The Indigent Brahman

There was once a Brahman with a wife and four children, and he was very poor. He had nothing of his own and lived mostly on gifts from the rich. He did well when there was a wedding or a funeral to perform, but the families he served did not marry every day, and they did not die every day either, so he found it hard to make ends meet. His wife often scolded him for not providing for her properly, and his children often went about hungry and with hardly a stitch on.

Poor as he was, though, he was a good man and faithful in his worship. Not a single day went by without his saying his prayers at the proper hours. His special goddess was Durga, the wife of Siva. He never drank a drop of water or ate a mouthful of food until he had written Durga’s name in red ink at least a hundred and eight times, and all day long he kept repeating, “O Durga! O Durga! Have mercy on me!” Whenever he worried about his poverty and how to feed his family, he would groan, “Durga! Durga! Durga!”

One day, feeling very low, he walked to a forest many miles from his village, and there he gave way to his sorrow and wept. “O Durga! O Mother Bhagavati!” he prayed. “Won’t you put an end to my misery? If I were alone in the world, I would not mind being poor, but you have given me a wife and children. Mother, give me the means to look after them.”

As it happened, Siva and Durga were taking their morning walk in that very place that day. Seeing the Brahman in the distance, the goddess said to her husband, “Lord of Kailas, do you see that Brahman? My name is always on his lips, and he keeps praying that I will rescue him from his troubles. Can’t we do something for the poor man, weighed down as he is by a growing family? Let us give him enough to live in comfort. He and his family never have enough to eat, so I suggest you give him a handi, an earthen pot, that will never stop giving mudki.”

Siva readily agreed, and by his word a pot with just that power appeared on the spot. Durga called the Brahman over. “Brahman,” she said, “I have often thought of your sad state, and your prayers have moved me at last. Here is a pot for you. Turn it upside down and shake it, and the finest mudki will pour out of it without stopping until you set it right way up again. You and your wife and children can eat as much as you please, and sell as much as you like.”

Overjoyed at such a priceless gift, the Brahman bowed low to the goddess, took the pot and set off home as fast as his legs would go. But he had not gone far before he wanted to see whether the pot really worked. He turned it over and shook it, and out tumbled a heap of the best mudki he had ever seen. He tied the sweets up in his sheet and walked on.

By now it was noon and he was hungry, but he could not eat before bathing and saying his prayers. Seeing an inn by the road with a tank of water close by, he decided to stop there, bathe, pray, and then enjoy his mudki. He sat down at the innkeeper’s shop with the pot beside him, smoked some tobacco and rubbed mustard oil on his body. Then, before going down to bathe, he left the pot with the innkeeper, begging him over and over to take special care of it.

While the Brahman was away at his bath and prayers, the innkeeper wondered why the man was so anxious about an earthen pot. There must be something valuable in it, he thought, or why would he make such a fuss? His curiosity aroused, he looked inside and was surprised to find it empty. What could this mean? Why would anyone worry so much about an empty pot? He picked it up and examined it carefully, and when he happened to turn it upside down, a stream of the finest mudki came pouring out and kept on pouring. He called his wife and children to see this unexpected piece of luck. The sweets came down so thickly that they filled every pot and jar in the house. The innkeeper made up his mind to keep the marvellous pot for himself, and he put another of the same size and shape in its place.

The Brahman came back from his bath in his wet clothes, reciting holy verses. He changed into dry clothes, wrote Durga’s name a hundred and eight times in red ink, and then broke his fast on the mudki the pot had already given him. Refreshed, he was ready to go on home, and he asked for his pot. “There you are, sir,” said the innkeeper, handing it over. “Just where you left it. Nobody has touched it.”

Suspecting nothing, the Brahman took the pot and went on his way, congratulating himself on his wonderful luck. “What a lovely surprise for my poor wife!” he thought. “How the children will gobble the mudki that heaven itself has made! I shall soon be rich, and hold my head up with the best of them.” These happy thoughts made the long walk much easier.

When he got home, he called his wife and children. “Look what I’ve brought,” he said. “This pot will never fail to make us rich and happy. Watch what a stream of the finest mudki comes out of it when I turn it over.” His good wife, hearing about sweets pouring endlessly from a pot, thought her husband had gone mad, and she was sure of it when nothing at all came out, however many times he turned it over. Heartbroken, the Brahman realised that the innkeeper must have tricked him and swapped Durga’s pot for an ordinary one. The next day he went back and accused the innkeeper of changing his pot. The innkeeper pretended to fly into a rage, declared himself amazed that the Brahman should have the cheek to call him a thief, and chased him out of the shop.

Then the Brahman thought he would go back to the goddess who had given him the pot, and he went to the forest where he had met her. Siva and Durga appeared to him again. “So you have lost the pot I gave you,” said Durga. “Here is another. Take it and use it well.” Delighted, the Brahman bowed to the divine pair, took the pot and set off. He had not gone far when he turned it over and shook it to see whether mudki would come out. What a fright he got! Instead of sweets, about twenty huge, fierce-looking demons leapt out of the pot and began pounding the astonished Brahman with punches, blows and kicks. He kept his head, turned the pot right way up and covered it, and at once the demons vanished.

He decided that this new pot had been given to him only to punish the innkeeper. So he went to the inn, handed the new pot to the innkeeper and begged him to look after it carefully until he came back from his bath and prayers. The innkeeper was thrilled with this second stroke of luck. He called his wife and children. “Here’s another pot,” he said, “brought by the same Brahman who brought the mudki pot. This time I hope it’s sandesa, not mudki. Get your baskets and jars ready, and I’ll turn it over and shake it.” No sooner had he done so than dozens of fierce demons sprang out, seized the innkeeper and his family and beat them without mercy. They also began wrecking the shop, and they would have destroyed it completely if the victims had not begged the Brahman, who was back from his bath by now, to have pity on them and send the dreadful demons away. The Brahman agreed. He closed the pot and the demons disappeared. He got his first pot back and went home to his village with both of them.

At home the Brahman shut the door, turned the mudki pot upside down and shook it, and out came an endless stream of mudki finer than any confectioner in the land could make. He, his wife and their children ate the sweets to their hearts’ content and filled every earthen pot and pan in the house. The Brahman decided that the next day he would become a confectioner, open a shop in his house and sell mudki. On the day the shop opened, the whole village came to buy the wonderful sweets. They had never tasted mudki like it, so sweet, so white, so big and so rich. Within a few days its fame had spread beyond the village, and people came from far away to buy it. Cartloads were sold every day, and soon the Brahman was very rich. He built a big brick house and lived like a nobleman.

Once, though, everything nearly went to ruin. One day his children shook the wrong pot by mistake, and a crowd of demons dropped out, grabbed the Brahman’s wife and children and began hitting them cruelly. Luckily the Brahman came in just then and turned the pot right way up. To stop such a disaster happening again, he locked the demon pot in a private room where the children could not get at it.

But nobody’s good fortune lasts for ever without a break. The demon pot was safely put away, but what was to stop an accident happening to the mudki pot? One day, while the Brahman and his wife were out, the children decided to shake it. Each of them wanted the fun of shaking it, so they all fought over it, and in the scuffle the pot fell on the floor and broke. When the Brahman came home and heard what had happened, he was terribly sad. The Brahman beat the children, but hurting them could not bring back the magic pot.

A few days later he made his way to the forest and prayed long and hard for Durga’s help. At last Siva and Durga appeared to him and heard that the pot was broken. Durga gave him another, with a warning: “Brahman, look after this pot. Break it or lose it a second time, and I will not give you another.” The Brahman bowed and went straight home without stopping anywhere. He shut the door, called his wife, turned the pot over and began to shake it. They expected mudki, but instead an endless stream of beautiful sandesa came out. And what sandesa! No confectioner in the Burra Bazar ever made the like; it was more fit for gods than for people. The Brahman promptly opened a sandesa shop, and its fame soon brought customers from all over the country. At every festival, every wedding feast, every funeral and every puja, nobody would buy anyone else’s sandesa. Every day and every hour, giant jars full of the delicious sweets were sent off to every corner of the land.

The Brahman’s wealth made the zemindar, the village landlord, jealous. He had heard that the sandesa was not made at all but poured out of a pot, and he thought of a way to get hold of it. When his son was married, he gave a great feast and invited hundreds of guests. Since mountains of sandesa would be needed, the zemindar said the Brahman should bring his magic pot to the house where the feast was being held. At first the Brahman refused, but the zemindar insisted, and at last he unwillingly agreed. When whole Himalayas of sandesa had poured out, the zemindar seized the pot, and the Brahman was insulted and thrown out of the house.

Without showing the least sign of anger, the Brahman calmly went home, picked up the demon pot and came back to the zemindar’s door. He turned it over and shook it, and a hundred demons leapt out and caused an uproar beyond description. They grabbed the hundreds of feast guests and thrashed them, and the stout zemindar was chased from room to room like a bale of cotton. If the demons had carried on for a few minutes more, the house itself would have been levelled. The zemindar threw himself at the Brahman’s feet and begged for mercy. The Brahman showed him mercy and called the demons off. After that, neither the zemindar nor anyone else ever troubled him, and he lived for many years in great happiness and comfort.

Where this tale comes from

“The Indigent Brahman” is the third story in Lal Behari Day’s Folk-Tales of Bengal. Day’s own notes explain the key words: a handi is an earthen cooking pot, mudki is fried paddy boiled dry in treacle or sugar, and sandesa is a sweet made of curds and sugar.

Day wrote in his preface that every traditional Bengali storyteller closed a tale with the same rhyme about a withering Natiya-thorn, and he admitted he did not know what it meant. He prints its opening lines at the end of this story too.

Read the original: Lal Behari Day, Folk-Tales of Bengal (Gutenberg ebook 38488)

Reading guidance: Ages 9–12 with adult guidance; repeated magical beatings include children, a parent and innocent wedding guests. The comic framing does not make those harms deserved.

A closer reading

The two similar pots make abundance and violence look deceptively alike. Both require knowledge of how to start and stop them, yet the Brahman initially keeps them where his family can confuse them. The accidental attack on his wife and children changes the second pot from a convenient punishment into a danger within his own household.

The thefts also differ in power. The innkeeper substitutes an object entrusted to him; the landlord uses his authority and a wedding request to take the later gift. Recovering stolen property is understandable, but the final attack also hurts wedding guests who did not commit the theft. The comic resolution leaves readers room to question both indiscriminate retaliation and the beating of the children after the first pot breaks.

Try this with the story

Make three rows for the inn, the family’s accident and the wedding. In each, name who opens the demon pot, who is hurt and who can stop it. Decide which victims had any part in the original wrong.

Talk about it

• Why does owning both pots create a new responsibility?
• How does the landlord’s theft differ from the innkeeper’s?
• Who is hurt at the wedding besides the person who stole the pot?
• Why does beating the children fail to repair the loss?

More stories like this

• The Grinding-Stone That Ground Flour By Itself — another magic food-giver that is lost through greed
• The Ghost-Brahman — another poor Brahman in Day’s book
• The Match-Making Jackal — a Bengali trickster tale from the same collection