Chandralekha and the Eight Robbers

In the Pandiya country there was an ancient city called Kaivalyam, and in it lived a dancing girl named Muttumohana. She was a true jewel among women. She belonged to a community of temple dancers and was learned and devout, and she never ate a meal without first going to worship in the temple of Siva. She kept company with kings, ministers and Brahmins and would have nothing to do with people she considered coarse, however rich they might be.

She had a daughter named Chandralekha, and she sent her to school with the sons of kings, ministers and Brahmins. Even while she was learning her letters, Chandralekha showed such intelligence that the schoolmaster took special care over her teaching, and before long she had become a real scholar. Because she was a dancer’s daughter, nobody objected to her studying in the open school until she was grown up, so she went on attending and mastered the four Vedas, the sacred books, and all sixty-four branches of learning.

When the time came for her to leave school, Muttumohana said to her, “My darling, for seven or eight years you have studied under your Brahmin teacher, and he has taught you a great deal. Now you must pay him a handsome fee for all his work. Take as much money from my treasure as you wish.” And she gave her daughter the key.

Chandralekha was delighted with her mother’s good advice. She filled five baskets with five thousand gold mohars each and had five maidservants carry them on their heads. She herself carried a dish of betel leaves, areca nuts, flowers and coconuts to offer with the money, and so she went to her teacher’s house. The maids set the baskets before him and waited outside. Chandralekha bowed down to the ground before him with the dish in her hands, and then she rose and spoke.

“Most holy master,” she said, “you have worked hard to teach me and to chase away the darkness of my ignorance. For eight years I have been your pupil, and you have taught me every kind of knowledge. What I bring may not be enough to repay all your trouble, but I humbly beg you to accept it.” And she respectfully pushed the baskets and the dish towards him.

She expected him to bless her. Instead, the wicked Brahmin replied, “My dear Chandralekha, don’t you know that I teach the prince, the minister’s son and many other rich young men of Kaivalyam? I have more money than I need. I do not want a single coin from you. What I want is for you to marry me.”

Chandralekha’s face changed colour. She was horrified to hear such a thing from a man she had thought perfect. Still, she hoped to make him see how wrong his request was. “Most holy master,” she said, “I respect you so deeply that I believe you only said this to test me. Surely you know the rule that a teacher is like a father, so that I am like a daughter to you. Please forget what you have said, accept my humble gift and let me go home.”

But the teacher had meant every word. His silence and the look on his face told her what was in his mind. She went out quickly and told the maids to carry the money home again.

Muttumohana had been waiting anxiously. When her daughter came in looking gloomy and still carrying the gifts, she guessed that something had gone wrong and asked what had happened. Chandralekha told her the whole story. Muttumohana was glad to see how steady and upright her daughter was. She blessed her and said that she would marry a young husband and live a good and honourable life, with a partner who respected her. Then she locked the money safely away.

The Brahmin, meanwhile, was furious at being refused. To make sure that no rich young gentleman would ever come courting her, he spread a rumour that Chandralekha was possessed by a demon. So no suitor came near the house, and Muttumohana was very troubled. Her dearest wish was for some respectable young man to win her daughter’s heart, but the teacher’s rumour stood in the way. A whole year passed, and everyone came to believe that Chandralekha really had a demon in her.

At last, after what seemed a very long time, a holy man visited Muttumohana’s house, and she told him her daughter’s story. He listened and said, “Since the whole town believes a demon has seized your daughter, she must perform worship to the king of demons in the cremation ground on the night of this month’s new moon. Let her do that, and all will be well, and a worthy young man will be able to win her.”

The advice seemed sensible to Muttumohana. She knew perfectly well that there was no demon and that it was all the teacher’s spiteful gossip, but she wanted to clear away the townspeople’s foolish ideas. So she announced publicly that her daughter would perform the worship in the cremation ground at midnight on the next new moon. The rite prescribed in this story required her to go alone. So on the night of the new moon Chandralekha set off for the burning ground with a lamp and a basket holding everything she needed for the ceremony.

Five kos from Kaivalyam lay a great forest called Khandavam, and in it lived eight robbers who caused terrible damage all over the countryside. That very night the robbers came to the cremation ground to hide what they had stolen earlier in the evening, meaning to go off and rob somewhere else for the rest of the night. When Chandralekha heard footsteps in the distance, she feared danger. She covered her shining lamp with her empty basket and hid in a hollow in the ground.

The robbers looked all around and saw no one. Still, in case somebody was hiding nearby, one of them took out a kannakkol, whirled it round his head and threw it towards the east. A kannakkol is the rod robbers use to bore holes in walls and break into houses. Some robbers say they get it from a thunderbolt: on a stormy day they pile up a heap of cow dung, a thunderbolt strikes it and leaves a rod in the middle, and that rod can bore silently even through stone walls. It also obeys its master’s commands. So when the robber chief threw his rod to the east, it flew straight into the hollow where Chandralekha was hiding and began to pierce her back. She pulled it out with both hands without making the slightest sound, laid it under her feet and stood firmly on it. The robbers buried their eight boxes of treasure in the sand near the cremation ground and went off to spend the rest of the night at their usual business.

As soon as they had gone, Chandralekha came out. She kept the robbers’ rod, dug up the eight boxes and hurried home with them to her mother, who was waiting for her, and told her everything that had happened. Together they emptied the boxes and locked the treasure away. Then Chandralekha filled the empty boxes with stones, old iron and other rubbish, set them in pairs beside the four legs of her bed and lay down to sleep.

Towards the end of the night the robbers came back to the cremation ground with still more loot, and they were thunderstruck to find their boxes gone. Day was breaking, so they went back into the jungle and decided to look into the matter the following night. They were astonished at the trick and longed to find the thief who had outwitted them. They were sure their boring rod must have wounded whoever had been hiding there. So one of them disguised himself as a seller of ointment, put some ointment in a coconut-shell bottle and walked through the streets of Kaivalyam crying, “Ointment for sale! The best ointment for fresh wounds and old sores! Buy my ointment!” The other seven put on seven different disguises and wandered about the city too.

One of Chandralekha’s maids knew that her mistress was suffering from a wound in her back. Never suspecting the ointment seller, she called him into the house and told Chandralekha that she might buy a little of his medicine. Clever Chandralekha recognised the robber at once, and the cunning robber recognised her too as the one who had taken the boxes, and he saw that the wound had been made by his rod. They soon parted. She bought a little ointment, and he gladly sold it to her and went away. The eight robbers met at a secret place outside the city, and there they learned who had stolen their treasure. They decided to break into Chandralekha’s house that very night and carry off both the girl and the boxes.

Chandralekha was on her guard. She kept the treasure locked up and left the eight boxes, filled with rubbish to the same weight as before, under the bed where she lay that night, pretending to sleep. In the dark the robbers bored a hole into her bedroom and climbed in. To their joy they found her apparently fast asleep and their eight boxes under the bed.

“The vixen’s asleep,” they whispered. “Let’s fetch the boxes now and come back for her tomorrow night.” Each lifted a box onto his head, and they hurried back to their hideout, arriving just after dawn. But when they prised open the boxes to share out the loot, what did they find? Nothing but broken stones, lumps of iron and other junk! Every one of them put a finger to the tip of his nose in amazement.

“Ah! What a clever girl,” they said. “She has fooled us all. But wait until tonight. Then we’ll see if she doesn’t fall into our hands.” They spent the whole day wondering at her.

Chandralekha was busy too. She was sure the robbers would come to her room that night, so to be ready she made a small, sharp knife out of the robbers’ rod and put it under her pillow, where she usually kept her little purse of betel leaves, nuts and lime for chewing. When night fell she ate her supper early and went to bed. She could not sleep, but she cleverly kept her eyes shut and pretended to be asleep.

Before midnight the eight robbers broke into her room. “The clever lady thief is sleeping soundly,” they said to one another. “We won’t harm her here. Let’s stand two at each leg of the bed and carry her off to the woods while she sleeps. We can deal with her there.” So they took their places two at each leg and lifted the bed without the slightest shake, and they carried it, with the sleeper on it, out of the town. They were very pleased with themselves and marched towards their cave without worrying about their prisoner.

But Chandralekha was not idle on her bed. The road to the jungle ran through a long avenue of mango trees, and since it was the mango season, every branch was hung with bunches of ripe and unripe fruit. As they went along she kept picking bunches of mangoes and piling them on the bed. When she thought there were enough to match her own weight, she quietly caught hold of a branch and swung herself up into the tree. The robbers walked on, feeling no difference in their load, and left her safely perched in the mango tree for the last anxious hours of the night. They reached their cave at dawn, set down their burden, and found only bunches of ripe mangoes instead of the lady.

“Is she a woman of flesh and blood, or a demon?” the chief asked his second-in-command.

“She’s a woman, sure enough, my lord,” he answered. “If we search the woods, we’ll find her.” So after a light breakfast all eight set off to look for her.

When morning came, Chandralekha saw that she was in the middle of a thick jungle. The way home was long, and she was sure the robbers would soon be after her, so she was afraid to try to escape by daylight. She decided to hide and wait for darkness. Before leaving the bed she had tucked the little knife and her betel purse into her waistband. Near her tree she saw a deep hollow surrounded on every side by thick reeds. She lowered herself quietly into it and waited anxiously for night.

The robbers searched in different places. One of them came to the very tree where Chandralekha had sat, and the thick bushes made him suspect she was hiding nearby, so he climbed the tree to look. When she saw him above her, Chandralekha gave up all hope. But suddenly she had a bright idea, just as he caught sight of her. Putting on a cheerful face, she spoke softly to him.

“My dear husband,” she said, “for from this moment heaven has made you my husband, don’t raise the alarm. Come down here quietly so that we can be happy together. You are my husband and I am your wife.”

The robber’s head spun with joy at such sweet words. He forgot all the tricks she had played on him and his comrades and jumped down into the hollow. She welcomed him with a smile, and he believed she really loved him. She gave him betel to chew and chewed some herself. In this episode, the robber accepts a tongue reddened by betel as a supposed sign of love. So she put out her tongue to show him how red it was, and he put out his own to show how much he loved her in return. Then, as if to look at it more closely, she caught hold of it, and with her knife in her other hand she struck so quickly that he never rose from that hollow again.

Evening was coming on. The other seven robbers, having searched in vain, went back to their cave, sure that their comrade must have found Chandralekha. They waited all night, but he did not come.

As soon as it was dark, Chandralekha set out for home, made bold by all she had been through. She arrived safely at midnight, told her mother everything, and, worn out, slept for the rest of the night. In the morning she had the walls of her bedroom strengthened with iron plates. To her trusty knife she now added a bag of powdered chillies, and she went to bed, not to sleep, but to keep watch.

Just as she expected, a small hole was bored through the east wall of her bedroom, and one of the seven robbers poked his head in. Chandralekha was standing ready beside the hole. With her knife she cut off his nose and rubbed the chilli powder into the wound. Unable to bear the burning, he pulled back out, crying “Na, na, na, na,” for without a nose he could not speak clearly. A second robber scolded him for losing his nose so carelessly and pushed his own head in, and the brave girl dealt with him in exactly the same way, so that he too crawled out moaning “Na, na, na, na.” A third robber jeered at the second and went in, and he lost his nose as well. In the end all seven had lost their noses. Afraid of being caught if they stayed, they ran back to the forest, where they had to give up robbing for a few days while their faces healed.

So Chandralekha had defeated the robbers three or four times. But the more often she beat them, the more she feared for her own safety, especially now that she had shamed them for life. “As soon as their noses heal they will come back and kill me one way or another,” she thought. “After all, I am only a girl.” So she went straight to the palace and told all her adventures with the eight robbers to the prince, who had been her classmate at school. The prince was amazed at her courage and promised to help her the next time the robbers came. Every night after that, a palace spy slept at Chandralekha’s house, ready to carry word to the prince if the robbers appeared.

But the robbers were now terrified to go near her house, knowing she had a knife made from their boring rod. Instead they thought up a plan to lure her into the forest by inviting her to dance at a feast, and they sent a servant to her house. “My dear young lady,” he said, “here is a chance to make your fortune. I can see from your house that you belong to the dancers’ caste. My masters in the forest are giving a dance for their relatives at a wedding the day after tomorrow. If you come, they will pay you a karor of gold mohars for every minute you dance.”

Chandralekha knew the message came from the robbers, but she agreed to dance. She asked the man to come back the next morning to lead her and her party to the forest, and sent him away. Without losing a moment, she went to the prince and told him about the invitation.

“I know very well this is a trick to kill me,” she said, “but we must catch them before they can do it. Here is my idea. A dancing party needs more than seven people: one to beat the drum, one to clash the cymbals, one to play the nagasvara pipe, and so on. Please give me seven of your strongest men to come with me disguised as my musicians, and let some of your soldiers hide nearby, ready to seize the robbers when we give the signal.”

The prince admired her plan greatly. He offered to go with her himself as her drummer, and he chose six of his ablest commanders to dress up as fiddlers, pipers and the rest. He ordered an army of a thousand men to follow them at a distance of two ghatikas’ march and hide near the place of the dance, ready to come when called. By morning everything was arranged, and the whole party was waiting at Chandralekha’s house.

Early that morning the robbers’ servant arrived to take Chandralekha and her musicians to the forest, where the prince and his six disguised men were ready. As soon as she left the house, a spy ran to tell the army, which set off after her party at the distance the prince had ordered.

After a long journey Chandralekha and her party reached the dancing pavilion a little before sunset. Every one of their hosts was without a nose, and some still wore bandages. When the robbers saw what fine, handsome musicians she had brought, even their hard hearts softened a little. “She’s completely in our power now,” they told one another. “Instead of killing her straight away, let’s watch her dance for a while.” They all agreed, and the order was given to begin.

Chandralekha, who was skilled in every art, began to dance, and her exquisite movements held the audience spellbound. Suddenly the cymbals clashed: ta, tai, tom! That was the signal for the robbers’ downfall, and also the sign that one part of the dance had ended. In the blink of an eye the seven disguised musicians had thrown the robbers to the ground and pinned them there. Before the robbers’ servants could come to help their masters, the tramp of soldiers was heard, and in no time the prince’s thousand men arrived and took all the robbers and their followers prisoner.

The robbers had done so much harm in and around Kaivalyam that they were shown no mercy, and they and their followers were all put to death. As for the prince, he was so won over by Chandralekha’s fine qualities that, he admired her and married her.

The source closes with a proverb translated as ‘Buy a girl in a bazaar,’ which it uses to argue that character matters more than birth. Its language treats a woman as purchasable and needs critical reading, not endorsement. And when the prince learned what their old teacher was really like, he banished him from the kingdom, a punishment the source calls merciful in consideration of his past service.

Where this story comes from

This story is from Tales of the Sun; or, Folklore of Southern India, published in London in 1890 by Mrs. Howard Kingscote and Pandit Natesa Sastri. The book explains the robbers’ boring rod, the kannakkol, and quotes the closing proverb in Tamil as kanniyai kadaiyir kol, translated as “Buy a girl in a bazar.”

Chandralekha fights back fiercely in the original. The death of the robber in the hollow and the fate of the captured gang are described more bluntly there and are kept brief in this telling, which still requires mature readers. The teacher’s unwelcome proposal is told just as the book tells it, as a wish to marry his pupil.

Read the original: Kingscote and Natesa Sastri, Tales of the Sun (Project Gutenberg #37002, Chandralekha and the Eight Robbers)

Reading guidance: Older teen and adult readers; includes a teacher’s coercive marriage demand, reputational abuse, abduction, killing, repeated facial mutilation and mass execution. Removed from child age categories.

A closer reading

The teacher tries to convert educational authority into a claim on Chandralekha’s marriage, then uses a rumour to punish her refusal. Her ability to leave with the offered fee establishes a boundary; the town’s acceptance of his allegation shows how a respected person’s status can magnify harm. The story repeatedly contradicts its own caste-based assumptions by making the learned dancer’s daughter its most capable planner.

Two escapes depend on substitutions that preserve weight: rubbish replaces treasure, and mangoes replace her body on the bed. The robbers trust what they carry without checking its contents. In the final trap, appearance again deceives them when military allies perform the roles of musicians.

Chandralekha’s decision to seek help is a further act of judgment, not a failure of courage. Each private victory has increased the risk of retaliation. The eventual collective execution is severe, and the stolen property’s original owners never reappear; neither point should be hidden by an uncomplicated claim that justice is complete.

Try this with the story

Compare the boxes, bed and musicians in three columns: what the robbers believe, what is actually present and what check they fail to make. Then identify why Chandralekha changes from escaping alone to arranging allies and a signal.

Questions to ask

• How does the teacher use his position after Chandralekha refuses him?
• What do the boxes and mangoes have in common as tricks?
• Why does she seek allies after several successful escapes?
• What is troubling about the source’s closing proverb and its treatment of birth?

Related stories

• Charity Alone Conquers — another story from Tales of the Sun
• Bopoluchi the Clever Girl — another Indian tale of a girl who escapes robbers by her wits
• Harisarman — another Indian tale full of tricks and narrow escapes