The Poisoned Food

Near Vijayanagara a small river ran between mango topes. A young Brahmin pilgrim sat down in the cool shade, meaning to bathe, say his prayers, and dine on rice tied in his bundle.

Three days earlier an old Brahmin past seventy had come to the same spot. He had quarrelled with his family and fled to die. He had tasted no food since. The youth found him lying pitifully and set a share of rice beside him. The old man rose, went to the rivulet to wash his feet and hands, and speak a holy word or two before eating.

While he was at the water, a kite with a huge serpent in its beak alighted in the tree above the rice. As the bird tore the snake, poison dripped onto the food. The hungry elder did not see it when he returned. He ate the rice and fell dead at once.

The pilgrim ran to help and found life gone. He thought fasting and hasty eating had killed the man. Unwilling to leave the corpse for kites and jackals, he ran to the neighbouring village, told what had happened in the tope, and asked help to cremate the body.

The villagers suspected murder and robbery. They seized him, flogged him severely, and locked him in Kali’s temple. What a reward for hospitality!

The prisoner was a great pandit, learned in the Vedas and Sastras. In sorrow he sang verses of praise to the goddess. Hearing him, Kali’s rage fell on the villagers who had punished an innocent man. Fire suddenly destroyed the whole village; people lost their goods and were houseless. In extremity they came to the temple and begged to know the cause.

The goddess entered one of them and spoke: they had scourged and imprisoned a charitable, pious Brahmin without inquiry. The old man died from serpent poison dropped while a kite fed—not from the youth’s hand. For that injustice the village was visited with calamity. Beware, and avoid such sins.

Then Kali left that person. The villagers saw their grievous error, released the pilgrim, and implored forgiveness, which he readily granted. Thus an innocent man was charged with murder in return for benevolence.

About this story

“The Poisoned Food” is the fifth part of the Lost Camel romance in Tales of the Sun (1890), collected by Mrs. Howard Kingscote and Pandit Natesa Sastri. A footnote explains that “topes” are clumps of trees.

The book’s notes say the oldest form is in the Sanskrit Vetalapanchavimsati, the “Twenty-five Tales of a Vampyre,” where Harisvamin dies of rice poisoned by a snake carried by a kite and his hostess is blamed. A historical footnote dismisses claims of divine possession by contrasting educated and superstitious people. That generalization is the commentator’s judgment, not a neutral account of Hindu belief. The flogging is told briefly.

Read the original: Kingscote and Natesa Sastri, Tales of the Sun, 1890 (Project Gutenberg #37002)

Reading guidance: ages 9–12 with adult discussion. The tale includes an older man’s wish to die, poisoning, a severe flogging and destruction of a village.

A closer reading

The reader sees the kite and snake, but the pilgrim and villagers do not. Even the pilgrim’s explanation—fasting followed by hasty eating—is a guess. The villagers make a more damaging leap from an unexplained death to deliberate murder and robbery, punishing the one person who comes forward to request help.

Kali’s revelation supplies the knowledge missing from the human inquiry. Her destruction of the village also raises a question about collective punishment: the narrative does not distinguish each resident’s part in the beating. The central lesson against rash judgment can therefore be applied to the tale’s resolution as well as to its original accusation. The poison episode is a fictional plot device, not guidance for diagnosing a real death.

Try this with the story

Make three columns for what the reader, pilgrim and villagers know when the pilgrim asks for help. Mark the two untested explanations and identify which one leads to punishment. Explain what changes when the goddess reveals the unseen event.

Talk about it

• Why did the villagers blame the pilgrim instead of asking more questions?
• What does this story say about judging people quickly?
• If you had been one of the villagers, what would you have done when the pilgrim came for help?

Related stories

• The Wonderful Mango Fruit — another part of the same romance where a snake’s poison causes a terrible mistake
• The Lost Camel — the opening of this linked romance, where four travellers are wrongly accused of theft
• Retaliation — a South Indian tale about a goddess, a temple priest and the working of fate