domesticating the cosmos history and structure in a folktale from india

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Domesticating the Cosmos: History and Structure in a Folktale from IndiaAuthor(s): Stuart H. BlackburnSource: The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 45, No. 3 (May, 1986), pp. 527-543Published by: Association for Asian Studies

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VOL. XLV, No. 3 JOURNAL OF ASIAN STUDIES MAY 1986

Domesticating the Cosmos: History andStructure in a Folktale from India

STUART H. BLACKBURN

folktale about two sisters who make a wager on the color of a white elephant

(or horse) has been told in India for three thousandyears. It may be among theoldest surviving tales in the world, since only isolated motifs, and not full tales, have

survivedfrom the literatures of ancient Egypt, Babylonia, and Greece;1certainly the

story is one of the oldest tales still told in India. This historyof the tale is noteworthy

in itself because it corrects a common assumption among folklorists that India tale

literature, from which many Europeantales derive, begins with the Buddhistjdtakas(c. 300 B.C.) or the Pancatantraa century or more later.2

However, more than history is contained in the continuity of this folktale. Like

many folktales, it is also embedded within a larger story, or "frame" ext. Although

it is widely acknowledged that an analysis of the embedded tale must consider its

frametext, the present essay suggests, more specifically, that the structural relationbetween tale and frame is a microcosm of wider cultural relations. My analysis will

follow the tale through four major variants and their frame texts: a Vedic ritual

manual, c. 1000 B.C.; the Mahdbhdrata pic, c. 400 B.C.-A.D. 400; a collection of

stories, Kathdsaritsdgara,. A.D. 1100; and a modern Tamil oral tradition. The fact

that the first three of the frame texts are from Sanskrit literature is worth noting

because it superimposesa cultural contrast between folk (tale) and classical (frame)

upon the ordinarynarrativerelation between folktale and its frame.3An examination

of this double-layeredstructure will show not only that the embedded tale is linked

to its surroundingframeby common themes, but also that it is set against that frame

in an unchanging role of domesticating the cosmos.

The Tale in Sanskrit Literature

The earliest variantof the tale of the wagering sisters is buried in the Satapatha

Brdhmana,a Sanskrit ritual manual of instructions and commentary on the soma rites

performed by Brahmins.4This first frametext, then, is clearly not folk; it is instead

an esoteric text, of which the Indologist F. Max Muller said that no one "could read

more than ten pages without being disgusted" (Winternitz 1927, vol. 1:187). At

Stuart H. Blackburn is a ResearchAssociate atthe Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies,University of California, Berkeley.

IFor a discussion of these surviving motifs, see

Thompson 1946:266-67, 272-82.2

A representative statement is found in StithThompson's study of the folktale (Thompson

1946:312- 13); for a more accurateassessment, seeDimock et al. 1974: 198ff.

3 O'Flaherty (1985:9- 15) has reopened thediscussion of the relation between folklore and thebrcihmanaiterature.

4 Allusions to the sisters' wager do occur earlierin Vedic literature (see Knipe 1967 and Charpen-tier 1920:125-54).

527







528 STUART H. BLACKBURN

one point in this Sanskrit text (3,6,3,2), the gods desire the soma (amrtaor "am-

brosia") hat is in heavenwhile they are on earth. To obtainthis nectar, "theyproducedthose two illusions, Suparniand Kadr-u" nd "produceddiscord between them" (Eg-

geling 1885:149). These two women then wagerthat the one who can see the furthestwill "win the other" (ibid.). Suparni looks across the ocean and sees a white horseon the far shore, whereas Kadru is able to discern also its tail tossed by the wind.Suparni flies overthe oceanto verify their claims and returnsto report that the winneris Kadrui,who promptly ordersSuparni to fetch the soma and redeemherself. Suparni

accomplishes this by creating the poetic meters that, in the metaphorical language

of these Vedic texts, bring the soma from heaven to earth.

The sisters' wager in this first variant is used to perform and to explain the ritual

function of procuring soma for the sacrifice. This much is explicit in the statementthat the gods producedSuparniand Kadruto gain the soma. But why is the folktale,which shifts the tone of the text, inserted at this point? The incorporatedtale, al-though speaking in a different voice, actually reinforcesthe theme of competition

present in the text and the ritual it explains. Vedic sacrifice, as Indologists (especially

Heesterman 1964) have pointed out, is essentially "agonistic" and may have been a

"verbalcontest" (Kuiper 1960). The verbal contest or wager in the embedded taleis thus thematically isomorphic with the ritual frame text. Furthermore,by incor-

porating the tale, the frame text is able to hint at an association between the twosisters and the cosmological spheresof heaven and earth (or lower worlds), as Dange

(1969:139) has pointed out. Finally, although they do compete, the relationship

between the sisters is basedon trust: Kadriu ends Suparnito check their rival claimsabout the horse and its tail, and Suparnitruthfully reports her own loss.

Both the alignment of the wageringsisters with cosmic categoriesand (asa result)the oppositional nature of their relationship are more pronouncedby the time of the

Mahdbhdrata.The variantof the tale embedded in the epic is itself long and providesan etiological basis for the wager by extending the narrativebackward n time.5 Now

Kadriuand Vinata (Suparni)are sisters, wives of the sage Kasyapa, who offers eachof them a boon. Kadriuchooses one thousand sons; Vinata settles for two, but sheadds that they must exceed Kadriu's ons in strength and beauty. The sisters lay eggsthat are put in a pot and kept boiling for five hundred years. When Kadru's eggs

hatch into a thousand snakes (nogas), the impatient and embarrassedVinata breaksopen one of her eggs and finds a half-formedembryo (later Aruna), who curses herto be enslaved and then to be freed by a second son (Garuda)who will be born later.Now we know that the laterwagerabout the horse is only a manifestation of an oldersororaljealousy,which is expressedhere in cosmological terms: Vinata'sson, Garuda,the sun-bird of the heavens, versus Kadriu's ons, the snakes (nogas) of the nether

world.

The appearanceof the white horse in the epic variantis also given a minor frame

text, for it arises when the gods and demons churn the milky ocean. The sisters seethe horse, and Vinata quite reasonablysays it is white; however, Kadriu alls it black

and then orders her thousandsnake-sons to change the color of the horse by affixingthemselves to its tail. From this deception, the folktale moves into an elaborate

description of the conflict between the sisters' sons, Garuda, and the ndgas. In order

5 My summary follows van Buitenen's (1973)

translation. Another version of the sisters' wageris found in the Suparndkhydna, Sanskrit text (but

one outside the Vedic cult) dated a few centuriesbefore the Mahabhdrata see Charpentier 1920).







HISTORY AND STRUCTURE IN A FOLKTALE FROM INDIA 529

to free his mother, Garuda wins the soma from Indra, devouring various creatures

in the process; then he conspireswith Indra to deceive the ndgasin return for Indra's

boon that he (Garuda)may continue to feed on the snakes.

This second variant of the tale, much like that in the Vedic text, is shaped inimportant ways by its frame text, the Mahdbhdrata.The epic, a narrative of human

warfare,is placed within another story of the conflict between the dark forces of the

ndgasand the good sages and kings, who (like Garuda) want to destroy the snakes,and this conflict, in turn, is only another form of that between the gods and demons.

These multiple conflicts in the frame text press their stamp upon the embedded tale

so that the sisters become mothers of leaders of opposing cosmological camps. The

relationship of the sisters also changes from trust to deceit, an element introduced

by the episode of the churning of the ocean that has been inserted into the frame

text: Visnu tricks the demons out of the soma when it arises from the ocean, and

Kadra cheats Vinata by changing the color of the horse's tail. Deceit appearsat the

end of the story also, demonstrating the thematic parallelism between tale and frame,

when Garuda and Indra deceive the demons and once again steal the soma.

The effect of the frame upon the embedded tale takes a different turn in the third

variant of the tale. In the Kathdsaritsdgara, medieval collection of literary tales in

Sanskrit, the folktale about the wagering sisters is insertedwithin a frametext, which

(like most of the collection) has a moral message.6 The tale is narrated to a good

prince, the protagonist of the frametext, by a snake-man when the prince finds him

weeping by the ocean. The snake-man explains that the ndgas made a pact with

Garuda: in order to halt his wholesale massacre of their race, Garuda is to eat onlyone snake a day, and he (the snake-man) is that day's intended victim. The good

prince then substitutes himself for the innocent snake-man, and the frame text con-

cludes that compassion wins religious merit.

Here we observe the effect of the frame text more clearly than we did in the

earlier instances. In narrative terms, this third variant of the tale is essentially a

summaryof the secondvariant in the Mahdbhdratawith minor changesin the identity

of the horse and the means for blackening it), but its meaning is very different. There

is a sharp shift in emphasis away from the opposition between gods and demons/

n gas toward the wickedness of Garuda'sdestruction of the ndga race. This shift

reverses the relation between the tale and its frame in another way, too. Whereas

the tale was used to illustrate a cosmic conflict in human terms in the earlier cases,in this case the tale introduces that same conflict to comment on human morality.

It appearsthat the epic telling of the tale, which aligned the sisters with the major

structuralopposition of classical Hindu mythology, became its standardversion. For

the composersand redactorsof the Kathasaritsdgara,t least, the storyof the wagering

sisters, once a folktale incorporated nto classicalliterature, had become a part of that

literature that could then be inserted into a collection of popular stories.

The developments in the tale of the wagering sisters discussed above are sugges-

tive, based as they are on only a few pieces of textual history. However, they takeon a more definite shape when we consider another variant of the tale that is longer

and more elaborate than the others, and which has been recordedin severalversions

directly from the performancecontext.

6Penzer 1924- 1928, vol. 2:150ff. The tale of

the wagering sisters is also briefly retold in anotherSanskrit text, the Nilamata, from Kashmir (Vogel

1926:235).







5 30 STUART H. BLACKBURN

The Tale in a Modern Folk Tradition

At the very southern tip of the Indiansubcontinent, in the Tinnevelly and Kanya

Kumari districts of Tamil Nadu, stories of local gods and goddesses are sung in afolk tradition known as "bow song" (vilpdttu), named for the long bow that is playedas a musical instrument.7 Bow song performances, long hours of singing and music

by a group of low-caste men, are part of an annual festival held in small, locally

controlled temples and shrines. Performancesare rituals, extended invocations that

summon the gods and goddesses to the temple by reciting their histories. In Kanya

Kumari district, the most popular folk goddess, whose story is sung in hundreds of

temples each year, is Muttar Amman. One segment of her myth is the tale of the

wagering sisters, locally called "the Naka Kanni Story" (Ndka Kanni[Snake-Maiden)Katai).

Texts of the Muttar Amman myth, in palm-leaf manuscripts, printed pamphlets,and hand-written notebooks, areapproximatelyfour thousand lines and require about

eight hours to be sung in full. Most performances, however, last only half that time,

and thus much of the written text is eliminated. The only portion of the text to be

expanded is the Naka Kanni story; in fact, it has -become the centerpiece of oral

performancesof the Muttar Amman myth.

Although performancesreduce the Muttar Amman myth and expand the Naka

Kanni tale within it, this does not mean that the written texts have no influence on

the oral tradition. On the contrary, when the singers sing portions of the texts, they

follow them closely, sometimes verbatim for a run of ten or more lines. Performancesadhereto the written texts because the ability to summon deities is indispensable to

the success of a festival; narrativeaccuracy, it is thought, guarantees ritual efficacy.

Today palm-leaf manuscripts arerare, and most singers possess only hand-written

(pen on paper) notebooks, copied from a palm-leaf manuscript, printed pamphlet,

or another hand-written text (but only if one of these secondary texts is considered

a scrupulous redaction from a palm-leaf original). The hand-written texts are then

used as aide-memoire while the singers are training and during their performing

careers. A copy of the Muttar Amman myth is especially valuable because without

it, singers would lose potential patronage from the many temples in which her story

is sung. The most accomplished singers have committed the entire (performed) textto memory, but they are free to improvise by rearrangingverses, by digressing into

varioustopics in the spokencommentary(vacanoam)n the sung verses, and by choosingthe events they wish to sing. In no case of the eight Muttar Amman performances

that I heard was the Naka Kanni story left out. Rather, improvisation consisted of

the positioning of the story within the frame myth. Some singers preferred to go

directly to the tale by quickly summarizingthe long portion of the myth that precededit; others enjoyed drawing out that portion of the myth and slowly leading into the

folktale.

The Muttar Amman myth begins as a crow knocks over the water pot of a sage

who is meditating on a mountain top. Disgusted, the sage leaves and crosses the

seven seas until he reaches the seventh island, where he sees a snake crawl out of a

pot of ambrosia. Chanting mantras over the pot, the sage causes the birth of seven

raksasa,"demon," women who demand that he give them the boon of sons without

7This Tamil folk tradition was the subject of

my field research from 1977 to 1979; excerpts

translated in this essay are from recordings madein the field.








husbands. The sage refuses and leaves, and the women worship Siva and ask for the

same boon, but the god also refuses the impossible request until Parvati, his wife,

intervenes. Siva relents and sends a second sage, who cooks three stones in a fire and

gives them to the three women to eat; they immediately give painless birth to three

sons and then they flee. Again Siva sends help in the form of the bull Nandi, who

becomes the sons' protector, but when Nandi tries to admit the sons into Kailasa

(Siva's heaven), they are barred and must return to earth.

Meanwhile, the second sage preparesa second sacrificial fire that covers Kailasa

with its smoke and forces the gods to light lamps. Intense heat from the torches

causes Parvati to sweat, and one droplet falls directly into the fire, from which arises

the goddess MuttarAmman. She is then dispatched to protect the three sons(demons)

left motherless on earth. With them, she builds the Triple City, after which the

demon sons become arrogantand irreverent, forget Nandi's teachings,and harrass

the gods, who, as usual, complain to Siva.

These motifs-snakes and pots, sacrificial iresandsweating goddesses-are com-

mon in classical Hindu mythology. In fact, the Muttar Amman myth is itself de-

rivative of the classical myth of the Triple City and follows the general sequence of

events in it: the Triple City is built by demons; they challenge the gods; and Siva

destroys them in the end.8 The folk myth, however, differs from its classical source

in several major episodes: the sons of the Triple City are born to the rdksasawomen,

and not from the blood of the demon King Taruka;Taruka is killed by a goddess

(Bhadrakali), not by Siva's son, Skanda; and the boon for constructing the city is

given by Siva, not by Brahma.Moreover, the folk myth adds episodes unknown to the classical myth of the

Triple City. For example, Siva is sympathetic to the gods, yet he punishes them by

sending them on three doomed missions to test their devotion. Carryingdirt, then

flowers, and finally a pot of honey-milk, the gods are sent out chanting Siva's names

as they march up to the rampartsof the Triple City, in a direct challenge to the

demons, and each time, when the demons hear the gods' procession, they act de-

monically-they fry and devour dried fish, drink large quantities of liquor, boast of

their prowess, and then swagger out to meet the pious, chanting gods. The demons

demand that the items carried by the gods be handed over to them for inspection,

but the gods declaretheir loyalty to Siva and are beaten senseless. With brokenteeth,torn garlands, shaven heads, and bruised bodies, the gods straggle back to Mount

Kailasa, only to be sent out again with the same result.

Stalemated in his struggle with the demons, Siva turns to Parvati for help, and

she gives her stock reply: "Look You've done it again-given another stupid boon

to the demons; there's only one person who can save us now, my brother Gopalan,

the great Visnu." At this point, the singers make the transition to the Naka Kanni

story, for in order to bring Visnu, one needs his bird-mount, Garuda, who has been

linked to the folktale since the time of the epic variant as the son of Vinata. After

one or two invocatory verses, the singers introduce the sisters:9

DaksaRajahad 150 children; 100 sons and 50 daughters; ll the sons meditatedon Siva,reachedBrahma'sworld, disappearednto a fiery akeandwere neverseen

again.

8 For a translation of one classical variant of

the Triple City myth, see O'Flaherty 1975:125-

36.

9 Note that this and subsequent translationsinclude prose, poetry, and song.








"All one hundredof them?""Every ast one ""Whataboutthe daughters?"

"Twenty-seven f them were married o the Moon, and thirteen to the sageKasyapa."

"Twenty-sevenndthirteenmakesforty;what about the other ten?""Did the sages reallyhavethat manywives?Good Lord f we had even half as

many, nothing would go right.""The rest were married o VikraMuni and then . .

"Letthat story be, tonight we aregoing to tell the storyof two of Kasyapa'sdaughters:Kaduravi r Naka KanniandVin6tior TevaKanni."10

Although the numbers are different, this folk genealogy of the sisters agrees in

large part with the classical accounts. Even the confusion in the above excerpt about

whether the sisters are wives ordaughters of Kasyaparepresentsa continuity inasmuch

as both of these kin roles are found in classical texts, as well."l

The tale itself begins with Naka Kanni and Teva Kanni bathing in a pool. Im-

mediately we notice a shift from the cosmic to the mundane in this variant of the

tale: the water motif of the earlier texts is retained, but the ocean across which the

horse is spied (in the Vedic variant), and the churned ocean from which the white

horse emerges (in the epic variant), has become a small pool for a daily bath. In this

pool, Teva Kanni suddenly looks up to the sky and sees a large form approaching:

"Hey, sister, look. There'san elephantcomingtowardus. What coloris it?"

"It'sblack.""Black?But look again; t's pure white.""I still say black.""Butit's white, pure white.""Sorry, see black. We'resisters, right?So let's makea bet: if it's white, I'll

be yourslavefortwelveyears;but if it's black, you'remine."

When the white elephant comes closer, Teva Kanni wins the bet and summons

her older sister Naka Kanni, humiliating her with words like "maid," "washerman,"

and "slave." Naka Kanni, however, has recourse: she plays her flute and Karkotaka,

the most famous of her many snake-sons, appears.12 Explaining the situation, sheasks him to change the elephant's color, but Karkotaka, knowing that his mother

says "black"when her sister says "white," replies:

"Butmom, the elephant'swhite, right?If I makeit black,Indrawill charmewith his anger."

"Fool He may scaldyou a thousand imes, but I'll burn you to deathif yourefuse."

Yes, Karkotaka,isten to me:a child whodoesn'thelphis parentsn a crisis is likefoodthatdoesn'tappeasehunger,or water hat doesn'tquencha thirst,or a woman

who can'tmanagepoverty,or a king who doesn'tknow whento get angry,or astudentwho doesn'trememberhis guru'swords. If theydon't help when help isneeded,whatgood are,they?

10 "Kadru"and "Vinata," the names of the sis-ters from the time of the epic variant, have become"Kaduravi"and "Vin6ti" in this folk tradition; theTamil names for the sisters in this tradition areNaka Kanni (Snake Maiden) and Teva Kanni (Di-

vine Maiden)."

See Mani 198 1:363.12 Karkotaka's special role in the deception of

Teva Kanni is found also in the Grantha recensionof the Mahabhdrata(Vogel 1926:214).








Raising his thick hood, Karkotaka,casts a tiny shadow on the elephant's tail,

and "like a dark cloud covering a clear moon," he turns the elephant's tail black. In

the morning, Naka Kanni drags her sister to have another look at the animal:

"Takea good look, what coloris it now?""Purewhite.""Look losely;openyoureyes, stupid ""Myeyesareopenandthey see onlywhite.""Hey, you otherwomen, my servants,what color is it?""Now listenhere,MissNakaKanni,we'reonly yourmaidswho barely urvive

on the crumbs romyour table.Sowhyshouldn'twe tell the truth?Theelephant'spure white."

"Bitches Lookat the tail, will you. The tail ""Well . . . there s a little spot, but .

"That's t, that spot, it's black."

And on this evidence of the black spot on the elephant's tail, Naka Kanni reverses

the situation and enslaves Teva Kanni.

This reversalindicates a majordifferencebetween this.variant of the tale and the

other variants we have considered. It splits the central event of the wager into two

phases: first, Teva Kanni wins honestly;only laterdoes Naka Kanni win by deception.

The insertion of the first phase, in which Naka Kanni loses, introduces a change in

the characterization of the rngas. In the epic variant, they are faceless symbols of

evil, but in this folk variant, they become sympathetic: Naka Kanni suffers humil-

iation from her sister; maternaland filial emotions emerge in Naka Kanni's conver-sationwith herson. This personificationof the ndgas is one aspect of the domestication

in the folk variant, a process advancedalso by the role of Naka Kanni'sservants, the

"bitches"whom she calls on to supporther. When Teva Kanni takesover the servants'

tasks, they areindignant (note that "Eng."indicates that the precedingword is spoken

in English):

"Hey,whataboutus, MissNakaKanni?""You're uspended.""SuspendedEng.) or dismissed Eng.)?""Dismissed Eng.II.Clearout now "

"ButMiss NakaKanni,we'veworked oryoufora long time. Why this suddenchange?"

"It'sreallynothingpersonal. t's justthatI've got a newworkerat good wages.So I'vedecidedto switchyou . . . "

"'Switch'? s that a 'suspension'Eng.] or 'dismissal'Eng.)?""Dismissal Eng.].""Don'tworry oneservantays o theothers], t'sreallyonlyasuspensionEng.).

Temporarilyhere's no work, but from the firstof the month we'll get regularincrementsn pay . . . "

"Whataboutfood?""There'll e hot foodin the morning;a snackat 10;lunch at 2; and thena full

dinner in the evening;afterthat, curdsand fried vatai at night, when it's reallytastyandgood foryou."

"Isthis for one dayor . . . RI"For he full twelveyears Friend,we'll have hetaskofeatingwithoutworking.

All youhaveto do is signthe little bookdailyandpick up yoursalary n the first."

After this veiled attack on the soft life of salariedgovernment officers, the folk

variant steers the Naka Kanni story further into the domestic sphere. At the same

point at which the epic variant is given over to the conflict between Garud1and the








snakes, the folk variant moves inside the house with a description of the domestic

life of the enslaved Teva Kanni and her tyrannical sister Naka Kanni. Teva Kanni

is forced to do the menial work of all the dismissed servants: she husks bushels of

rice, prepares twenty-one different kinds of curries and vegetables, and sweeps the

house. Not for a minute is she permitted to straighten her back, comb her hair, chew

betel leaves, or chat with a neighbor. In short, Teva Kanni is a new bride under the

command of her mother-in-law. Her drudgery is only occasionally relieved by mo-

ments of humor such as this:

"I'lldo all you ask, NakaKanni,but remember hat I'mnewat this worklikechurningmilk, butter,andcurds.Do onething: put a label on each cow: 'this oneformilk,' 'this one for butter' .

"Fool All that comesfrom one thing, frommilk "

The singers continue to detail Teva Kanni's misery, her achesand pains, and she(as in the epic variant) must then be rescued. Signaling another major shift in the

story (and in its frame, as we shall see), the folk variant calls not on Garuda but on

Siva, who comes to Teva Kanni's door as a wandering ascetic. At that moment,

however, Teva Kanni has collapsed from exhaustion and lies in a crumpled heap on

the porch. When Siva calls for alms, Naka Kanni runs from her bedroom, takes in

the scene, and vilifies the prostrate Teva Kanni for not giving rice to the holy man:

"Get up girl Give him some food " Slowly Teva Kanni rises, struggles into the

kitchen, and returns with a pot of rice, which she can scarcelyhold steady because

of her convulsive sobbing. Siva speaks first:

"Don'tcry, dearlady. Tell me what'swrong.I don'ttake food from a cryingwoman.Even f youworshipme asyou give, your earswill ripholesin my beggingbowl."

"But,pantdram [wanderingscetic),whyshould hesepettyvillagefeuds roubleyou?"

"Look,I'm no ordinaryanqtdram;knowa lot.""But what canyou do aboutmy problems?""You'llsee;first tell me your story.""But do you wantthe rice or not?""Your tory first;I don'ttake food from a womanwho keepssecrets."

Teva Kanni retells the story of her enslavement and Siva respondsby giving her three

stones to be placed in a copper pot. The pot is tightly covered for forty-one days.

When Teva Kanni opens it and peers inside, she sees a tangle of fighting animals

and, among them, the bird Garuda.

Here, again, the folk variant of the tale takesa new direction, a "move"in Propp's

sense (Propp 1968); instead of launching off into Garuda'squest for soma, the folk

variant directs the narrative back inside the house. As soon as Karkotaka hears that

his archenemy Garudahas been born, he hides by changing into a man-a Brahmin,

a very handsomeBrahmin. 3 One day the snake-Brahminwalks through anagrahdram

(Brahmins' quarter) and attracts the eye of a woman who has refused marriage pro-posals all her life. Soon they are marriedin a kanfcaupa(by deception) ceremony, a

"love marriage,"or elopement. Immediately, however, a problem arises: the snake-

Brahmin will not "speak to his wife," a folk euphemism for the absence of sexual

relations.

13 This episode of the snake turned man, andhis later betrayal by a woman, is clearly related to

another story in the Kathdsaritsdgara (Penzer1924- 1928, vol. 5:82-83).








"What's he matter? 'm a young, full woman,not dried up like those fisher-

caste women.But if we lie downtogether,you rollover like a pestle;if I approach

you, yousquirm ike a mouse.And at night, yousnore ikea forestbeingtimbered

We'vebeenmarrieda long time, and you still haven'tspokento me.""'Longtime'?It's beenonly a yearnow . . ."Butwhy do you avoid me?Aren'tI attractive?Every ime I comeclose, you

shootoff like some rocket.Now I'm scared hat this might be the resultof some

mdyd,orsorcery. f youdon'ttell me the truthaboutyourself, 'm going off to my

parents."Andwhat?". . .and take somepoisonanddie, that'swhat."

"Nowdon'tdo that. I'll showyou my trueself, but you mustpromiseme notto tell anyoneelse. Plus there'sone thing you must bring to me. You see [the

performer reaks nto song]:I drink milk, lots of milk,

and coffeetoo.And whenI bathe,I use soap,

lots of sweet-smelling oap.But whenI sleep, it's on the floor,

neveron thosehumans'beds.

"Now [he continues n conversation], on'tget afraid,whenyou see my realform; justget me a hugevat of milk, and then hide behind that curtain."

"Milk?Sure,I'll go next door. Hey, Padmini Got anymilk?"

"Milk?What for?""Myhusband's oing to showhimself,so . . ."'Showhimself?Don'tbe funny,what'she got to show?"

"Shutup Besidesyourman hasn'tgot anythingto show."

Sexual innuendos, village gossip, and marital jokes run on for some time, to the

delight of the audience, until the vat of milk is broughtby the wife. Then her husband

turns back into a snake, curls his long tail over the rafters, arches his scaly back,

and, with a jewel glistening in his forehead, begins to dance. His wife, peeking out

from behind the curtain, is terrified and shrieks: "A snake I'm married to a huge

snake " Her screams bring others and, finally, Garuda himself, who tears the ndga

to shreds with his talons. Hoisting Teva Kanni onto his back, the sun-bird flies offto Kailasa, a journey that marks the end of the Naka Kanni story by taking the

narrativeout of the domestic world and returningit to the frame of the MuttarAmman

myth.

In that myth, the goddess and the demons still occupy the Triple City in defiance

of Siva and the gods. With Garudapresent, however, the balance of power changes

for the sun-bird soon bringsVisnu, and fromthis point the folk myth advancessteadily

toward the destruction of the demons' city. In reaching that end, it diverges sub-

stantially from the classical myth. Visnu arrivesand requests that Siva send his three

sons (Ganesa, Murukan, and Surya) against the demons. Repeating the pattern of

the gods' three earlier missions to the fortressof the demons, each son sets out cou-rageously but ends up in hilarious defeat. Again, the gods themselves (here Siva's

sons) are the butt of the joke, for the demons are clever enough to exploit their

weakness for food or women.

The first advanceis made by the elephant-facedGanesa, who sits majestically on

a silver saddle, holding golden reins, and crowned with a jeweled warrior'shelmet.

However, the weight of his armor added to the weight of his enormous stomach

crusheshis bandicoot mount, who can only stagger forward,gasping for breathwith








each step. Ganes'a's luggish chargeis halted for good when he sees the feast laid out

for him by the demons. Deciding that to accept hospitality is more valorous than to

attack, he feastsand soon lies asleep inside the Triple City. Murukanis then seduced

by dancing women, and Siurya inally is placated with a feast of sweet rice.When Siurya lips inside the city walls, the fourteen worlds lose their light and

even the gods begin to tremble in the darkness. In a frantic search for Siva, the gods

get lost, and they havealmost given up hope when suddenly they see the sage Valluvar

standing before them with a nelli fruit in his hand. The sage sings:

"All things in thesemanyworldsexist within this fruit.

So why areyou, Brahma, lying up in the air,craningyour fourheadsto find Siva?

Why Visnu, do you grovelin the mud?. 14

"Well, Valluvar, hat'sa long, long story.You see, one day .

"Nevermind, all you need do is look inside this fruit."

When the gods look inside the fruit, they see Siva inside, and only Siva every-

where. With Siva's preeminence established and the major gods reunited, they are

able to conquer the Triple City. Muttar Amman is summoned from the fort, lest

she perish with it, and then Visnu takes the form of an ascetic and performs miracles

that convince the demons to worship him and to throw away their lingams (originally

given to them by Nandi), an act that renders them defenseless. In the final moment,

Siva draws hisgreat bow,

but then lowersit, claps

hishands,

andlaughs loudly,sending a force that shatters the city of the demons forever. Back in Kailasa, Siva

revives the demons and sends them to earth with Muttar Amman to receive worship

from men and to serve him.

History and Structure

Within this frame text of the Triple City myth, the tale of the wagering sisters

continues to be told today in southernTamil Nadu, just as it has been told in India

since the turn of the second millennium B.C. One possible interpretation of this

historical continuity is that there has been a slow transformationfrom a classical text(the Vedic variant) into a folk text (the bow song variant). This is misleading, how-

ever, for in the Vedic text it was clear that the story of the sisters was a folktale

incorporated into the Sanskrit frame text. This observation was first made by Jarl

Charpentier in his study of the cycle of Suparna (Garuda) legends (Charpentier

1920:306). More recently, Dange has noted that Charpentierwas probably correct

in identifying the sisters' wager as an incorporated folktale, but not in suggesting

that the tale was originally one of "wageringanimals" (Dange 1969:140). Most im-

portant for present purposes are Charpentier'sconclusions (1920:396-97): the folk-

tale was popular outside the Vedic cult; it was borrowedby that esoteric literature;

and it was transmitted by classical tradition, eventually to the Mahdbhdrata.

The fact that the story was-a olktale absorbedby the Vedic ritual text is supported

also by a reading (in translation)of the relevantpassages.The text identifies the story

as just that, "a story." Furthermore,the story plainly has little to do with the ritual

14 Here Valluvar (the putative author of the

Tirukkural, Tamil collection of aphorisms from

the early centuries A.D.) refers to the Lingobhava

myth in which Siva demonstrates his supremacyover both Visnu and Brahma.








describedin the frametext; it is inserted to explain and performthe essential activity

of procuring soma, but the arbitrarinessof its insertion is shown by the transitional

passage that states that the "gods produced" the two women and "caused discord"

between them in order to gain the soma. The composers and redactorsof the ritualtext could have used any number of techniques and agents for this purpose. The

choice of the folktale is explained, as mentioned earlier, not by an instrumental but

by a structural reason: its theme of competition was isomorphic with the theme of

the ritual. And, finally, the dispensability of the women to any ritual function is

overt since the poetic meters, not they, actually bring the soma.

Once incorporated nto this stratumof classicalliterature, the tale of the wagering

sisters remained. Although we know little about the independent circulation of the

tale or about the lines of its transmission after the Vedic period, it is clear that by

the time of the Mahdbhdratasome thousand years later), it was carefully correlated

with that frame text and not just inserted within it. The motif of the soma quest,

introduced into the tale in the Vedic variant, was retained in the epic variant but

expandedto include Garuda'sconflict with the entire nadgaace, and this conflict was,

in turn, made an episode of the grander opposition between the gods and demons.

By thus identifying the sisters as the mothers of Garuda and the ndgas, the epic

effectively aligned them with a pervasivetheme in classicalmythology. In addition,

as the daughters of Daksa and the wives (and sometimes the daughters) of the sage

Kasyapa, they had acquired a pedigree that obscured any folk origin.

These identities and alignments are carriedover even to the variant of the story

performedin the modern Tamil folk tradition. All textual and sung versions of thisvariant, the Naka Kanni story, make careful reference to the ancestry of the two

sisters. If there was ever any doubt about their association with cosmological cate-

gories, the folk tradition removes it by naming them Teva (Skt. deva[god, divine]and Naka Kanni. Moreover, although both the tale variant and its frame are fun-

damentally changed in the folk tradition, the general relationship between them

conforms to the patternestablishedearlier:the tale is embedded within a myth about

conflict between the gods and demons; the tale echoes that conflict, but in a different

voice; and the transition from tale to frame is made through the figure of Garuda.

These observationslead to the conclusion that the variant of the folktale told in

the Tamil bow song representsnot a continuity of folk tradition but, rather, a trans-mission (however indirect) through classical mythology. A tale that was originally

borrowed from folk tradition into classical literature was then borrowed back into

folk tradition. Classical literature serving as a vehicle for the transmission of folk

literature in India is not a novel thesis. M. B. Emeneau has demonstrated that

Jain texts helped to move tales into the remote mountain areas of South India

(Emeneau 1967), and W. N. Brown has argued the case for Indian tales generally

(Brown 1919).

In his valuable study, Brown comparedstories from the Paozcatantrac. 200 B.C.)

with tales recordedsince the late nineteenth century in India. He concluded that the

latter, in many cases, were derived from the former in this manner: the folktale dies,is reborn in written sources, and,is revived again in folk tradition. The history of

the tale of the wagering sisters supportsthe general idea that written sourcestransmit

folk literature, but the wholesale process envisioned by Brown is not tenable. Even

the tales in the Panacatantra,s Brown's researchshows, have numerousparallels and

versionsin Indianfolklore, and thus it is probablethat they circulated in oraltradition

(independently of classical texts) as well as through classical literature. The same is

not true for the tale of the wagering sisters. Research on tale collections and folklore








studies turned up one meager reference to a version of the tale (Crooke 1894, vol.1:127). Thus it seems very likely that the tale was transmitted to the bow songtradition primarily through classical sources, perhapsMahdbhzrata-derivedexts in

Tamil.15

Such a conclusion is all the more curious because the tale of the wagering sistersis not in any way peculiar; on the contrary, it representsa common type of folktale

in India. Dange wrote:

It morenaturally esembles uchnumerousolk-taleswheretwo wives of the sameperson-one defectiveandwicked,andtheotherattractive ndsober orevil-mindedandwell-minded)-compete forsupremacynd the evil onewins with deceit, onlyto be retaliatedby a counter-blow.Dange 1969:140)

This contrastbetween a good and an evil woman links the tale of the wagering sisters

with well-known international tale-types classified by A. Aarne and S. Thompson:Kind and Unkind Girls (AT 480) and Hospitality Rewarded(AT 750B). Both have

several recorded, and many more unrecorded, versions in India (Roberts 1958;Thompson and Roberts 1960). 16 The tale of the wagering sisters, however, cannot

be identified as specific tale-type; it has remained primarily a written text.Part of the answer to the unusual history of the 'tale of the wagering sisters lies

in the concept of the frametext. Earlyfolklorescholarshiptended to regard the frameas a technique for narrativebuilding, as an additive strategy for narrators.7 Onceused, however, the frame becomes part of the tale's context, its literary context,which is as important for analysis as its social and performance contexts. More than

simply a static container, the frame text plays an active role in the transmission ofthe tale. Embedded tales, like that of the wagering sisters, diffuse when their frametext diffuses, and when a frame text as immense as the Mahdbhdrata preads, manyfolktales are carriedin its wake. Over time, the tale, especially if it is neatly foldedinto the framestory, may be absorbedand lose its independent status. Paradoxically,this development may have a positive impact on the tale's popularity, because frametexts such as the epic or the Triple City myth give it a status and circulation that

it would not enjoy as a separate tale.

The frame concept is also structural, as noticed by G. Bateson in his analysis ofanimal play and as later developed by others for wider application.18In this view,the frame is an interpretive key, a reflexiveor meta-communicative device for whatit surrounds.Although not often applied to an analysis of the framestory, the quin-tessential instance of framing, this insight illumines the relation between the tale ofthe wagering sistersand its frame texts. We have seen that there is an internaldynamicbetween frameand tale, and that changes in the firstproduce correspondingchangesin the second. The text is embedded but not embalmed within its frame text; it

changes as it enters a new frameand as that frameitself changesto suit new prevailingideologies. In the earlyVedic telling, for instance, the folktale is totally subordinated

15

The lines of this transmission areelusive; thetale of the wagering sisters does not appear, forexample in the Tamil Mahdbhdrata which followsthe Sanskrit versions fairly closely) or in a morepopular Tamil retelling of the epic, the Aivdr Pur-dnam; truncated versions do appear, however, inTamil texts of Kathdsar#tsdgara,VetdlaKatai, andVikkiramatittanKatai. The story appparently wasknown to Brahmins on the Tamil coast in the nine-teenth century, but in what form is unknown (Vo-gel 1926:55).

16

A common Indian variant of AT 750B isfound in Wadley 1986. It is also quite possible,as suggested by Charpentier (1920:306), that thetale of the wagering sisters is related to those nu-merous animal tales in which a wager is won bydeception (see B0dker 1957).

See Penzer 1924 - 1928, vol. 10:91 - 12 1.18 See Bateson 1972; see also Goffman 1974.

Forfolkloristic studies, see Babcock 1977; Bauman1977; Young 1983.








to the ritual text; each movement is interpreted in terms of the soma rite. The narrative

is wooden and flat; the sisters have no genealogy and no character(they practice no

deception). In the epic variant, however, the "agonistic" nature of the sacrifice has

evolved into a conflict between levels in the mythic cosmology: the sages against the

niga race; the gods versus the demons; Garuda against the snakes. On all of these

levels (not to mention the epic war itself), the epic frame expresses a fundamental

assumption of Indian thought: the necessity of death, destruction, dissolution, and

the renewal of life through these devolutions. The sisters'wager, although on another

plane in the folktale, is part of the same process, a processwhose propulsion produces

its own balance.

By the time of the Tamil folk tradition (probably about A.D. 1600), the ethos in

the frame text of the tale had shifted considerably. The controlling conflicts had

moved even further from opposition and uneasy balance toward the unchallengedsupremacy of the gods and righteousness. In this, the folk tradition reflects the wide-

spreaddevelopment in Indian religion, beginning centuries earlier, known as bhaktior devotionalism.'9 Accordingly, the frametext of the Muttar Amman myth repeats

the conflict of the gods with the demons, but now the emphasis is on the elimination

of evil by the conversion of the demons. The sons of the Triple City are not simply

destroyed and renewed, as were their counterparts in the Vedic and epic conflicts;

they are also deputized by Siva as his allies on earth. A comparable change occurs

also in the role of Garuda: the sun-bird no longer fetches soma; instead he brings

Visnu to aid Siva against the Triple City; and his role as a categorical opponent of

the naga race is reduced to the killer of only one, the likable Karkotaka. Similarly,the conflict between gods and demons has become a conflict between individualized

personalities:he threedemonshavenamesand dentities,andthegodsaredominatedby the inimitableSiva. As the gods learnby peering nsidethe fruit, Sivais every-where;he gives the boon forconstructinghe Triple City;his iconor lingam (not alake of immortality,as in the classical ariants f the myth)is the sourceof even thedemons' trength;and he shatters he TripleCitywithout asmuch asa singleblow.

These moves towarda devotionalethos in the frame ext find theircounterpartsin the embedded ale.Justasthe good(but foolish)godsareharassed y the demonsbut eventuallyprevailoverthem throughdevotionto Siva, the dominantthemeinthe Tamil variantof the tail is the enslavement f righteousnessTevaKanni)by eviland her release hroughfaith in Siva.Even this rescueof righteousnesss instructiveof the newemphasis n the Tamilvariant:Garuda s the rescuerashe is in the epicvariant),butonlyafter Siva as causedhisbirth n responseo TevaKanni'sdevotion.

Thus one aspectof the structural elationbetweentale and frameis thematicparallelism:he wager n the tale echoes he largerconflicts n the frameandreflectsthe shiftsof emphasis n them. This aspectallows one to tracethe historicaldevel-opmentfrom agonisticritual to triumphantdevotionalism.The relationbetweenframeandtale hasa synchronic spect,as well. In eachof the fourvariantsdiscussed

above,a cosmological ontrast n the frame s juxtaposedwith a domesticconflict nthetale. This contrast s sharpestn theVedicvariant,perhapsbecause ts frame extis so obviouslydifferent romit in language, audience,patronage,and so on. Thecontrast s softened n theepicvariantbecause,bythattime, the tale hadbeen carried

by classical iterature or a thousandyears,and becausethe epic itself was more

'9 For a discussion of this shift in Indian re-ligious thought, see O'Flaherty (1976:78 - 93); forits effect in Tamil devotional literature, see Ra-

manuian (1981:103-17) and Hart (1980:129-31).








popularized than the Vedic ritualmanual. In the Kathasaritsagarahe contrastbetweenframe and tale is blunted even further because the frame story is a piece of popularliterature.

In the Tamil folk tradition, the juxtaposition between frame text and embeddedtale is once again sharp.The frame of the MuttarAmman myth, a variantof a classicalmyth, is set in a supernaturalworld; the gods may be lampooned (on their fatefulmissions), but Visnu and Sivahold ultimate power. Against this backdropof a mytho-logical world is set the earthly world of the embedded tale of the wagering sisters,in which the domestication of the cosmos, inchoate in the Vedic variant, is fullyexpressed.

This extreme folk quality of the Tamil variantof the tale is only naturalinasmuchas the social and performancecontexts of this telling are also folk. The bhaktiethosof the frame text has transformed one of the sisters (Teva Kanni) into righteousnessenslaved and then redeemed, but she also plays a new domestic role as the wifetyrannized by her mother-in-law (Naka Kanni). Her new identity is often explicitlystated by the bow singers during performances, as in the following comment insertedinto the standarddescription of Teva Kanni's misery: "Right, the fate of a daughter-in-law is terrible She doesn't even get time to go- next door for a chat, but herhusband sleeps." Teva Kanni'stroublesarenot moral or soteriologicalas in the bhaktiframe myth; they are endless houseworkand family custom.

Domestication reaches its ultimate point in the episode of the snake-Brahmin.The motif of the snake-husband(oranimal-groom) is common in Indianand European

folktales,but in

the Tamil variant its usual form and meanings have been reversed.20In most tales, the transformation s from human to snake, a snake-loverwho becomesthe elusive goal of a woman's romanticquest that takes her from her natal home andinto marriage. In our tale, however, the snakebecomes a man, a snake-Brahminwhois a fruit easily gained but difficult to enjoy. There is sensual frustration, not ful-fillment, because the "animality"has been hidden beneath a human disguise. Thesnakewithdraws:he drinks coffee;he uses finesoaps;but he will not sleep on a humanbed. However, the theme of hidden identity always reveals more than it conceals,and the singers turn it into a playful expose of village life, of slander and scandal,through the wife's conversationwith the neighborswhen the snake-Brahmin is about

to "show himself.",21 At this point, as the snake reemerges, dances, and the womanshrieks with horror, the domestication of the tale is complete. When the snake inhuman form is revealed, only the thinnest veil of fiction covers the domestic realityof the tale.

Localizing the transcendent, deflating the elevated, and even reducing the divineto the organic are major functions of folklore, but domestication has received littleattention in studies of Indian folklore.22 A morepopulartheme in Indology-becausemore study has been made of the genres (myth, legend, and epic) in which the themeoccurs-is that of destruction or violence, especially in folk narrativesof goddesses.Here, too, however, there is domestication because the dangerous goddess is very

often a transformationof a subordinatedand enraged woman in the house.

20 See Thompson and Roberts (1960) for tale-types 425D and 433C. A good example of the ro-mantic snake-husband tale in India is the "RubyPrince" (Steel 1894:89ff.). E. Cosquin consideredsuch a transformation "tout Indienne" because itis based on a belief in metempsychosis (Cosquin1886, vol. 1:229), but Lang disagreed, calling at-tention to the worldwide distribution of these mo-

tifs (Lang 1887); see also Swahn (1955).21 The psychological and sexual meanings of

the animal-groom in European tales are discussedby Bettelheim (1977:282-92).

22In one folk Ramayana, reported by Rama-

nujan (1986), Rama's sons are born from globs oftheir father's snot.








Studiesof the Indianfolktale, moreover, havefocused on certain subtypes, notably

the marchen the "fairy tale" of the Grimm brothers and Propp) and the animal tale

(such as those in the Paiicatantra), n which domestication is minor, if present at all.

These are the types of tales that Liithi describes as "one-dimensional" in that the

mundane is inseparable from the supernatural (Luthi 1982: 4- 10); they are what

Thompson referred to when he said that the Indian folktale has a "luxuriance of

supernaturaltrappings . . . but is expected to be believed" (Thompson 1946:16).

Domestication is more pronouncedin other subtypes, such as the humorous tale and

the anecdote, of which the story of the wagering sisters is an example. It is also more

common in the true oral tale than in those literary tales that easily find their place

in written collections.23 As we have seen in the case of the tale of the wagering sisters,

the domesticating tale may become attached to courtly or classical literature, but its

effect lies in its contrast with the supernaturalframe text.

Domestication does not mean that these oral tales have no trace of supernatural

elements; it only means that those elements arenot dominant. Where present, more-

over, supernaturalelements stand out in contrast with the mundane setting of such

tales. Nor does domestication render these tales literal or historical. On the contrary,

in these tales the particularitiesof time and place become blurredin an intense focus

on human, especially family, relations. In the versions of the tale of the wagering

sisters, for instance, the key charactersare sisters and mothers, ordinarywomen who

make a bet and then quarreluntil their differences are folded back into the mythic

framefrom which they arose.

The tale of the wagering sisters creates not so much a bridge as a balance betweenfolk and classical traditions. Tale and frame share the theme of conflict, but the tale

shifts the conflict from cosmological realms to this world. The tale domesticates the

cosmos by bringing the archaic and eternal opposition between gods and demons

within the compass of human kinship, within the home, and into the bedroom. In

expressing the fundamentally human, it approachesthe abstract.

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