A fresh retelling of Vikram-Vetala tales from the ‘Vetala Panchavimshati’ for a new generation

As before, Raja Vikramaditya cut the corpse loose and threw it over his shoulder. Just as he began to walk towards the bargad tree, the vetala said again, “O Raja, you are toiling so hard. Let me tell you another story to alleviate your stress.”

The city of Vishvapura was once ruled by king Vidagdha. In that city was a brahmin named Narayana, who had spent his entire life learning and mastering various arts. Among these was the art of transporting himself into another body. However, Narayana was old and decrepit, and he often said to himself, “I want to do so much more in this life, but this old body is such a hindrance. I wish I had a young and healthy body.”

In Vishvapura was an ashram that Raja Vidagdha had constructed for brahmins to live comfortably with their families. In that ashram, a brahmin called Yagyasena had made a home for himself and his wife and young son. The boy was obedient and well behaved, and because he had been exposed to scholarly men of learning from a very early age, he knew all the shastras before he turned sixteen. Needless to say, he was the apple of his parents’ eye and Yagyasena was very proud of him.

However, as it was fated, the boy became gravely sick from a fever that couldn’t be cured, and he passed away. His devastated parents completed his last rites and then, accompanied by their relatives and brahmins from the ashram, they carried his corpse to the cremation ground. As his body was placed on the pyre, everyone started wailing again, lamenting the loss of such a young life.

The old brahmin, Narayana, lived near the cremation ground. When he heard the loud outcry, he stepped out of his hut, curious to see whose passing was being lamented with such fervour. When he discovered that the body on the pyre was that of a young, sixteen-year-old boy, he burst into tears. But then he laughed out loud, and, abandoning his own old body, he entered the young body on the pyre.

When people saw the boy on the pyre come alive, they were amazed. “It’s a miracle!” they exclaimed, and the ecstatic parents of the sixteen-year-old rushed to help their son off the pyre. “How did this happen?” they asked, embracing him.

“Lord Shiva has granted me re-life,” the boy replied. “But with the condition that in my new life I must pursue only knowledge. A true yogi is he who dries up the river of hope with asceticism, who stills his senses and concentrates only on his mind. Desire never ends; one’s body may wither, teeth may fall out, legs may not stand without the aid of a walking stick, but desire remains acute. This is how life passes – day, night, week, month, and year, childhood, old age; it goes on. Human beings are born, and then they die; all who are born must die. Each one has his own desires and his own way to fulfil those desires. This life is like a dream; sometimes it’s a happy dream, and sometimes, it becomes sad. But the wise know how to avoid the pitfalls of hope and desire; they shun anger and lust, and dressed only in one garment, head shaved, walking barefoot, they spend their life in pilgrimage. Therefore, dear parents and relatives, I must leave you and go on a pilgrimage.”

“This is how the old man began to live in a teenager’s young body,” said the vetala to Vikramaditya. “The question I have for you is this: why did this old brahmin cry and then laugh before entering the boy’s body? And let me warn you again that if you know the answer and don’t tell me, your head will shatter into a thousand pieces.”

“I know the answer,” Vikramaditya replied. “He cried because he had spent all his life in his body and was sad to separate from it. And he laughed because the prospect of living in a young body made him happy.”

As soon as Vikramaditya gave the answer, the corpse on his shoulder shot off and hung itself on a branch of the shisham tree.

Excerpted with permission from ‘Why Did the Old Brahmin Cry and Then Laugh While Switching Bodies?’ in The Undead Ghoul and the Clever Raja: Twenty-five Tales of the Vetala Panchavimshati, Meena Arora Nayak, Aleph Book Company.