There was a king, a queen, and a prince. The queen’s life was bound to a pair of dice, a secret known only to a Rakshasi (a demoness) who lived in a palm tree in the palace grounds. The Rakshasi had been waiting for an opportunity, but none had come. One day, the king went hunting, and the prince was playing with his friends with the dice. Seeing her chance, the Rakshasi disguised herself as a beggar and asked the prince for the dice. The prince, unaware of their significance, casually gave them to her. With three puffs of her breath, the Rakshasi sent the dice, and with them the queen’s life, to some unknown kingdom. In her chamber, the queen fainted. The Rakshasi quickly devoured the queen and took her form.
The king returned as usual, and the queen served him as she always did. Only the prince noticed that as his mother served him food, a drop of saliva fell from her tongue. A chill ran down his spine. The prince did not eat; he quietly got up and left. No one else knew.
Several years passed, and the king had seven more sons. The king celebrated with great fanfare. Only the prince noticed that the top of the palm tree was slowly withering and that no birds ever sat on its branches. The prince remained silent.
The seven new sons grew up. The king performed all their rites of passage in due time. Then the princes said, “Now we will go and travel the world.”
The king replied, “The eldest prince is not going; how can you go without him?” The king sent for the eldest prince.
As soon as he received the news, the eldest prince mounted his winged horse, a Pakkhiraj, and went to his brothers. “Why, brothers! Had you forgotten your elder brother? Come, let us go and travel the world.” The eight brothers, dressed in their finest, set out from the palace with their retinue.
From the rooftop, the Rakshasi-queen saw them leave and thought, “This is a great danger—the prince is gone!” She rushed to her room, opened a casket, and took out a Sutashankha, a thread-like snake. The Rakshasi said:
“Sutashankha, Sutashankha, with your conch-like hiss, Tell me now, where does the prince’s life exist?”
The Sutashankha was as thin as a thread but had a hiss as loud as a conch shell. Raising its slender hood, it hissed:
“Where your life lies, O Queen, and where mine lies, Dalim Kumar’s life is in a pomegranate seed.”
The Rakshasi said:
“Go, O Sutashankha, ride upon the wind, Beyond the land of Yama and Yamuna, to Pashabati’s home you’ll find! Give this letter to Pashabati, For my seven sons, I need seven of her daughters. If any foe or rival comes, Sutashankha, chew them up and eat them, But make sure the stepson cannot get the dice.”
Taking the letter, the Sutashankha traveled on the wind, from tree to tree.
The Rakshasi, holding a pomegranate, chanted another spell:
“Pakkhiraj, Pakkhiraj, rise and fly away, In Pashabati’s kingdom, go and graze and play.”
After chanting the spell, the Rakshasi hurried to the thousand steps of the palace and said, “Steps, whose are you?”
The steps replied, “Whoever walks on us, we are theirs!” The Rakshasi said, “Then, steps, split in two, and let this pomegranate seed remain in your crack.”
The pomegranate seed was sealed forever beneath the thousand steps. The Rakshasi, content, went to her milk-white bed and fell asleep.
At that moment, in a forest where the eight princes were resting, the eldest prince’s eyes suddenly went blind. He cried out, “Brothers! A scorpion has stung me—I am done for!!”
The sun set, and a storm with wind and rain descended. In the darkness of the forest, nothing could be seen or heard. The eldest prince fell somewhere, and the retinue was scattered. The seven younger princes’ horses galloped ahead of the storm.
The Rakshasi dreamed that the Sutashankha had by now crossed the land of Yama and Yamuna. But the Sutashankha, tired from traveling all day from tree to tree, had stopped for the night. It found a beautiful royal garden and, entering a fruit on one of the trees, coiled up and went to sleep.
The princess of that kingdom ate a fruit from that tree every day. The gardener brought her the fruit as usual, and the princess ate it as usual. Along with the fruit, the Sutashankha and the Rakshasi’s letter went into the princess’s stomach.
The princes knew nothing of this letter. Flying and galloping, the Pakkhiraj horses went on, no one knew where or how. At dawn, they found themselves in a new place. The seven brothers saw that their eldest brother was not with them. They thought he must have fallen behind. They reined in their horses to wait for him.
But days and nights passed, and there was no sign of their brother.
Then one brother said, “What if his horse went ahead?” “Right, right!!” they all agreed and spurred their horses forward.
The enchanted Pakkhiraj horses went straight to the city of Pashabati.
In her city, Pashabati was waiting, her gates adorned with banners, her chambers decorated. She sat in all her splendor. Whoever could defeat her in a game of dice, she and her six sisters would marry.
Seeing the princes, Pashabati asked, “Who are you?” The princes replied, “We are the princes of such-and-such a country, traveling the world.” Pashabati said, “No! You look like Yakshas or Rakshasas—demons. Do you know my challenge?” “We do not.” “My challenge is a game of dice. If you are demons, I will test you. If you are human, you must play. Win, and you shall have the garland of marriage, Lose, and you will end up in our stomachs!” The princes said, “Test us!”
Pashabati asked to see a letter. “If you are a demon, you will have a letter.”
The princes replied, “A letter? We have no letter.” “Then play.”
The princes played and lost. Pashabati’s seven sisters cut the seven princes and their Pakkhiraj horses into tiny pieces and devoured them. Then, they resumed their beautiful forms and sat waiting. The Rakshasi-queen dreamed of one thing, but fate had another in store. Who knows if a premonition of doom struck the Rakshasi?
The blind prince, carried by his Pakkhiraj through the storm and rain, lost his grip on the reins and fell somewhere in the darkness. The Pakkhiraj fell on a mountain and turned to stone.
The prince fell in a city. In that city, after sunset, a hundred thousand drums and a hundred thousand flutes would play in the royal palace. Torches would be lit in every house, on every spire, and along every path. Banners would fly, and the city would erupt in joyous celebration.
At dawn, all would be silent. Then, only weeping, screaming, and wailing could be heard. The country would be flooded with tears, and the kingdom shrouded in grief.
Then, after midday, when the king’s elephant was decorated and brought out, the people of the kingdom would heave a sigh of relief and go about their daily lives. The entire city would line the streets.
The royal elephant would run and run, seize one person, and place them on the throne. Immediately, with the sound of drums and conch shells, the soldiers, guards, ministers, and courtiers would take the chosen person and make them the king of the kingdom. He would be married to the princess, and the city would once again be a marketplace of joy.
The next day, only bones would be found in the princess’s chamber. There would be no trace of the king. In this way, many kings had come and gone. But a kingdom cannot exist without a king, so a new king was needed every day. The princess did not know, and no one could understand, what was devouring the kings.
The royal elephant was running. A cry went up in the city, “Make way, make way, form a line.”
The prince had regained consciousness. Hearing the noise, he sat up. He didn’t know where he was or what was happening. He was bewildered.
The elephant did not touch anyone in the line. It ran past everyone and, lifting the prince, placed him on the throne. The people of the kingdom shouted, “The King! The King!” and, with great celebration, they made the blind prince their king.
There was a grand coronation, pomp, and ceremony, a court, and a council. Finally, night fell, and everyone in the king’s new country was asleep. The city was silent; there were no guards at the doors. What was the point? Everyone knew what would happen the next day. The guards no longer kept watch. The princess was fast asleep.
On that fateful night, only the prince was awake. The house was silent, the world was still. Not even an insect or a bird made a sound. A deathly silence, like the sleep of doom, covered everything.
The lamp in the room flickered, and the prince’s heart pounded. There was no sound, no movement.
Suddenly, in her sleep, the princess screamed and fainted. A flash of lightning lit up the room. The walls cracked, and the decorative hangings fell to the floor. The prince’s hair stood on end. Gripping the hilt of his sword, he knelt and said, “Who’s there?”
The prince could see nothing. The light in the room, the flash of lightning—the princess’s body was as stiff as wood. From her nostrils, a snake as thin as a hair emerged. In an instant, that hair became a thread, a rope, and then a giant python. The python hissed with the sound of a conch shell.
The palace trembled. The sword in his hand hummed.
“I do not know who you are, a Yaksha, a Rakshasa, or a Danav! If I am a prince, if my body is pure, I swing my sword in the darkness, and this sword will find you!”
No sooner had he spoken than the Sutashankha, with its thirty-two hoods spread, spitting fire from its fangs, rose up. The prince’s sword, with a great clang, shattered the chandeliers in the room and struck the Sutashankha’s thirty-two hoods. At that moment, the prince saw the snake. The room was filled with a blinding light, and smoke was everywhere. The prince swung his sword and shouted, “I have regained my sight!!!” The sword cut the python into seven pieces. That same night, in the Rakshasi-queen’s palace, the thousand steps crumbled with a great crash, and the prince’s life-force sprouted as a golden pomegranate tree with a thousand branches. An earthquake shook the palace. The Rakshasi, terrified, turned into a mouse and fled, squeaking. The real queen’s body, which had been in a swoon, stirred. The kingdom was in an uproar, “What is all this!”
The people of the night-king’s kingdom came, weeping as they did every day, and saw—“Glory! Glory! The king! The king is alive today!!!” Their joy knew no bounds. They saw the seven pieces of the thousand-hooded snake lying on the floor. “What a terrible thing!”—everyone understood that this snake had been eating the kings for so long. “Burn the snake.”
As they were about to burn it, they found the letter in the snake’s stomach. The letter was brought to the king. After reading it, the prince said, “Princess! I can stay no longer—my seven brothers may have been eaten by a demon! I am going!” The people of the kingdom were disheartened. “We finally found a king, and now he is leaving.” Everyone waited, watching the road for the king’s return.
Dalim Kumar went on and on. He climbed a mountain and saw his Pakkhiraj. As soon as he touched it, the winged horse came back to life and neighed. The prince said, “Pakkhiraj, let us go now.”
The land of Yama and Yamuna was a dark and desolate place where stones flew in the wind. The prince paid no heed. Like a thunderbolt, the Pakkhiraj flew on.
After some distance, they came to a mountain of cowrie shells. The Pakkhiraj’s hooves slipped and stumbled. The prince said, “Pakkhiraj! Do not stop; fly on.” With the speed of a thunderbolt, the Pakkhiraj flew all night, and the mountain of cowrie shells was crushed to dust beneath its hooves. After that came a mountain of bones. Below the mountain of bones, a river of blood flowed with a gurgling sound. There were waves of blood, torrents of blood. Skulls with bared teeth grinned eerily, and the sound of bones clattering was deafening. The prince said, “Pakkhiraj! Do not be afraid; close your eyes and fly on.” The mountain of bones was ground to dust beneath its hooves. Then the night ended, and the prince saw the city of Pashabati in the distance. On the gate of Pashabati’s city was a banner, and on it was written:
“Whoever wins at dice, the seven sisters will give him the garland of marriage!”
The prince shouted, “I will play dice!”
Sitting down to play, the prince was startled—these were his own dice! He played and lost. He saw a mouse turning the dice over. The prince sat, lost in thought.
Pashabati said, “Prince! Pay the price of your loss.” “Take my Pakkhiraj. I will play again tomorrow,” the prince said and got up.
Pashabati and her sisters immediately devoured the Pakkhiraj.
The next day, the prince went to a village and got a kitten. He said, “Come, let us play today.”
They sat down to play. Today, the mouse hesitated to come out. It seemed to see something and flee.
The prince threw the dice.
“These dice were once in my hand, and now they have returned. For so long, O dice, on whose milk and rice have you been fed?”
And the dice fell in his favor. In the blink of an eye, Pashabati lost.
The prince said, “Give me back my Pakkhiraj.”
The demoness gave him back his winged horse.
They played again. The demoness lost again.
The prince said, “Give me a horse like my horse, and a prince like me.”
Pashabati brought a prince and a horse. The prince saw that it was his brother and his brother’s horse! The prince played again. He played and played until he had won back his seven brothers, their seven horses, and all of Pashabati’s kingdom and city.
Finally, he said, “What will you give me now? Give me these dice and the mouse.”
But would Pashabati give up the dice so easily? The prince released the kitten. The cat pounced on the mouse and ate it. The lamp in the room went out. Where was the kingdom? With the dice in his hand, the prince saw that the seven Pashabatis had turned into seven dead earthworms.
The dice said, “Prince, prince, let us go home.”
The eight princes spurred their eight Pakkhiraj horses, and they flew away.
In the royal palace, the queen had woken up. “How long have I slept! Where is my prince?”
“Where is the prince!”—drums of victory sounded everywhere. The dust from the road darkened the sky. The eight princes, in a line on their eight Pakkhiraj horses, had returned to the kingdom. The prince came and said, “Where is my mother, where is my mother?” The eight princes surrounded the queen and bowed to her. The empty palace was once again a marketplace of gold.
“The king who went in search of his brothers so long ago, our one living king, has still not returned.” The people of the night-king’s kingdom searched and searched and found him. “Our king is here!” Then the princess moved her court and kingdom to that place.
The king was amazed by everything he saw.
The next morning, a thousand flowers bloomed on the golden pomegranate tree. And at noon, the palm tree in the royal palace, for no reason at all, uprooted itself, fell with a crash, and split into a thousand pieces.