The Story of Appayya

In a far-off village there lived a poor Brahman and his wife. They had been married for many years, but they had no children, and the Brahman wanted a child so badly that he decided to take a second wife. For a long time his first wife would not hear of it. But when she saw that his mind was made up, she gave in, secretly telling herself that sooner or later she would find a way to be rid of the newcomer.

So the Brahman married a lovely young bride, and she came to live in the same house as the first wife. The first wife was clever. She knew that if she did anything at once, people would suspect her, so she bided her time.

After a year the young wife was expecting a baby. In this telling, she went home to her mother’s house to wait for the birth. For two weeks the Brahman put up with being apart from her, but then he began to miss her terribly, and he kept asking his first wife when he might go and visit.

The first wife seemed full of sympathy. “My dear husband,” she said, “you are pining away. You must go to her tomorrow. They say one should never visit a child, a king or a mother-to-be with empty hands, so I shall make a hundred apupa cakes for you to take her. I know how much you love apupas, so promise me you will not nibble any on the way. I will pack some separately for you to eat on your journey.”

All night long she worked at the cakes. Into the sugar and rice flour of the hundred cakes meant for the young wife she stirred a deadly poison. But she bore her husband no ill will, so the cakes for his journey were wholesome. By dawn the hundred cakes were packed in a brass pot that a man could carry on his head.

After a light breakfast, the Brahman set the brass pot on his head, took his own cakes tied up in a cloth, and set out for his second wife’s village, two days’ walk away. He hurried along so fast that by nightfall he was worn out and very hungry. Near the road he saw a pool and an open shed. He bathed in the pool and said his evening prayers to the setting sun, and then he untied his cloth and gobbled every one of his cakes. Then he drank some water, lay down in the shed with the brass pot for a pillow, and fell fast asleep.

Now, not far from that place lived a king with a beautiful daughter. Many men wished to marry her, and one of them was a robber chief who wanted her as a bride for his only son. The king liked the young man, who was handsome, but he could not bring himself to give his daughter to a robber’s son. The robber chief decided to take her anyway. He sent a hundred of his men to carry her off in the night.

That very night the robbers crept into the palace and stole the sleeping princess, bed and all. On their way back to the woods they came to the shed by the pool. They were thirsty, so they set the bed down and were about to go into the water to drink when they smelled something sweet. Searching the shed, they found the Brahman asleep, and beside him, where he had pushed it away in his sleep, the brass pot. Inside were exactly one hundred apupa cakes.

“One for each of us!” said the leader. “That is better than plain water. Let’s eat before we drink.”

Each man gulped down a cake, and at once all hundred of them fell to the ground and lay there without moving. The poison had done its work. The robbers had no idea of the first wife’s trick, or they would never have touched the cakes. And it was lucky that the Brahman had no idea either, or he would never have carried them for his young wife. Lucky for him, lucky for his second wife, and lucky for the sleeping princess that those cakes ended up where they did!

When the Brahman woke, his head full of dreams of his young wife, he jumped up to be on his way. But his brass pot was gone! All around the shed lay a crowd of armed men, whom he took to be robbers. He thought they were sleeping after stuffing themselves with his cakes. Furious, he snatched up a sword from one of them and struck at each one in turn, never guessing that they were dead already.

Then he noticed the bed, and on it a beautiful young woman, still asleep. The Brahman was no fool. He guessed at once that these men must have been villains who had carried her off. And sure enough, a moment later he saw an army hurrying towards him, led by a king who was shouting, “Down with the robber who stole my daughter!”

Quickly the Brahman woke the princess. “Look,” he said, pointing to the robbers. “These are the hundred villains who carried you away from your palace a few hours ago. I fought every one of them single-handed, and I have defeated them all.”

The princess was overjoyed, for she knew how often the robbers had tried to snatch her. She bowed at his feet. “Never have I heard of a warrior who fought a hundred robbers alone,” she said. “There is nobody as brave as you. I will be your wife, to thank you for saving me from those wicked men.”

By now her father had arrived. He had been keeping an eye on the robber chief, and the moment the maids told him the princess was missing, bed and all, he had marched straight for the woods. He threw his arms around his daughter, and she pointed to the Brahman and told him who had saved her. The king asked the hero a thousand questions about the fight, and the Brahman, who knew a good deal about fighting, answered every one convincingly. The amazed king took him back to the palace and gave him the princess as his bride. As for the robber chief, he was so afraid of a man who could defeat a hundred robbers single-handed that he left the princess alone after that.

Not far from that kingdom there lived a fierce lioness in a wood. She hunted people, and to keep her away from the town the king had to send a man into the wood every week. Now the people came to the king.

“Your Majesty,” they said, “why must we send one of our own into the wood each week, when your son-in-law has beaten a hundred robbers with one sword? Send him next week and let him kill the lioness!”

The king thought this made good sense. He called his son-in-law, armed him from head to foot and sent him off into the wood.

The poor Brahman did not dare refuse, or his great fame would be lost. Hoping that luck would be with him, he asked to be lifted up into a big banyan tree with all his weapons. When the lioness’s usual time came and nobody appeared, she grew suspicious. Sometimes, she knew, people hid in that very tree for a while, so she padded over to look.

The Brahman shook so hard with fright that his sword slipped from his hand. At that very moment the lioness looked up and gave a great yawn, and the sword fell straight into her open mouth and killed her.

When he saw what had happened, the Brahman climbed down and made up a thousand stories about his terrible battle with the lioness. Now nobody could doubt his courage. There were feasts and celebrations, and the whole country praised the king’s son-in-law.

Nearby there was also a powerful emperor named Appayya Raja, who made all the kingdoms around him pay him tribute. The Brahman’s father-in-law was one of them. But now, trusting in his heroic son-in-law, he stopped paying. Appayya Raja marched in with his army at once, and the old king begged the Brahman for help.

Once more the Brahman could not refuse without losing his fame, so he decided to trust to luck again. He asked for the finest horse in the stables and the keenest sword. The enemy army had camped on the far side of the river, a little way east of the town.

The king gave him a wild horse that had never been ridden, and a sharp blade. The Brahman, who could barely ride, asked the servants to tie him tightly to the saddle with cotton cords. Then he set off.

The horse had never had a rider on its back before. It bolted. It flew along so fast that everyone watching was sure the rider would be killed, and the Brahman himself was half dead with fear. The harder he pulled on the reins, the faster it went, until he gave up and let it run. It plunged into the river and swam across, and the water soaked the cotton cords so that they swelled and squeezed him painfully.

On the far bank stood a tall palmyra palm that a recent flood had almost torn out of the ground. As the horse raced past, the Brahman grabbed the trunk, hoping to stop it. But the tree came away in his arms, roots and all, and the horse galloped on. Now he did not know which was more dangerous, letting go or holding on. The tight wet cords hurt so much that he cried out in despair, “Appa! Ayya!” which in Tamil means “Ah! Alas!”

From far away, it looked to everyone as if he were charging into battle armed with a whole palm tree. And the enemy emperor, whose name was Appayya, thought this wild warrior was shouting out his name as a challenge! Terrified at the sight of a man waving a tree, he turned and ran, and as the saying goes, as the king does, so do his people: his whole army ran after him. The Brahman went on after them, or rather the horse did, and the great army scattered in the blink of an eye. At last the tired horse turned for home.

The old king had watched the whole thing from the highest room in his palace, and he was sure his son-in-law had driven off the enemy single-handed. He came out in great state to meet him. Eager hands cut the cords, and the old king hugged him with tears of joy, saying that the whole kingdom owed him everything. There was a splendid victory parade, and every eye in the town was on the hero.

So three times fortune smiled on the poor Brahman and made him famous. Now he sent for his first two wives and brought them to live in his palace. The second wife came with a baby son, more than a year old.

The first wife confessed what she had done with the cakes and begged him to forgive her, and only then did the Brahman understand that the hundred robbers he had attacked were dead from the poison all along. But her wickedness had given him a whole new life, so he forgave her. She made peace with the other two wives, and the four of them shared one happy, comfortable home for many years.

About this tale

Mrs. Howard Kingscote and Pandit Natesa Sastri included this comic tale in Tales of the Sun; or, Folklore of Southern India (W. H. Allen, 1890). A footnote by R. C. Temple compares it with “Fattu, the Valiant Weaver”, and another footnote explains that “appa” and “ayya” are Tamil cries of lament meaning “Ah! Alas!”, which is why the enemy king Appayya thinks he hears his own name.

Some things are told more gently here. In the original the Brahman cuts off the heads of the dead robbers and the lioness eats a person every week; here the beheadings are omitted, but the men’s deaths and the weekly sending of a person to the lioness remain. The book begins the tale with a short Sanskrit verse, which is left out.

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

Reading guidance: For mature readers. This dark comedy includes an attempt to poison a pregnant wife, mass death, attacks on bodies, abduction, and a person sent regularly to a man-eating lioness.

A closer reading

The reader sees causes that the spectators miss: poisoned cakes, a dropped sword, and a frightened rider unable to stop. The king sees only the aftermath and supplies the heroic explanation himself. Each celebration then commits the Brahman to a larger danger, until one false reputation helps provoke a war.

The final cry completes this pattern through sound: the rider expresses distress, while Appayya Raja hears his own name as a challenge. Appayya is the enemy emperor’s name, not a new name awarded to the Brahman. The apparent victory depends as much on the emperor’s interpretation as on the uprooted tree.

The reconciliation closes the household plot from the husband’s point of view. His good fortune does not make the attempted poisoning harmless, and the young wife’s wishes receive little attention. Readers can recognize the comic reversals while questioning a happy ending measured chiefly by the man’s wealth and reputation.

Try this with the story

Make three columns headed accident, public explanation and next demand. Fill them for the cakes, lioness and horse. Then discuss which characters could have corrected the account and what each stood to lose by speaking.

Questions to ask

• How did the first wife’s wicked plan end up saving the princess?
• Was the Brahman really brave? What do you think he felt each time?
• Why did the enemy king run away?
• Why do you think the Brahman forgave his first wife?

You may also like

• The Foolish Weaver — another tale of a foolish hero from Lang’s fairy books
• The Monkey With The Tom Tom — another tale from Tales of the Sun
• The Soothsayer’s Son — another South Indian tale of fate and luck