Charity Alone Conquers

In the town of Tevai there lived a king named Suguna, and he had a very fine minister named Dharmasila. Together they ruled the kingdom well for many years, and each of them had a son.

The king’s son was called Subuddhi, and he lived up to his name, for he was a noble young man who always wanted to do good in the world. The minister’s son was called Durbuddhi, and he was a thoroughly wicked boy. Even as a child he tormented animals and birds, and as he grew older that cruelty grew into every other kind of wickedness.

In spite of their different natures, the two boys were the best of friends. Subuddhi’s motto was “Dharmame jayam,” which means “Charity alone conquers.” Durbuddhi’s motto was the opposite: “Adharmame jayam,” or “Without charity one conquers.” Whenever they got up in the morning, began their prayers, sat down to eat or to study, or started anything at all, each boy repeated his own motto.

The people placed great hopes in Subuddhi and expected him to become a good and generous king. But everyone hated Durbuddhi. Even his own father, the minister, could not bear him, for he had tried and failed to change the boy’s spiteful mind. His only friend was the prince, who loved him truly in spite of all his faults. The two had grown up side by side since they were babies. They had played in the same dust and learned their lessons from the same teachers in the same school. Yet their repeated choices led them in very different directions.

Durbuddhi knew perfectly well how much people disliked him, but he would not change. One day, as the friends rode together, he said, “Dear Subuddhi, you are the only friend I have in the world. My own father hates me, so who else could like me? Everybody loves you. You will soon marry some beautiful lady, but no girl will ever marry me. You will become king, but I can never be your minister, because the people cannot stand me. What am I to do?” And he hung his head.

“Don’t worry,” said Subuddhi. “I will make you my minister. I will give you whatever you need and make sure you are well looked after.”

“Then promise me this,” said Durbuddhi, without a trace of shame. “If you marry before I do, and I am still unmarried, you must give me your wife for one day.”

Those words would have made anyone furious. But the prince failed to take the demand seriously and agreed, although no future wife had consented to such a bargain. So, while they were still young, that strange bargain was made between them.

Years went by. One day the prince went hunting in a nearby forest with Durbuddhi and several huntsmen. The two friends galloped after a deer and rode so far ahead that they were lost in thick jungle, where the huntsmen could neither see nor follow them. The huntsmen went home after dark and told the king and the minister that their sons were missing. But the fathers thought that grown men could look after themselves, and they did not worry.

By evening the friends were deep in the forest. They had eaten nothing but a light breakfast early that morning, and they were faint with hunger. The long chase had given them a dreadful thirst, and there was not a drop of water to be found. At last, giving up all hope, they simply let their horses carry them wherever they would. The animals seemed to understand what their riders needed. They trotted on and on, and around midnight they stopped beside a large pool.

The young men had closed their eyes in exhaustion. When the horses halted, they opened them and saw the water, and they were overjoyed.

“God surely looks after His children,” thought Subuddhi. “How else could we have found this pool, when we had left everything to our horses?” He dismounted. Durbuddhi, who was even more worn out, got down too. Subuddhi, being thoughtful, first took both horses to drink and turned them loose to graze on a grassy patch. Then he went into the water himself. He said a short prayer, drank a few handfuls and came back to the bank, and Durbuddhi followed. They found a clean spot to rest for what was left of the night. As he sat down, the prince spoke his usual motto: “Charity alone conquers.” And Durbuddhi spoke his: “Without charity one conquers.”

At that moment the words stung the prince like poison. He was usually very gentle, but now he could not hold back his anger. The hardships of the day, and their lucky escape from thirst in the middle of the night, were fresh in his mind, and he had not even finished his prayers of thanks. That his friend could forget all this and go on repeating his foolish motto was more than he could stand.

“You wretch!” he cried. “Have you no shame, saying such a thing after all we have been through? It is not too late. Mend your ways. Think of the God who saved you just now, and change your motto from today!”

Durbuddhi had a quarrelsome temper, and the good advice only enraged him. “Hold your tongue!” he snapped. “I know as much as you do. You can’t give orders here. In this forest I can take you on single-handed.”

With that he sprang at Subuddhi like a furious lion. The prince never expected anything of the kind, and in a flash he was thrown to the ground with Durbuddhi on top of him. Durbuddhi beat him cruelly, blinded him with a twig and filled his eyes with sand, and then rode off with his horse, believing he had killed him.

Subuddhi was nearly dead. He was bruised all over, his sight was gone, and the pain was more than he could bear. “Is there really a God watching over us?” he wondered. But the night was almost over, and the cool, sweet morning breeze gave him a little strength. He got up and crawled along the ground, feeling his way, until he came to the entrance of a temple. He crept inside, shut the doors and slid the bolt across.

It was the temple of the fierce goddess Kali. Every morning she went out to gather roots and fruits, and every evening she came back. That evening she found her own doors locked against her, and she threatened to destroy whoever had taken over her temple.

A voice answered from inside, and it was Subuddhi’s. “I am dying already, because I have lost my eyes. If you kill me in your anger, so much the better, for what is the use of living blind? But if you pity me and give me back my sight by your divine power, I will open the doors.”

Kali was in a difficult position. She was very hungry, and she could see no way to get inside except by giving him his eyes. “Open the doors,” she said. “Your wish is granted.” The moment she spoke, the prince could see again. He was overjoyed beyond words. He opened the doors and promised Kali that he would stay in her temple from then on as her servant and worshipper.

Meanwhile wicked Durbuddhi rode calmly away, following his horse’s tracks back to the forest where they had been hunting, and from there he went home alone. When his father saw him come back without the prince, he suspected that something terrible had happened and asked where Subuddhi was.

“We were chasing a deer,” said Durbuddhi, “and he rode so far ahead that I lost sight of him. I searched everywhere and had to come back alone.”

“I would believe that from anyone but you,” said the minister. “Do not set foot in this kingdom again until you bring the prince back with you. Run for your life!” Durbuddhi fled, afraid of his father’s anger.

So Prince Subuddhi served in Kali’s temple, while Durbuddhi, sure that he had killed his friend, wandered from place to place, for he could not go home without the prince.

Several months passed. Kali was delighted with Subuddhi’s sincere devotion, and one day she called him to her. “My son,” she said, “I am very pleased with you. You have done enough humble work here. Go back to your kingdom now. Your parents must be grieving for you. Go and comfort them.”

“Forgive me, goddess and mother,” replied Subuddhi, “but I no longer think of them as my parents. This forest is not so large. If they had really wanted to find me, they could have searched for me. Since they did not care, I will not care about them either. You are my father and my mother now. Let me spend the rest of my life serving you.” He begged so hard that the goddess let him stay, at least for a while.

After a few more months Kali called him again. “My boy,” she said, “I have thought of another plan. Since you do not want to go home, go somewhere else. Not far from here, in the Kaveri country, there rules a king who is a faithful worshipper of mine. His daughter had smallpox, and because he forgot to honour me properly, I took away the sight of both her eyes. The king has proclaimed that whoever cures her shall have her hand in marriage and the whole kingdom besides. He has hung up a bell, and any doctor who wants to try his skill strikes it. The king comes running at the sound, takes the doctor home and shows him his daughter. Many have tried and failed, for who can mend a harm sent by the gods? I have punished the king, yet I feel sorry for his daughter. Go there and ring the bell. When he takes you to her, rub my holy ashes on her eyes for three days in a row. Fools may laugh at such ashes, but a true worshipper can work wonders with them. On the fourth day her sight will be perfectly restored. Then you will win her hand, and the Kaveri kingdom too. Rule there, for you were born a prince, to reign and not to waste your days in a forest. If you refuse, you will do wrong and anger me.”

The prince did not dare refuse the goddess. With her many blessings, he set out and came to the kingdom of Kaveri. He struck the bell, and the king hurried out to welcome the new doctor. All the earlier physicians had tried medicines of every kind, but Subuddhi said he would treat the princess with mantras, holy words of power. The old king was very religious and trusted that this doctor might succeed. Just as he hoped, on the fourth day his daughter could see perfectly again.

The king was overjoyed. He asked about the young doctor’s family, and when he learned that he was a prince, as nobly born as the king himself, he was happier still. By his own proclamation he would have had to give his daughter to anyone who cured her, even the poorest beggar. So he thanked the god a thousand times for sending him a royal son-in-law. He arranged the wedding at once and married his daughter to Subuddhi. Being very old, he handed over the kingdom to the prince as well.

So, through Kali’s favour, Subuddhi had a princess for his wife and a kingdom to rule. Yet he remained as modest as ever. He asked his father-in-law’s advice on everything and acted only as the old man’s manager. Every evening he spent an hour or two with him before deciding difficult cases, and he left the signing of all papers to him, so that even on quiet days he visited him to have documents signed. In this way a couple of years went by.

One evening, after the day’s work, Subuddhi sat with his wife in the highest room of the palace, gazing down at the busy eastern street. Carts creaked under heavy loads, shopkeepers set out their goods with a flourish, smart gentlemen strolled up and down in their evening clothes, and hawkers pestered every passer-by. It pleased him, and even made him a little proud, to rule over such a rich country. But sweetness often comes mixed with bitterness. In that same street he noticed a man whose face seemed very familiar. The weary man was sitting on a ledge at the corner of a shop, mending torn sacks.

“Can that be Durbuddhi?” thought Subuddhi. “No, he looks so changed.” He looked harder, and at last he cried, “It is he! It is my old friend!”

“Who?” asked the princess, hurrying to his side. She had been watching his face as he stared into the street.

“My friend, the minister’s son, Durbuddhi,” said Subuddhi. “We were together from the day we were born. We played in the same dust and studied in the same school, and we were never apart. I cannot think what has brought him to this.” He sent someone to fetch him. But he said nothing to his gentle wife about the terrible thing Durbuddhi had done. She went off to her own rooms, because in this household she was expected to leave while her husband received visitors.

When Durbuddhi was brought in, the prince forgot all the cruelty he had suffered and wept to see his old friend. Durbuddhi no longer looked cheerful; travel and hardship had left him exhausted.

“I forgive you everything, dear Durbuddhi,” said Subuddhi through his tears. “Only tell me quickly how you came to such a sorry state.”

Durbuddhi wept too, or pretended to, for he was a scoundrel through and through. “My own wickedness brought me here,” he said. “After I blinded you and thought I had killed you, I went home, and my father banished me and told me never to come back without you. Since I believed you were dead, I never went back to that pool to look for you. I tried many places, and at last I found work as a porter in the streets of this town. And here I am.”

The prince forgot his friend’s cruelty entirely. He had Durbuddhi bathed and dressed in robes as rich as his own, told him everything that had happened to himself, and made him his minister on the spot. To his wife and her parents he told Durbuddhi’s whole story, leaving out only the blinding.

So, through Subuddhi’s generosity, Durbuddhi rose high once more. The prince even began sending him to the old king with papers to sign. For some months Durbuddhi was as obedient as could be, and with his sly ways he won the old king’s heart completely.

Then one evening, after the papers were signed, Durbuddhi lingered as though he wanted to say something.

“What do you want?” asked the old king.

“Only your good favour,” said Durbuddhi, and left. Day after day, week after week, he did the same, hanging about after the business was done and giving vague answers whenever the king asked why. At last the old king lost his temper, which was exactly what Durbuddhi intended.

“What a fool you are,” the king burst out, “standing there every day as if you mean to speak, and never saying a word!”

“Forgive me, my lord,” replied Durbuddhi. “I have been wondering whether to tell you a secret. I have decided to keep it to myself.”

“No, you shall tell me!” roared the king, whose curiosity was only sharpened by these mysterious words. Durbuddhi pretended to be very unwilling, and then began a long speech.

“My lord, ever since I arrived I have been learning about your noble family: the sacrifices you and your forefathers have made, the holy rites you have performed, and a thousand other things, any one of which would earn you a place in heaven itself. For a time all this delighted me. But when I compared the spotless fame of your family with that of your son-in-law, my heart began to ache, and it aches still. Know, then, that your son-in-law is not a true prince. He does have royal blood, which is why he looks like a king. But ask yourself how he came to be so skilled in medicine. My own king once rode out through the barbers’ street and saw a beautiful girl of that caste, and he took her into his palace in spite of her humble birth. Your son-in-law is her child. Because his mother came from a family of barbers, he learned the art of healing easily. Because his father was a king, he looks like a prince. If his birth were pure, why would he leave his own kingdom to come here and cure your daughter? Apart from him, everyone who came was simply a doctor by caste.”

With that, Durbuddhi picked up the papers and slipped out of the room as quickly as a snake that has just struck.

His smooth words, the thought of being tricked by a barber’s son, and the shame he imagined had fallen on his family clouded the old king’s judgement. He could see only one way to wipe out the disgrace: to have his daughter and son-in-law killed, and then to end his own life and the queen’s. At once he summoned the executioner and handed him his signet ring, ordering him to break into his son-in-law’s bedroom at midnight and kill the prince and his wife as they slept. An order given with the royal ring could never be disobeyed. The executioner bowed to the ground in obedience and went away to prepare for his dreadful task.

Neither Subuddhi nor his loving wife had any idea of this terrible order, and nor did the old queen or treacherous Durbuddhi. After giving the command, the old king shut himself up alone and wept as though his daughter were already gone.

Having lit the fire with his treachery, as a Tamil proverb puts it, Durbuddhi returned to the prince with the signed papers. It struck him that Subuddhi’s end was near, and he decided to claim the bargain they had made about the prince’s wife.

Subuddhi had always kept his promises faithfully, and for a while he did not know what to do. Should he keep his word and give up his wife, or break it to protect her? In the end he repeated to himself, “Charity alone conquers,” and trusted that Heaven would find some way to protect her. He went to his wife, explained how matters stood and told her to go to Durbuddhi. She felt unable to refuse him, though she was very unwilling. Then Subuddhi told Durbuddhi that he could have his wife as he had asked.

The princess ran to her mother in tears. “My husband has gone mad!” she cried. “Who else would promise his wife to another man? What can he mean by it?”

“Don’t be afraid, my daughter,” said the old queen. “Perhaps he made this foolish promise as a boy, without thinking, and now it troubles him. He cannot bring himself to break it, so he has left it to you to keep yourself safe. He will forgive you, and indeed he must, if you can protect yourself while seeming to keep his promise. And I know how. Your foster-sister looks exactly like you. I will send her in your place.” So she comforted her daughter and made all the arrangements at once. Subuddhi, of course, knew nothing about them.

In the middle of the night, the door was forced open, and the executioner rushed in with his sword drawn and struck down the two who were in the room. So on the very night when Durbuddhi’s wickedness reached its height, the narrator presents his death as Heaven’s judgment. Yet the innocent foster-sister was killed beside him.

Morning came. Subuddhi rose, said his prayers and took his seat in the council hall. The princess and her mother got up and went about their day. Just then a servant came running to the old queen.

“Our king is weeping in his room, saying that his daughter is dead,” said the servant. “I think his mind must be wandering today. Please come and comfort him.”

The queen, who knew nothing of what had happened, hurried to her husband, astonished. He told her everything: the wise-seeming minister’s son, the barber’s son who had married their daughter, and all the rest. And he finished by saying that their daughter and son-in-law were dead.

“Calm yourself!” said the queen. “Our son-in-law is sitting in his council hall, and our daughter is in her dressing room getting ready for the day. Were you dreaming? Have you lost your senses?”

The king sent for the executioner and found that the two he had struck down were the minister’s son and the foster-sister. The queen told her husband about the foolish one-day promise and how she had arranged things. The old king could make no sense of it at all. He drew his sword and rushed into the council hall like a maddened lion, and stood armed before his son-in-law.

“Tell me who you truly are,” he demanded. “Tell me everything, and tell me the truth. How did you learn medicine? If you are a prince, why did you leave your own kingdom and come here? What is this wicked promise to give your wife to another man? And who is this minister’s son?”

Subuddhi told him everything that had happened, leaving nothing out, not even the loss of his eyes. The old king threw down his sword and almost hugged him, so great was his joy at the way fate had saved them.

“My son, my life, my very eyes!” he cried. “It is true, it is true! Dharma alone conquers, and you, who hold to that motto, have conquered everything. That wretch played trick after trick on you, and still you protected him. His motto never won, though he never learned it. It was his own wickedness that destroyed him, on the very night he thought he had won.”

Letters went straight to Tevai, inviting King Suguna and the minister Dharmasila to share in the rejoicing over the rescue of the prince and princess, and a second wedding was held with great splendour to celebrate their lucky escape. The minister, who had always disliked his son, did not shed a single tear for him. Subuddhi lived a long life and was a great comfort to his own parents and his wife’s. And through the blessings of Kali, he and the princess had several clever sons.

About this story

This tale comes from Tales of the Sun; or, Folklore of Southern India (London, 1890), by Mrs. Howard Kingscote and Pandit Natesa Sastri. Their preface says the stories were heard from old women in the bazaars and passed on by servants, and that Natesa Sastri corrected them and kept the English close to a literal translation. The heading gives the motto in Tamil-English spelling as Dharmame jayam.

In the book, Durbuddhi tears out the prince’s eyes, and the death of the minister’s son and the innocent foster-sister is told more starkly. Those scenes are kept short here, and the prince’s boyhood promise is described plainly but without detail. Despite the shortened descriptions, its sexual coercion, caste prejudice and innocent victim make this a tale for mature discussion.

Read the original: Kingscote and Natesa Sastri, Tales of the Sun (Project Gutenberg #37002, Charity Alone Conquers)

Reading guidance: For mature readers. The tale contains deliberate blinding, despair about living with disability, sexual coercion, caste-based murder plans, threatened suicide and the killing of an innocent woman.

A closer reading

The two mottoes promise a clear contest between good and evil, but the events complicate that division. Subuddhi cares for the horses and forgives his attacker; he also hides the attack from his new family and gives its perpetrator power. Forgiveness of a personal injury is different from exposing uninformed people to the same person’s violence.

The wife states the central objection herself: her husband has no right to promise her to another man. The queen rescues her daughter by sending a foster-sister instead, transferring danger to someone with less power. The final celebration names the survival of the prince and princess, while the innocent woman’s death receives no repair. This cost prevents the ending from serving as a simple proof that goodness always wins.

Durbuddhi’s lie works because the old king treats caste ancestry as grounds for shame and killing. Whether that ancestry is true is beside the ethical point: no person’s parentage warrants violence. Similarly, the dialogue’s treatment of blindness as a life without value and illness as divine punishment belongs to this historical telling, not to facts about disability or disease. The miraculous ash cure is part of its supernatural plot.

Try this with the story

Put the final celebration beside a list of everyone affected: prince, princess, foster-sister, old king and Durbuddhi. Record who chooses, who is informed and who bears the consequences. Then assess the title’s claim from the foster-sister’s position, using two details from the story.

Think about it

• Which generous acts help others, and which decisions put others at risk?
• Why does the princess object to her husband’s promise?
• What does the foster-sister’s death do to the claim that charity has conquered?
• How does the old king’s caste prejudice enable Durbuddhi’s scheme?

You may also like

• Chandralekha and the Eight Robbers — another story from the same South Indian collection
• Good Will Grow Out of Good — another tale from Tales of the Sun about goodness being rewarded
• The Faithful Prince — another Indian tale about loyalty tested by treachery