes) and foreground
(running as the active process at your shell prompt). A job is simply
the shell’s unit of work. When you run a command interactively, your
current shell tracks it as a job. When the command completes, the
associated job disappears. Jobs are at a higher level than Linux
processes; the Linux operating system knows nothing about them.
They are merely constructs of the shell. Some important vocabulary
about job control is:
Foreground job
Running in a shell, occupying the shell prompt so you
cannot run another command
Background job
Running in a shell, but not occupying the shell prompt, so
you can run another command in the same shell
Suspend
To stop a foreground job temporarily
Resume
To cause a suspended job to start running again
Name
jobs
The built-in command jobs lists the jobs running in your current
shell.
$ jobs

[1]- Running emacs myfile &

[2]+ Stopped su

The integer on the left is the job number, and the plus sign identifies
the default job affected by the fg (foreground) and bg (background)
commands.
Name
&
Placed at the end of a command line, the ampersand causes the
given command to run as a background job.
$ emacs myfile &

[2] 28090

The shell’s response includes the job number (2) and the process ID
of the command (28090).
Name
^Z
Typing ^Z in a shell, while a job is running in the foreground, will
suspend that job. It simply stops running, but its state is
remembered.
$ mybigprogram

^Z

[1]+ Stopped mybigprogram

Now you’re ready to type bg to put the command into the

background, or fg to resume it in the foreground.
Name
suspend
The built-in command suspend will suspend the current shell if
possible, as if you’d typed ^Z to the shell itself. For instance, if you’ve
run the su command and want to return to your original shell:
$ whoami

smith

$ su -l

Password: **************

# whoami

root

# suspend

[1]+ Stopped su

$ whoami

smith
Name
bg
Synopsis
bg [%jobnumber]

The built-in command bg sends a suspended job to run in the

background. With no arguments, bg operates on the most recently
suspended job. To specify a particular job (shown by the jobs
command), supply the job number preceded by a percent sign:
$ bg %2

Some types of interactive jobs cannot remain in the background—for

instance, if they are waiting for input. If you try, the shell will
suspend the job and display:
[2]+ Stopped command line here

You can now resume the job (with fg) and continue.
Name
fg
Synopsis
fg [%jobnumber]

The built-in command fg brings a suspended or backgrounded job

into the foreground. With no arguments, it selects a job, usually the
most recently suspended or backgrounded one. To specify a
particular job (as shown by the jobs command), supply the job
number preceded by a percent sign:
$ fg %2
Killing a Command in Progress
If you’ve launched a command from the shell running in the
foreground, and want to kill it immediately, type ^C. The shell
recognizes ^C as meaning, “terminate the current foreground
command right now.” So if you are displaying a very long file (say,
with the cat command) and want to stop, type ^C:
$ cat bigfile

This is a very long file with many lines. Blah blah blah

blah blah blah blahblahblah ^C

To kill a program running in the background, you can bring it into

the foreground with fg and then type ^C, or alternatively, use the
kill command (see Controlling Processes).
Typing ^C is not a friendly way to end a program. If the program has
its own way to exit, use that when possible: see the sidebar for
details.
SURVIVING A KILL
Killing a foreground program with ^C may leave your shell in an odd or unresponsive
state, perhaps not displaying the keystrokes you type. This happens because the
killed program had no opportunity to clean up after itself. If this happens to you:

1. Press ^J to get a shell prompt. This produces the same character as the
Enter key (a newline) but will work even if Enter does not.
2. Type the shell command reset (even if the letters don’t appear while you
type) and press ^J again to run this command. This should bring your
shell back to normal.

^C works only with shells. It will likely have no effect if typed in a

window that is not a shell window. Additionally, some programs are
written to “catch” the ^C and ignore it: an example is the text editor
emacs.
Terminating a Shell
To terminate a shell, either run the exit command or type ^D.[7]
$ exit

[7]
Control-D sends an “end of file” signal to any program reading from standard input. In
this case, the program is the shell itself, which terminates.
Other documents randomly have
different content
1 This story is identical with the 5th in the 4th book of the Panchatantra in Benfey’s
translation, which he considers Buddhistic, and with which he compares the story of the
Bhilla in chapter 61 of this work. He compares the story of Dhúminí in the Daśakumára
Charita, page 150, Wilson’s edition, which resembles this story more nearly even than the
form in the Panchatantra. Also a story in Ardschi Bordschi, translated by himself in
Ausland 1858, No. 36, pages 845, 846. (It will be found on page 305 of Sagas from the Far
East.) He quotes a saying of Buddha from Spence Hardy’s Eastern Monachism, page 166,
cp. Köppen, Religion des Buddha, p. 374. This story is also found in the Forty Vazírs, a
collection of Persian tales, (Behrnauer’s translation, Leipzig, 1851, page 325.) It is also
found in the Gesta Romanorum, c. 56. (But the resemblance is not very striking.) Cp. also
Grimm’s Kinder- und Hausmärchen, No. 16. (Benfey’s Panchatantra, Vol. I, pp. 436 and
ff.) This story is simply the Cullapadumajátaka, No. 193 in Fausböll’s edition. See also
Ralston’s Tibetan Tales, Introduction, pp. lxi–lxiii.
2 In La Fontaine’s Fables X, 14, a man gains a kingdom by carrying an elephant.
3 In the story of Satyamanjarí, a tale extracted by Professor Nilmani Mookerjee from
the Kathá Kośa, a collection of Jaina stories, the heroine carries her leprous husband on her
back.
4 This story is found, with the substitution of a man for a woman, on p. 128 of Benfey’s
Panchatantra, Vol. 11; he tells us that it is also found in the 17th chapter of Silvestre de
Sacy’s Kalila o Dimna (Wolff’s Translation II, 99; Knatchbull, 346,) in the 11th section of
Symeon Seth’s Greek version, 14th chapter of John of Capua; German translation Ulm,
1483 Y., 5; Anvár-i-Suhaili, p. 596 Cabinet des Fées, XVIII, 189. It is imitated by Baldo,
18th fable, (Poesics Inédites du Moyen Age by Edéléstand du Méril, p. 244.) Benfey
pronounces it Buddhistic in origin, though apparently not acquainted with its form in the
Kathá Sarit Ságara. Cp. Rasaváhini, chap. 3. (Spiegel’s Anecdota Paliea). It is also found in
the Karma Śataka. Cp. also Matthæus Paris, Hist. Maj. London, 1571, pp. 240–242, where
it is told of Richard Cœur de Lion; Gesta Romanorum, c. 119; Gower, Confessio Amantis,
Book V; E. Meier Schwäbische Volksmärchen. (Benfey’s Panchatantra, Vol. I, p. 192 and
ff.) Cp. also for the gratitude of the animals the IVth story in Campbell’s Tales of the West
Highlands. The animals are a dog, an otter and a falcon, p. 74 and ff. The Mongolian form
of the story is to be found in Sagas from the Far East, Tale XIII. See also the XIIth and
XXIInd of Miss Stokes’s Indian Fairy Tales. There is a striking illustration of the gratitude
of animals in Grimm’s No. 62, and in Bartsch’s Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche aus
Meklenburg, Vol. I, p. 483. De Gubernatis in a note to p. 129 of Vol. II, of his Zoological
Mythology, mentions a story of grateful animals in Afanassief. The hero finds some wolves
fighting for a bone, some bees fighting for honey, and some shrimps fighting for a carcase;
he makes a just division, and the grateful wolves, bees, and shrimps help him in need. See
also p. 157 of the same volume. No. 25 in the Pentamerone of Basile belongs to the same
cycle.
See Die dankbaren Thiere in Gaal’s Märchen der Magyaren, p. 175, and Der Rothe Hund,
p. 339. In the Saccamkirajatátaka No. 73, Fausböll, Vol. I, 323, a hermit saves a prince, a
rat, a parrot and a snake. The rat and snake are willing to give treasures, the parrot rice, but
the prince orders his benefactor’s execution, and is then killed by his own subjects. See
Bernhard Schmidt’s Griechische Märchen, p. 3, note. See also Ralston’s Tibetan Tales,
Introduction, pp. lxiii–lxv.
5 In Giles’s Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, a tiger, who has killed the son of an
old woman, feeds her henceforth, and appears as a mourner at her funeral. The story in the
text bears a faint resemblance to that of Androclus, (Aulus Gellius. V, 14). See also
Liebrecht’s Dunlop, p. 111, with the note at the end of the Volume.
6 Cp. Gijjhajátaka, Fausböll, Vol. II, p. 51.
7 Cp. the 46th story in Sicilianische Märchen gesammelt von Laura von Gonzenbach,
where a snake coils round the throat of a king, and will not let him go, till he promises to
marry a girl, whom he had violated. See also Benfey’s Panchatantra, Vol. I, p. 523.
8 The Petersburg lexicographers explain ṭakka as Geizhals, Filz; but say that the word
ṭhaka in Marathi means a rogue, cheat. The word kadarya also means niggardly, miserly.
General Cunningham (Ancient Geography of India, p. 152) says that the Ṭakkas were once
the undisputed lords of the Panjáb, and still subsist as a numerous agricultural race in the
lower hills between the Jhelum and the Rávi.
9 So in the Russian story of “The Miser,” (Ralston’s Russian Folk-tales, p. 47.) Marko
the Rich says to his wife, in order to avoid the payment of a copeck; “Harkye wife! I’ll
strip myself naked, and lie down under the holy pictures. Cover me up with a cloth, and sit
down and cry, just as you would over a corpse. When the moujik comes for his money, tell
him I died this morning.” Ralston conjectures that the story came originally from the East.
10 This resembles the conclusion of the story of the turtle Kambugríva and the swans
Vikaṭa and Sankaṭa, Book X, chap. 60, śl. 169, see also Ralston’s Russian Folk-Tales, p.
292. A similar story is told in Bartsch’s Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche aus Meklenburg,
Vol. I, p. 349, of the people of Teterow. They adopted the same manœuvre to get a stone
out of a well. The man at the top then let go, in order to spit on his hands.
11 I follow Dr. Kern’s conjecture avikṛitânanâ.
12 In the Sicilianische Märchen, No. 14, a prince throws a stone at an old woman’s
pitcher and breaks it. She exclaims in her anger, “May you wander through the world until
you find the beautiful Nzentola!” Nos. 12 and 13 begin in a similar way. A parallel will be
found in Dr. Köhler’s notes to No. 12. He compares the commencement of the
Pentamerone of Basile.
Chapter LXVI.
The next night Gomukha told the following story to Naraváhanadatta to
amuse him.

In the holy place of Śiva, called Dhaneśvara, there lived long ago a great
hermit, who was waited upon by many pupils. He once said to his pupils,
“If any one of you has seen or heard in his life a strange occurrence of any
kind, let him relate it.” When the hermit said this, a pupil said to him,
“Listen, I will tell a strange story which I once heard.”

Story of the mendicant who travelled

from Kaśmíra to Páṭaliputra.
There is in Kaśmíra a famous holy place, sacred to Śiva, called Vijaya. In it
there lived a certain mendicant, who was proud of his knowledge. He
worshipped Śiva, and prayed—“May I be always victorious in
controversy,”—and thereupon he set out for Páṭaliputra to exhibit his skill
in dispute. And on the way he passed forests, rivers, and mountains, and
having reached a certain forest, he became tired, and rested under a tree.
And immediately he saw, as he was refreshing himself in the cool breeze of
the tank, a student of religion, who had come there dusty with a long
journey, with his staff and water-pot in his hand. When he sat down, the
wandering mendicant asked him whence he came and whither he was
going. The student of religion answered, “I come from that seat of learning
Páṭaliputra, and I am going to Kaśmíra to conquer the Paṇḍits there in
discussion. When the mendicant heard this speech of the religious student’s,
he thought, “If I cannot conquer this one man who has left Páṭaliputra, how
shall I manage to go and overcome the many who remain there?”
So reflecting, he began to reproach that religious student, “Tell me,
religious student, what is the meaning of this inconsistent conduct on your
part? How comes it that you are at the same time a religious student, eager
for liberation, and a man afflicted with the madness of disputatiousness? Do
you seek to be delivered from the world by binding yourself with the
conceit of controversy? You are quenching heat with fire, and removing the
feeling of cold with snow; you are trying to cross the sea on a boat of stone;
you are striving to put out a fire by fanning it. The virtue of Bráhmans is
patience, that of Kshatriyas is the rescue of the distressed; the characteristic
quality of one who desires liberation is quietism; disputatiousness is said to
be the characteristic of Rákshasas. Therefore a man who desires liberation
must be of a quiet temperament, putting away the pain arising from
alternations of opposites, fearing the hindrances of the world. So cut down
with the axe of quietism this tree of mundane existence, and do not water it
with the water of controversial conceit.” When he said this to the religious
student, he was pleased, and bowed humbly before him, and saying, “Be
you my spiritual guide,”—he departed by the way that he came. And the
mendicant remained, laughing, where he was, at the foot of the tree, and
then he heard from within it the conversation of a Yaksha, who was joking
with his wife.1 And while the mendicant was listening, the Yaksha in sport
struck his wife with a garland of flowers, and she, like a cunning female,
pretended that she was dead, and immediately her attendants raised a cry of
grief. And after a long time she opened her eyes, as if her life had returned
to her. Then the Yaksha her husband said to her; “What have you seen?”
Then she told the following invented story; “When you struck me with the
garland, I saw a black man come, with a noose in his hand, with flaming
eyes, tall, with upstanding hair, terrible, darkening the whole horizon with
his shadow. The ruffian took me to the abode of Yama, but his officers there
turned him back, and made him let me go.” When the Yakshiṇí said this, the
Yaksha laughed, and said to her, “O dear! women cannot be free from
deception in any thing that they do. Who ever died from being struck with
flowers? Who ever returned from the house of Yama? You silly woman, you
have imitated the tricks of the women of Páṭaliputra.”
Story of the wife of king Sinháksha, and
the wives of his principal courtiers.
For in that city there is a king named Sinháksha: and his wife, taking with
her the wives of his minister, commander-in-chief, chaplain, and physician,
went once on the thirteenth day of the white fortnight to make a pilgrimage
to the shrine of Sarasvatí, the protecting deity of that land. There they,
queen and all, met on the way sick persons, humpbacked, blind, and lame,
and were thus implored by them, “Give medicine to us wretched diseased
men, in order that we may be delivered from our infirmity; have mercy
upon the distressed. For this world is wavering as a wave of the sea,
transient as a flash of lightning, and its beauty is short-lived like that of a
religious festival. So in this unreal world the only real thing is mercy to the
wretched, and charity to the poor; it is only the virtuous person that can be
said truly to live. What is the use of giving to the rich or the comfortable?2
What does the cold moon profit a shivering man, or what is the use of a
cloud when winter has arrived? So rescue us miserable creatures from the
affliction of sickness.”

When the queen and the other ladies had been thus supplicated by these
diseased persons, they said to one another; “These poor afflicted men say
what is true, and to the point, so we must endeavour to restore them to
health even at the cost of all our substance.” Then they worshipped the
goddess, and each took one of those sick people to her own house, and,
urging on their husbands, they had them treated with the potent drugs of
Mahádeví, and they never left off watching them. And from being always
with them, they fell in love with them, and became so attached to them that
they thought of nothing else in the world. And their minds, bewildered with
love, never reflected what a difference there was between these wretched
sick men and their own husbands, the king and his chief courtiers.
Then their husbands remarked that they had on them the marks of scratches
and bites, due to their surprising intimacy with these invalids. And the king,
the commander-in-chief, the minister, the chaplain, and the physician talked
of this to one another without reserve, but not without anxiety. Then the
king said to the others, “You keep quiet at present; I will question my wife
dexterously.” So he dismissed them, and went to his private apartments, and
assuming an expression of affectionate anxiety, he said to his wife, “Who
bit you on the lower lip? Who scratched you on the breast? If you tell me
the truth, it will be well with you, but not otherwise.” When the queen was
thus questioned by the king, she told him a fictitious tale, saying, “Ill-fated
that I am, I must tell this wonder, though it ought not to be revealed. Every
night a man, with a discus and club, comes out of the painted wall, and does
this to me, and disappears into it in the morning. And though you, my
husband, are alive, he reduces to this state my body, which not even the sun
or moon has ever beheld.” When the foolish king heard this story of hers,
told with much semblance of grief, he believed it, and thought that it was all
a trick played by Vishṇu. And he told it to the minister and his other
servants, and they, like blockheads, also believed that their wives had been
visited by Vishṇu, and held their tongues.

“In this way wicked and cunning females, of bad character, by concurring
in one impossible story, deceive silly people, but I am not such a fool as to
be taken in.” The Yaksha by saying this covered his wife with confusion.
And the mendicant at the foot of the tree heard it all. Then the mendicant
folded his hands, and said to that Yaksha, “Reverend sir, I have arrived at
your hermitage, and now I throw myself on your protection. So pardon my
sin in overhearing what you have been saying.” By thus speaking the truth
he gained the good will of the Yaksha. And the Yaksha said to him, “I am a
Yaksha, Sarvasthánagaváta by name, and I am pleased with you. So choose
a boon.” Then the mendicant said to the Yaksha; “Let this be my boon that
you will not be angry with this wife of yours.” Then the Yaksha said, “I am
exceedingly pleased with you. This boon is already granted, so choose
another.” Then the mendicant said, “Then this is my second petition, that
from this day forward you and your wife will look upon me as a son.”
When the Yaksha heard this, he immediately became visible to him with his
wife, and said, “I consent, my son, we regard you as our own child. And
owing to our favour you shall never suffer calamity. And you shall be
invincible in disputation, altercation, and gambling.” When the Yaksha had
said this, he disappeared, and the mendicant worshipped him, and after
spending the night there, he went on to Páṭaliputra. Then he announced to
king Sinháksha, by the mouth of the doorkeeper, that he was a disputant
come from Kaśmíra. And the king permitted him to enter the hall of
assembly, and there he tauntingly challenged the learned men to dispute
with him. And after he had conquered them all by virtue of the boon of the
Yaksha, he again taunted them in the presence of the king in these words: “I
ask you to explain this. What is the meaning of this statement, ‘A man with
a discus and mace comes out of the painted wall, and bites my lower lip,
and scratches my chest, and then disappears in the wall again.’ Give me an
answer.”3 When the learned men heard his riddle, as they did not know the
real reference, they gave no answer, but looked at one another’s faces. Then
the king Sinháksha himself said to him, “Explain to us yourself the meaning
of what you said.” Thereupon the mendicant told the king of the deceitful
behaviour of his wife, which he had heard about from the Yaksha. And he
said to the king, “So a man should never become attached to women, which
will only result in his knowing wickedness.” The king was delighted with
the mendicant, and wished to give him his kingdom. But the mendicant,
who was ardently attached to his own native land, would not take it. Then
the king honoured him with a rich present of jewels. The mendicant took
the jewels and returned to his native land of Kaśmíra, and there by the
favour of the Yaksha he lived in great comfort.

When Gomukha had said this, he remarked, “So strange are these actions of
bad women, and the dispensations of Providence, and the conduct of
mankind. Now hear this story of another woman who killed eleven.4

Story of the woman who had eleven

husbands.
There was in Málava a certain householder, who lived in a village. He had
born to him a daughter, who had two or three elder brothers. Now, as soon
as she was born her mother died, and a few days after one of the man’s sons
died. And then his brother was gored by an ox and died of it. So the
householder named his daughter, “Three-slayer,” because owing to the birth
of this ill-omened girl three had met their death.

In course of time she grew up, and then the son of a rich man, who lived in
that village, asked her in marriage, and her father gave her to him with the
usual rejoicings. She lived for some time with that husband, but he soon
died. In a few days the fickle woman took another husband. And the second
husband met his death in a short time. Then, led astray by her youthful
feelings, she took a third husband. And the third husband of this husband-
slayer died like the others. In this way she lost ten husbands in succession.
So she got affixed to her by way of ridicule the name of “Ten-slayer.” Then
her father was ashamed and would not let her take another husband, and she
remained in her father’s house avoided by people. But one day a handsome
young traveller entered it, and was allowed by her father to stop as his guest
for a night. When Ten-slayer saw him, she fell in love with him, and when
he looked at that charming young woman, he too was captivated. Then
Love robbed her of her modesty, and she said to her father, “I choose this
traveller as one husband more; if he dies I will then take a vow.” She said
this in the hearing of the traveller, but her father answered her, “Do not
think of such a thing, it is too disgraceful; you have lost ten husbands, and if
this one dies too, people will laugh consumedly. When the traveller heard
this, he abandoned all reserve, and said, “No chance of my dying, I have
lost ten wives one after another. So we are on a par; I swear that it is so by
the touch of the feet of Śiva.” When the traveller said this, every body was
astonished. And the villagers assembled, and with one consent gave
permission to Ten-slayer to marry the traveller, and she took him for her
husband. And she lived some time with him, but at last he was seized with
an ague and died. Then she was called “Eleven-slayer,” and even the stones
could not help laughing at her: so she betook herself in despondency to the
bank of the Ganges and lived the life of an ascetic.
The story of the man, who, thanks to
Durgá, had always one ox.
When Gomukha had told this amusing story, he went on to say—“Hear also
the story of the man who subsisted on one ox.”

There was a certain poor householder in a certain village; and the only
wealth he had in his house was one ox. He was so mean-spirited that,
though his family was on the point of perishing for want of food, and he
himself had to fast, he could not make up his mind to part with that ox. But
he went to the shrine of Durgá in the Vindhya hills, and throwing himself
down on a bed of darbha-grass, he performed asceticism without taking
food, in order that he might obtain wealth. The goddess said to him in a
dream, “Rise up; your wealth shall always consist of one ox, and by selling
it you shall live in perpetual comfort.” So the next morning he woke, and
got up, took some food, and returned to his house. But even then he had not
strength of mind to sell that ox, for he thought that, if he sold it, he would
have nothing left in the world, and be unable to live. Then, as, thin with
fasting, he told his dream with reference to the command of the goddess, a
certain intelligent friend said to him, “The goddess told you that you should
always have one ox, and that you should live by selling it, so why did you
not, foolish man, obey the command of the goddess? So, sell this ox, and
support your family. When you have sold this one, you will get another, and
then another.” The villager, on receiving this suggestion from his friend, did
so. And he received ox after ox, and lived in perpetual comfort by selling
them.

“So you see, Destiny produces fruit for every man according to his
resolution. So a man should be resolute; good fortune does not select for
favour a man wanting in resolution. Hear now this story of the cunning
rogue who passed himself off as a minister.”
Story of the rogue who managed to
acquire wealth by speaking to the king.5
There was a certain king in a city in the Dekkan. In that city there was a
rogue who lived by imposing upon others. And one day he said to himself,
being too ambitious to be satisfied with small gains; “Of what use to me is
this petty rascality, which only provides me with subsistence? Why should I
not do a stroke of business which would bring me great prosperity?”
Having thus reflected, he dressed himself splendidly as a merchant, and
went to the palace-gate and accosted the warder. And he introduced him
into the king’s presence, and he offered a complimentary gift, and said to
the king, “I wish to speak with your Majesty in private.” The king was
imposed upon by his dress, and much influenced in his favour by the
present, so he granted him a private interview, and then the rogue said to
him, “Will your Majesty have the goodness every day, in the hall of
assembly, to take me aside for a moment in the sight of all, and speak to me
in private? And as an acknowledgment of that favour I will give your
Majesty every day five hundred dínárs, and I do not ask for any gift in
return.” When the king heard that, he thought to himself, “What harm can it
do? What does he take away from me? On the contrary he is to give me
dínárs every day. What disgrace is there in carrying on a conversation with
a great merchant?” So the king consented, and did as he requested, and the
rogue gave the king the dínárs as he had promised, and the people thought
that he had obtained the position of a Cabinet Minister.

Now one day the rogue, while he was talking with the king, kept looking
again and again at the face of one official with a significant expression. And
after he came out, that official asked him why he had looked at his face so,
and the rogue was ready with this fiction; “The king is angry because he
supposes that you have been plundering his realm. This is why I looked at
your face, but I will appease his anger.” When the sham minister said this,
the official went home in a state of anxiety, and sent him a thousand gold
pieces. And the next day the rogue talked in the same way with the king,
and then he came out and said to the official, who came towards him; “I
appeased the king’s anger against you with some judicious words. Cheer
up; I will now stand by you in all emergencies.” Thus he artfully made him
his friend, and then dismissed him, and then the official waited upon him
with all kinds of presents.

Thus gradually this dexterous rogue, by means of his continual

conversations with the king, and by many artifices, extracted from the
officials, the subordinate monarchs, the Rájpúts, and the servants, so much
wealth, that he amassed altogether fifty millions of gold pieces. Then the
scoundrelly sham minister said in secret to the king, “Though I have given
you every day five hundred dínárs, nevertheless, by the favour of your
Highness, I have amassed fifty millions of gold pieces. So have the
goodness to accept of this gold. What have I to do with it?” Then he told the
king his whole stratagem. But it was with difficulty that the king could be
induced to take half the money. Then he gave him the post of a Cabinet
Minister, and the rogue, having obtained riches and position, kept
complimenting the people with entertainments.

“Thus a wise man obtains great wealth without committing a very great
crime, and when he has gained the advantage, he atones for his fault in the
same way as a man who digs a well.” Then Gomukha went on to say to the
prince; “Listen now to this one story, though you are excited about your
approaching marriage.”

Story of Ratnarekhá and Lakshmísena.

There lived in a city, named Ratnákara, a king, named Buddhiprabha, who
was a very lion to the infuriated elephant-herd of his enemies, and there was
born to him by his queen, named Ratnarekhá, a daughter, named
Hemaprabhá, the most beautiful woman in the whole world. And since she
was a Vidyádharí, that had fallen to earth by a curse, she was fond of
amusing herself by swinging, on account of the pleasure that she felt in
recalling the impressions of her roaming through the air in her former
existence. Her father forbade her, being afraid that she would fall, but she
did not desist, so her father was angry and gave her a slap. The princess was
angry at receiving so great an indignity, and wishing to retire to the forest,
she went to a garden outside the city, on the pretence of amusing herself.
She made her servants drunk with wine, and roaming on, she entered a
dense tree-jungle, and got out of their sight. And she went alone to a distant
forest, and there she built herself a hut, and remained feeding on roots and
fruits, engaged in the adoration of Śiva. As for her father, he found out that
she had fled to some place or other, and made search for her, but did not
find her. Then he fell into great grief. And after some time the king’s grief
abated a little, so he went out hunting to distract his mind. And, as it
happened, that king Buddhiprabha went to that distant forest, in which his
daughter Hemaprabhá was engaged in ascetic practices. There the king saw
her hut, and he went into it, and unexpectedly beheld there his own
daughter emaciated with ascetic practices. And she, when she saw him, rose
up at once and embraced his feet, and her father embraced her with tears
and seated her on his lap. And seeing one another again after so long a
separation, they wept so that even the eyes of the deer in the forest gushed
with tears. Then the king at last comforted his daughter, and said to her,
“Why did you abandon, my daughter, the happiness of a palace, and act
thus? So come back to your mother, and give up this forest.” When her
father said this to her, Hemaprabhá answered him, “I have been commanded
by the god to act thus. What choice have I in the matter? So I will not return
to the palace to indulge in pleasure, and I will not abandon the joys of
asceticism.” When the king discovered from this speech of hers that she
would not abandon her intention, he had a palace made for her in that very
forest. And when he returned to his capital, he sent her every day cooked
food and wealth, for the entertainment of her guests. And Hemaprabhá
remained in the forest, honouring her guests with wealth and jewels, while
she lived herself on roots and fruits.
Now one day there came to the hermitage of that princess a female
mendicant, who was roaming about, having observed a vow of chastity
from her earliest youth. This lady, who had been a mendicant from her
childhood, was honoured by Hemaprabhá, and when asked by her the
reason why she took the vow, she answered, “Once, when I was a girl, I was
shampooing my father’s feet, and my eyes closed in sleep, and I let my
hands drop. Then my father gave me a kick, and said, ‘Why do you go to
sleep?’ And I was so angry at that that I left his house and became a
mendicant.” Then Hemaprabhá was so delighted with the female
mendicant, on account of the resemblance of her character to her own, that
she made her share her forest life. And one morning she said to that friend;
“My friend, I remember that I crossed in my dreams a broad river, then I
mounted a white elephant, after that I ascended a mountain, and there I saw
in a hermitage the holy god Śiva. And having obtained a lyre, I sang and
played on it before him, and then I saw a man of celestial appearance
approach. When I saw him, I flew up into the sky with you, and when I had
seen so much, I awoke, and lo! the night was at an end.” When the friend
heard this, she said to Hemaprabhá, “Undoubtedly, auspicious girl, you
must be some heavenly being born on earth in consequence of a curse; and
this dream means that your curse is nearly at an end.” When the princess
heard this speech of her friend’s, she received it with joy.

And when the sun, the lamp of the world, had mounted high in the heaven,
there came there a certain prince on horseback. When he saw Hemaprabhá
dressed as an ascetic, he dismounted from his horse, and conceiving
admiration for her, he went and saluted her respectfully. She, for her part,
entertained him, and made him take a seat, and feeling love for him, said,
“Who are you, noble sir?” Then the prince said, “Noble lady, there is a king
of auspicious name, called Pratápasena. He was once going through a
course of asceticism to propitiate Śiva, with the view of obtaining a son.
And that merciful god appeared to him, and said, ‘Thou shalt obtain one
son, who shall be an incarnation of a Vidyádhara, and he, when his curse is
at an end, shall return to his own world. And thou shalt have a second son,
who shall continue thy race and uphold thy realm.’ When Śiva said this to
him, he rose up in high spirits, and took food. Then he had one son born to
him, named Lakshmísena, and in course of time a second, named Śúrasena.
Know, lovely one, that I am that same Lakshmísena, and that to-day when I
went out to hunt, my horse, swift as the wind, ran away with me and
brought me here.” Then he asked her history, and she told it him, and
thereupon she remembered her former birth, and was very much elated, and
said to him, “Now that I have seen you, I have remembered my birth and
the sciences which I knew as a Vidyádharí,6 for I and this friend of mine
here are both Vidyádharís, that have been sent down to earth by a curse.
And you were my husband, and your minister was the husband of this
friend of mine. And now that curse of me and of my friend has lost its
power. We shall all meet again in the world of Vidyádharas.” Then she and
her friend assumed divine forms and flew up to heaven, and went to their
own world. But Lakshmísena stood for a moment lost in wonder, and then
his minister arrived tracking his course. While the prince was telling the
whole story to him, king Buddhiprabha arrived, anxious to see his daughter.
When he could not see his daughter, but found Lakshmísena there, he asked
for news of her, and Lakshmísena told him what had happened. Then
Buddhiprabha was cast down, but Lakshmísena and his minister
remembered their former existence, their curse having spent its force, and
they went to their own world through the air. He recovered his wife
Hemaprabhá and returned with her, and then taking leave of Buddhiprabha,
he went to his own town. And he went with his minister, who had recovered
his wife, and told their adventures to his father Pratápasena, who bestowed
on him his kingdom as his successor by right of birth. But he gave it to his
younger brother Śúrasena, and returned to his own city in the country of the
Vidyádharas. There Lakshmísena, united with his consort Hemaprabhá, and
assisted by his minister, long enjoyed the delights of sovereignty over the
Vidyádharas.

By hearing these stories told one after another by Gomukha,

Naraváhanadatta, though he was excited about his approaching marriage
with his new wife Śaktiyaśas, spent that night as if it were a moment. In this
way the prince whiled away the days, until the day of his marriage arrived,
when, as he was in the presence of his father the king of Vatsa, he suddenly
saw the army of the Vidyádharas descend from heaven, gleaming like gold.
And he saw, in the midst of them, Sphaṭikayaśas the king of the
Vidyádharas, who had come out of love, holding the hand of his dear
daughter, whom he wished to bestow on the prince, and he joyfully went
towards him, and saluted him by the title of father-in-law, after his father
had first entertained him with the arghya and other usual ceremonies. And
the king of the Vidyádharas stated the object of his coming, and
immediately created a display of heavenly magnificence becoming his high
position, and by the might of his supernatural power loaded the prince with
jewels, and then bestowed on him in due form his daughter previously
promised to him. And Naraváhanadatta, having obtained that Śaktiyaśas,
the daughter of the king of the Vidyádharas, was resplendent as the lotus
after collecting the rays of the sun. Then Sphaṭikayaśas departed, and the
son of the king of Vatsa remained in the city of Kauśámbí, with his eyes
fixed on the face of Śaktiyaśas, as the bee clings to the lotus.

1 Cp. the Yaksha to whom Phalabhúti prays in Ch. XX. The belief in tree-spirits is
shewn by Tylor in his Primitive Culture to exist in many parts of the world. (See the Index
in his second volume.) Grimm in his Teutonic Mythology (p. 70 and ff) gives an account of
the tree-worship which prevailed amongst the ancient Germans. See also an interesting
article by Mr. Wallhouse in the Indian Antiquary for June 1880.
2 The Sanskrit College reads anena for aśanena. Dr. Kern wishes to read suhitasyápy
aśanena kim. This would still leave a superfluity of syllables in the line.
3 This part of the story may be compared with the story of As tres Lebres in Coelho’s
Contos Portuguezes, p. 90, or that of the Blind Man and the Cripple in Ralston’s Russian
Folk Tales.
4 In the notice of the first ten fasciculi of this translation which appeared in the Saturday
Review for May 1882, the following interesting remark is made on this story:
“And the story of the woman, who had eleven husbands, bears a curious but no doubt
accidental likeness to an anecdote related by St. Jerome about a contest between a man and
his wife as to which would outlive the other, she having previously conducted to the grave
scores of husbands and he scores of wives.”
5 So in the Novellæ Morlini, No. 4, a merchant, who is deeply involved, gives a large
sum of money to the king for the privilege of riding by his side through the town.
Henceforth his creditors cease their importunities. (Liebrecht’s Dunlop, p. 494.)
6 I follow the Sanskrit College MS. which reads vidyábhiḥ saha sam̱ smṛitá.
Book XI.
Chapter LXVII.
Honour to the elephant-headed god who averts all hindrances, who is the
cause of every success, who ferries us over the sea of difficulties.

Thus Naraváhanadatta obtained Śaktiyaśas, and besides he had those wives

he married before, Ratnaprabhá and others, and his consort the head wife
Madanamanchuká, and with them and his friends he led a happy life at the
court of his father in Kauśámbí.

Story of the race between the elephant

and the horses.
And one day, when he was in the garden, two brothers, who were princes,
and who had come from a foreign land, suddenly paid him a visit. He
received them cordially, and they bowed before him, and one of them said
to him; “We are the sons by different mothers of a king in the city of
Vaiśákha. My name is Ruchiradeva and the name of this brother of mine is
Potraka. I have a swift female elephant, and he has two horses. And a
dispute has arisen between us about them; I say that the elephant is the
fleetest, he maintains that his horses are both fleeter. I have agreed that if I
lose the race, I am to surrender the elephant, but if he loses, he is to give me
both his horses. Now no one but you is fit to be a judge of their relative
speed, so come to my house, my lord, and preside over this trial. Accede to
our request. For you are the wishing-tree that grants all petitions, and we
have come from afar to petition you about this matter.”

When the prince received this invitation from Ruchiradeva, he consented

out of good nature, and out of the interest he took in the elephant and the
horses. He set out in a chariot drawn by swift horses, which the brothers
had brought, and he reached with them that city of Vaiśákha. When he
entered that splendid city, the ladies, bewildered and excited, beheld him
with eyes the lashes of which were turned up, and made these comments on
him; “Who can this be! Can it be the god of Love new-created from his
ashes without Rati? Or a second moon roaming through the heaven without
a spot on its surface? Or an arrow of desire made by the Creator, in the form
of a man, for the sudden complete overthrow of the female heart.” Then the
king beheld the all-lovely temple of the god of Love, whose worship had
been established there by men of old time. He entered and worshipped that
god, the source of supreme felicity, and rested for a moment, and shook off
the fatigue of the journey. Then he entered as a friend the house of
Ruchiradeva, which was near that temple, and was honoured by being made
to walk in front of him. He was delighted at the sight of that magnificent
palace, full of splendid horses and elephants, which was in a state of
rejoicing on account of his visit. There he was entertained with various
hospitalities by Ruchiradeva, and there he beheld his sister of splendid
beauty. His mind and his eyes were so captivated by her glorious beauty,
that he forgot all about his absence from home and his separation from his
family. She too threw lovingly upon him her expanded eye, which
resembled a garland of full blown blue lotuses, and so chose him as her
husband.1 Her name was Jayendrasená, and he thought so much upon her
that the goddess of sleep did not take possession of him at night, much less
did other females.2

The next day Potraka brought that pair of horses equal to the wind in
swiftness; but Ruchiradeva, who was skilled in all the secrets of the art of
driving, himself mounted the female elephant, and partly by the animal’s
natural speed, partly by his dexterity in urging it on, beat them in the race.
When Ruchiradeva had beaten those two splendid horses, the son of the
king of Vatsa entered the palace, and at that very moment arrived a
messenger from his father. The messenger, when he saw the prince, fell at
his feet, and said; “The king, hearing from your retinue that you have come
here, has sent me to you with this message. ‘How comes it that you have
gone so far from the garden without letting me know? I am impatient for
your return, so abandon the diversion that occupies your attention, and
return quickly.’” When he heard this message from his father’s messenger,
Naraváhanadatta, who was also intent on obtaining the object of his flame,
was in a state of perplexity.

And at that very moment a merchant, in a great state of delight, came,

bowing at a distance, and praised that prince, saying, “Victory to thee, O
thou god of love without the flowery bow! Victory to thee, O Lord, the
future emperor of the Vidyádharas! Wast thou not seen to be charming as a
boy, and when growing up, the terror of thy foes? So surely the gods shall
behold thee like Vishṇu, striding victorious over the heaven, conquering
Bali.” With these and other praises the great merchant magnified the prince;
then having been honoured by him, he proceeded at his request to tell the
story of his life.

Story of the merchant and his wife Velá.

There is a city called Lampá, the crown of the earth; in it there was a rich
merchant named Kusumasára. I, prince of Vatsa, am the son of that
merchant, who lives and moves in religion, and I was gained by the
propitiation of Śiva. Once on a time I went with my friends to witness a
procession of idols, and I saw other rich men giving to beggars. Then I
formed the design of acquiring wealth to give away, as I was not satisfied
with the vast fortune accumulated by my father. So I embarked in a ship,
laden with many jewels, to go across the sea to another country. And my
ship, impelled by a favorable wind, as if by fate, reached that island in a
few days. There the king found out that I was an unknown man dealing in
valuable jewels, and out of avarice he threw me into prison. While I was
remaining in that prison, which resembled hell, on account of its being full
of howling criminals, suffering from hunger and thirst, like wicked ghosts, a
merchant, named Mahídhara, a resident in that town, who knew my family,
went and interceded with the king on my behalf, and said; “King, this is the
son of a great merchant, who lives in the city of Lampá, and, as he is
innocent, it is not creditable to your majesty to keep him in prison.” On his
making representations of this kind, the king ordered me to be released
from prison, and summoned me into his presence, and honoured me with a
courteous reception. So, by the favour of the king and the support of that
merchant, I remained there doing a splendid business.

One day I saw, at a spring festival in a garden, a handsome girl, the

daughter of a merchant named Śikhara. I was quite carried off my feet by
her, who was like a wave of the sea of Love’s insolence, and when I found
out who she was, I demanded her in marriage from her father. Her father
reflected for a moment, and at last said to me; “I cannot give her to you
myself, there is a reason for my not doing so. But I will send her to her
grandfather by the mother’s side, in the island of Ceylon; go there and ask
for her again, and marry her. And I will send her there with such
instructions that your suit will certainly be accepted.” When Śikhara had
said this, and had paid me the usual courtesies, he dismissed me to my own
house. And the next day he put the maiden on board ship, with her
attendants, and sent her to the island of Ceylon, across the sea.

I was preparing with the utmost eagerness to go there, when this rumour,
which was terrible as a lightning-stroke, was spread abroad where I was;
“The ship, in which the daughter of Śikhara started, has gone to pieces in
the open sea, and not a soul has been saved out of it.” That report altogether
broke down my self-command, and being anxious about the ship, I
suddenly fell into a hopeless sea of despondency. So I, though comforted by
my elders, made up my mind to throw away my property and prospects, and
I determined to go to that island to ascertain the truth. Then, though
patronized by the king and loaded with all manner of wealth, I embarked in
a ship on the sea and set out. Then a terrible pirate, in the form of a cloud,
suddenly arose against me as I was pursuing my course, and discharged at
me pattering drops of rain, like showers of arrows. The contrary wind,
which it brought with it, tossed my ship to and fro like powerful destiny,
and at last broke it up. My attendants and my wealth were whelmed in the
sea, but I myself, when I fell into the water, laid hold of a large spar.3 By
the help of this, which seemed like an arm suddenly extended to me by the
Creator, I managed to reach the shore of the sea, being slowly drifted there
by the wind. I climbed up upon it in great affliction, exclaiming against
destiny, and suddenly I found a little gold which had been left by accident
in an out-of-the-way part of the shore. I sold it in a neighbouring village,
and bought with it food and other necessaries, and after purchasing a couple
of garments, I gradually began to get over to a certain extent the fatigue
produced by my immersion in the sea.

Then I wandered about, not knowing my way, separated from my beloved,

and I saw the ground full of lingas of Śiva formed of sand. And daughters
of hermits were wandering about among them. And in one place I saw a
maiden engaged in worshipping a linga, who was beautiful, although
dressed in the garb of a dweller in the forest. I began to think, “This girl is
wonderfully like my beloved. Can she be my beloved herself? But how
comes it, that I am so lucky as to find her here?” And while these thoughts
were passing in my mind, my right eye throbbed frequently, as if with joy,4
and told me that it was no other than she. And I said to her, “Fair one, you
are fitted to dwell in a palace, how comes it that you are here in the forest?”
But she gave me no answer. Then, through fear of being cursed by a hermit,
I stood concealed by a bower of creepers, looking at her with an eye that
could not have enough. And after she had performed her worship, she went
slowly away from the spot, as if thinking over something, and frequently
turned round to look at me with loving eye. When she had gone out of sight,
the whole horizon seemed to be obscured with darkness as I looked at it,
and I was in a strange state of perturbation like the Brahmany drake at
night.

And immediately I beheld the daughter of the hermit Mátanga, who

appeared unexpectedly. She was in brightness like the sun, subject to a vow
of chastity from her earliest youth, with body emaciated by penance, she
possessed divine insight, and was of auspicious countenance like
Resignation incarnate. She said to me, “Chandrasára, call up all your
patience and listen. There is a great merchant in another island named
Śikhara. When a lovely girl was born to him, he was told by a mendicant,
his friend, who possessed supernatural insight, and whose name was
Jinarakshita,5 ‘You must not give away this maiden yourself, for she has
another mother. You would commit a crime in giving her away yourself,
such is the righteous prescription of the law.’ Since the mendicant had told
him this, the merchant wished to give his daughter, when she was of
marriageable age, and you asked her hand, to you, by the agency of her
maternal grandfather. Then she was sent off on a voyage to her maternal
grandfather in the island of Ceylon, but the vessel was wrecked, and she fell
into the sea. And as she was fated not to die, a great wave brought her here
like destiny, and flung her up upon the shore. Just at that time my father, the
hermit Mátanga, came to the sea to bathe with his disciples, and saw her
almost dead. He, being of compassionate nature, brought her round, and
took her to his hermitage, and entrusted her to me saying—‘Yamuná, you
must cherish this girl.’ And because he found her on the shore (velá) of the
sea, he called the girl, who was beloved by all the hermits, Velá. And
though I have renounced the world by a vow of perpetual chastity, it still
impedes my soul, on account of my affection for her, in the form of love
and tenderness for offspring. And my mind is grieved, Chandrasára, as often
as I look upon her, unmarried, though in the bloom of youth and beauty.
Moreover she was your wife in a former life. So knowing, my son, by the
power of my meditation that you had come here, I have come to meet you.
Now follow me and marry that Velá, whom I will bestow on you. Let the
sufferings, which you have both endured, produce fruits of happiness.”

Speaking thus, the saintly woman refreshed me with her voice as with
cloudless rain, and then she took me to the hermitage of her father, the great
hermit Mátanga. And at her request the hermit bestowed on me that Velá,
like the happiness of the kingdom of the imagination incarnate in bodily
form. But one day, as I was living happily with Velá, I commenced a
splashing match with her in the water of a tank. And I and Velá, not seeing
the hermit Mátanga, who had come there to bathe, sprinkled him
inopportunely with some of the water which we threw. That annoyed him,
and he denounced a curse on me and my wife, saying, “You shall be
separated, you wicked couple.” Then Velá clung to his knees, and asked
him with plaintive voice to appoint a period for the duration of our curse,
and he, after thinking, fixed its end as follows, “When thou shalt behold at a
distance Naraváhanadatta the future mighty emperor of the Vidyádharas,
who shall beat with a swift elephant a pair of fleet horses, then thy curse
shall be at an end, and thou shalt be re-united with thy wife.” When the
ṛishi Mátanga had said this, he performed the ceremony of bathing and
other ceremonies, and went to Śvetadvípa through the air, to visit the shrine
of Vishṇu. And Yamuná said to me and my wife—“I give you now that shoe
covered with valuable jewels, which a Vidyádhara long ago obtained, when
it had slipped off from Śiva’s foot, and which I seized in childish sport.”
Thereupon Yamuná also went to Śvetadvípa. Then I having obtained my
beloved, and being disgusted with dwelling in the forest, through fear of
being separated from my wife, felt a desire to return to my own country.
And setting out for my native land, I reached the shore of the sea; and
finding a trading vessel, I put my wife on board, and was preparing to go on
board myself, when the wind, conspiring with the hermit’s curse, carried off
that ship to a distance. When the ship carried off my wife before my eyes,
my whole nature was stunned by the shock, and distraction seemed to have
found an opening in me, and broke into me and robbed me of
consciousness. Then an ascetic came that way, and seeing me insensible, he
compassionately brought me round and took me to his hermitage. There he
asked me the whole story, and when he found out that it was the
consequence of a curse, and that the curse was to end, he animated me with
resolution to bear up. Then I found an excellent friend, a merchant, who had
escaped from his ship that had foundered in the sea, and I set out with him
in search of my beloved. And supported by the hope of the termination of
the curse, I wandered through many lands and lasted out many days, until I
finally reached this city of Vaiśákha, and heard that you, the jewel of the
noble family of the king of Vatsa, had come here. Then I saw you from a
distance beat that pair of swift horses with the female elephant, and the
weight of the curse fell from me, and I felt my heart lightened.6 And
immediately I saw that dear Velá coming to meet me, whom the good
merchants had brought in their ship. Then I was re-united with my wife,
who had with her the jewels bestowed by Yamuná, and having by your
favour crossed the ocean of separation, I came here, prince of Vatsa, to pay
you my respects, and I will now set out cheerfully for my native land with
my wife.

When that excellent merchant Chandrasára, who had accomplished his

object, had gone, after prostrating himself before the prince, and telling his
story, Ruchiradeva, pleased at beholding the greatness of his guest, was still
more obsequious to him. And in addition to the elephant and the pair of
horses, he gave his sister, making the duty of hospitality an excuse for
doing so, to the prince who was captivated by her beauty. She was a good
match for the prince, and her brother had long desired to bestow her upon
him in marriage. Naraváhanadatta then took leave of Ruchiradeva, and with
his new wife, the elephant, and the two horses, returned to the city of
Kauśámbí. And he remained there, gladdening his father with his presence,
living happily with her and his other wives, of whom Madanamanchuká
was the chief.

1 An allusion to the custom of choosing a husband in the Svayamvara ceremony, by

throwing a garland on the neck of the favoured suitor.
2 Dr. Kern would read ásata.
3 Compare Book III of the novel of Achilles Tatius, c. 5.
4 Cp. Enmathius’ novel of Hysminias and Hysmine, Book IX, ch. 4.
Ἐπὶ δὴ τούτοις πᾶσιν ὀφθαλμὸς ἥλατό μου ὁ δεξιὸς, καὶ ἦν μοι τὸ σημε͂ιον ἀγαθὸν, καὶ τὸ
προμάντευμα δεξιώτατον
See also Theocritus III, 37.
ἅλλεται ὀφθαλμός μευ ὁ δεξιός· ἦ ῥά γ’ ἰδησῶ
αὐτάν;
Where Fritsche quotes Plant. Pseudol. 1.1.105. Brand in his Popular Antiquities, Vol. III, p.
172, quotes the above passage from Theocritus, and a very apposite one from Dr. Nathaniel
Home’s Demonologie—“If their ears tingle, they say they have some enemies abroad that
doe or are about to speake evill of them: so, if their right eye itcheth, then it betokens
joyful laughter.”
Bartsch in his Sagen, Märchen, und Gebraüche aus Mecklenburg, says, “Throbbing in the
right eye betokens joy, in the left, tears.” In Norway throbbing in the right ear is a good
sign, in the left a bad sign (Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 327.) Forcellini s. v. Salisatores
quotes from Isidor. VIII, 9. Salisatores vocati sunt, qui dum eis membrorum quæcunque
partes salierint, aliquid sibi exinde prosperum, seu triste significare prædicunt.
5 i. e., under the protection of a Buddha.
6 So Malegis in Die Heimonskinder represents that his blind brother will be freed from
his affliction when he comes to a place where the horse Bayard is being ridden. (Simrock’s
Deutsche Volksbücher, Vol. II, p. 96.)
Book XII.
Chapter LXVIII.
May Gaṇeśa protect you, who, when he sports, throws up his trunk, round
which plays a continual swarm of bees, like a triumphal pillar covered with
letters, erected on account of the overthrow of obstacles!

We worship Śiva, who, though free from the hue of passion, abounds in
colours, the skilful painter who is ever producing new and wonderful
creations. Victorious are the arrows of the god of love, for, when they
descend, though they are made of flowers, the thunderbolt and other
weapons are blunted in the hands of those who bear them.

So the son of the king of Vatsa remained in Kauśámbí, having obtained wife
after wife. But though he had so many wives, he ever cherished the head
queen Madanamanchuká more than his own life, as Kṛishṇa cherishes
Rukmiṇí. But one night he saw in a dream that a heavenly maiden came and
carried him off. And when he awoke, he found himself on a slab of the
tárkshya gem, on the plateau of a great hill, a place full of shady trees. And
he saw that maiden near him, illuminating the wood, though it was night,1
like a herb used by the god of love for bewildering the world. He thought
that she had brought him there, and he perceived that modesty made her
conceal her real feelings; so the cunning prince pretended to be asleep, and
in order to test her, he said, as if talking in his sleep, “Where are you, my
dear Madanamanchuká? Come and embrace me.” When she heard it, she
profited by his suggestion, and assumed the form of his wife, and embraced
him without the restraint of modesty. Then he opened his eyes, and
beholding her in the form of his wife, he said, “O how intelligent you are!”
and smiling threw his arms round her neck. Then she dismissed all shame,
and exhibiting herself in her real shape, she said—“Receive, my husband,
this maiden, who chooses you for her own.” And when she said that, he
married her by the Gándharva form of marriage.
But next morning he said to her, by way of an artifice to discover her
lineage, about which he felt curious; “Listen, my dear, I will tell you a
wonderful story.”

Story of the jackal that was turned into

an elephant.
There lived in a certain wood of ascetics a hermit, named Brahmasiddhi,
who possessed by meditation supernatural power, and near his hermitage
there was an old female jackal dwelling in a cave. One day it was going out
to find food, having been unable to find any for some time on account of
bad weather, when a male elephant, furious on account of its separation
from its female, rushed towards it to kill it. When the hermit saw that, being
compassionate as well as endowed with magical power, he turned the
female jackal into a female elephant, by way of a kindness, to please both.
Then the male elephant, beholding a female, ceased to be furious, and
became attached to her, and so she escaped death. Then, as he was roaming
about with the jackal transformed into a female elephant, he entered a tank
full of the mud produced by the autumn rains, to crop a lotus. He sank in
the mud there, and could not move, but remained motionless, like a
mountain that has fallen owing to its wings having been cut off by the
thunderbolt. When the female elephant, that was before a jackal, saw the
male in this distress, she went off that moment and followed another male
elephant. Then it happened that the elephant’s own mate, that he had lost,
came that way in search of her spouse. The noble creature, seeing her
husband sinking in the mud, entered the mud of the tank in order to join
him. At that moment the hermit Brahmasiddhi came that way with his
disciples, and was moved with pity when he saw that pair. And he bestowed
by his power great strength on his disciples, and made them extricate the
male and female from the mud. Then the hermit went away, and that couple
of elephants, having been delivered both from separation and death, roamed
where they would.

“So you see, my dear, that even animals, if they are of a noble strain, do not
desert a lord or friend in calamity, but rescue him from it. But as for those
which are of low origin, they are of fickle nature, and their hearts are never
moved by noble feelings or affection.” When the prince of Vatsa said this,
the heavenly maiden said to him—“It is so, there can be no doubt about
this. But I know what your real object is in telling me this tale; so in return,
my husband, hear this tale from me.”

Story of Vámadatta and his wicked wife.

There was an excellent Bráhman in Kányakubja, named Śúradatta,
possessor of a hundred villages, respected by the king Báhuśakti. And he
had a devoted wife, named Vasumatí, and by her he begot a handsome son,
named Vámadatta. Vámadatta, the darling of his father, was instructed in all
the sciences, and soon married a wife, of the name of Śaśiprabhá. In course
of time his father went to heaven, and his wife followed him,2 and the son
undertook with his wife the duties of a householder. But without his
knowledge his wife was addicted to following her lusts, and by some
chance or other she became a witch possessed of magical powers.3

One day, when the Bráhman was in the king’s camp, engaged in his service,
his paternal uncle came and said to him in secret, “Nephew, our family is
disgraced, for I have seen your wife in the company of your cowherd.”
When Vámadatta heard this, he left his uncle in the camp in his stead, and
went, with his sword for his only companion, back to his own house. He
went into the flower-garden and remained there in concealment, and in the
night the cowherd came there. And immediately his wife came eagerly to
meet her paramour, with all kinds of food in her hand. After he had eaten,
she went off to bed with him, and then Vámadatta rushed upon them with
uplifted sword, exclaiming, “Wretches, where are you going?” When he
said that, his wife rose up and said, “Away fool,” and threw some dust in his
face. Then Vámadatta was immediately changed from a man into a buffalo,
but in his new condition he still retained his memory. Then his wicked wife
put him among the buffaloes, and made the herdsman beat him with sticks.4

And the cruel woman immediately sold him in his helpless bestial condition
to a trader, who required a buffalo. The trader put a load upon the man, who
found his transformation to a buffalo a sore trial, and took him to a village
near the Ganges. He reflected, “A wife of very bad character that enters
unsuspected the house of a confiding man, is never likely to bring him
prosperity, any more than a snake which gets into the female apartments.”
While full of these thoughts, he was sorrowful, with tears gushing from his
eyes, moreover he was reduced to skin and bone by the fatigue of carrying
burdens, and in this state he was beheld by a certain white witch. She knew
by her magic power the whole transaction, and sprinkling him with some
charmed water, she released him from his buffalo condition. And when he
had returned to human form, she took him to her own house, and gave him
her virgin daughter named Kántimatí. And she gave him some charmed
mustard-seeds, and said to him; “Sprinkle your wicked former wife with
these, and turn her into a mare.” Then Vámadatta, taking with him his new
wife, went with the charmed mustard-seeds to his own house. Then he
killed the herdsman, and with the mustard-seeds he turned5 his former wife
into a mare, and tied her up in the stable. And in order to revenge himself,
he made it a rule to give her every day seven blows with a stick, before he
took any food.6

One day, while he was living there in this way with Kántimatí, a guest came
to his house. The guest had just sat down to his meal, when suddenly
Vámadatta got up and rushed quickly out of the room without eating
anything, because he recollected that he had not beaten his wicked wife
with a stick that day. And after he had given his wife, in the form of a mare,
the appointed number of blows, he came in with his mind easy, and took his
food. Then the guest, being astonished, asked him, out of curiosity, where
he had gone in such a hurry, leaving his food. Thereupon Vámadatta told
him his whole story from the beginning, and his guest said to him, “What is
the use of this persistent revenge? Petition that mother-in-law of yours, who
first released you from your animal condition, and gain some advantage for
yourself.” When the guest gave this advice to Vámadatta, he approved it,
and the next morning dismissed him with the usual attentions.

Then that witch, his mother-in-law, suddenly paid him a visit, and he
supplicated her persistently to grant him a boon. The powerful witch
instructed him and his wife in the method of gaining the life-prolonging
charm, with the proper initiatory rites.7 So he went to the mountain of Śrí
and set about obtaining that charm, and the charm, when obtained, appeared
to him in visible shape, and gave him a splendid sword. And when the
successful Vámadatta had obtained the sword, he and his wife Kántimatí
became glorious Vidyádharas. Then he built by his magic power a splendid
city on a peak of the Malaya mountain, named Rajatakúṭa. There, in time,
that prince among the Vidyádharas had born to him by his queen an
auspicious daughter, named Lalitalochaná. And the moment she was born,
she was declared by a voice, that came from heaven, to be destined to be the
wife of the future emperor of the Vidyádharas.

“Know, my husband, that I am that very Lalitalochaná, and that knowing

the facts by my science and being in love with you, I have brought you to
this very Malaya mountain, which is my own home.” When she had in these
words told him her story, Naraváhanadatta was much pleased, and
entertained great respect for his new wife. And he remained there with her,
and immediately the king of Vatsa and his entourage learnt the truth, by
means of the supernatural knowledge of Ratnaprabhá, and the other wives
of Naraváhanadatta that possessed the same powers.

1 See note in Vol. I, p. 121. So Balder is said to be so fair of countenance and bright that
he shines of himself. (Grimm’s Teutonic Mythology, translated by Stallybrass, p. 222.) In
Tennyson’s Vivien we find
“A maid so smooth, so white, so wonderful,
They said a light came from her when she moved.”
2 This probably means that she was burnt with his corpse.
3 Böhtlingk and Roth read sákinísiddhisam̱ vará.
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