THE MEETING OF VIKRAM AND

BETAAL
Once upon a time, there was a king
named Vikramaditya who ruled over
Ujjain, a prosperous city situated on
the banks of the river Godavari. He
was famous all over the world for his
bravery, generosity and fair
judgement.
One day, a sage presented himself in
the kings court and gifted a fruit to
him. Since, that day, it became a
daily routine for him to come and gift
a fruit to the king. The king never felt
the need of asking the sage as to
why he brought a fruit to him daily. He
just handed over all the fruits that he
received from the sage to his
treasurer who used to throw them in

a storage room. One day, instead of

giving the fruit to his treasurer, the
king offered that fruit to a monkey
who was sitting on a tree. When the
monkey dug his teeth into the fruit, a
sparkling diamond fell out of the fruit.
The king was extremely surprised,
and asked his treasurer about the
rest of the fruits. The treasurer took
him to the store room and there when
they crushed the rotten fruits, they
found numerous precious diamonds
hidden inside. The generous king
decided to donate all the gems to the
poor and needy.
Next day, when the sage came to
offer him the fruit, the king asked the
sage the reason behind his gifting

him such priceless gems. The king

also asked him what he wanted from
him in return. On hearing this, the
sage requested the help of the king in
conducting a ritual that he was going
to perform. The sage asked the king
to meet him at nightfall on the
fourteenth night of the dark moon
near the cremation ground.
The sage was a sorcerer in reality.
When the king reached the cremation
ground, the sorcerer asked him to
fetch a corpse, hanging from a
tamarind tree in the nearby forest.
The king agreed to bring the corpse
from the forest, but when he tried to
bring the corpse down, it flew back to
the tree. The king did not take long to
realise that the corpse was

possessed by a ghost. The brave

king did not get afraid, and was
determined to fulfill his promise to the
sage. He told the ghost about the
promise that he had made to the
sage and requested him to come
along. Betaal consented to come with
him on one condition- that the king
would not speak a single word all
throughout the journey. The king
promised to be silent, but clever
Betaal had some other plans for him.
As soon as he attempted to get him
down from the tree and put him on
his shoulders,he started to narrate a
story. And at the end of every story,he
compelled the king to answer his
question, thus breaking his silence.

Every time the king opened his

mouth to say something, Betaal flew
back to the tree. The king had to go
back to the tree and start the ordeal
of bringing him down all over again.
This happened twenty four times. But
the twenty fifth time, the king could
not answer Betaals question. These
twenty five stories are very famous in
Indian literature, known as the
Vikram-Betaal tales.
The twenty fifth story went like this:
Once there was a king in the South
who had a lot of relatives. The
relatives always eyed the kings
throne. So once, they got together,
conspired against the king and
usurped the throne. The king had to
flee the kingdom with his wife and

daughter. They travelled through

dense forests. Some robbers
happened to see them and attacked
them. The king asked his daughter
and wife to run away and save
themselves, while he himself
engaged the robbers in a massive
fight. But, as he was outnumbered by
the robbers, they easily managed to
kill him. The queen and her daughter
witnessed everything, but kept hiding
in the bushes for fear of getting
caught. The robbers looked for them
for some time and then left to get
treatment for their wounds that they
had received in the fight.
In the meantime, a farmer and his
son came to the forest on horses.
They saw the footprints of the ladies,

and were impressed. The son

decided to marry the lady with the
smaller feet while the father decided
to marry the lady with the bigger feet.
After walking ahead for some
distance, the farmer and his son
happened to meet the two women
hiding in the forest. They consoled
the ladies and told them of the plan of
marriage. They consented. But as
luck would have it, the bigger feet
belonged to the daughter and the
smaller feet belonged to the mother.
So the son married the mother and
the father married the daughter.
Betaal then asked this question to
Vikram, How are the children born
on both the sides related to one
another? Vikram was speechless as

he could not get any satisfactory

answer. So, Betaal was not able to
escape this time. He cautioned the
king that the so called sage, who was
an evil sorcerer in reality, was
actually planning to sacrifice the king
to please some evil powers that he
worshipped. He also told Vikram how
to get rid of that evil man. The king
killed the evil sorcerer in that manner.
Before departing, Betaal asked the
king to ask him for some boon. The
king requested that the stories which
were told to him, be told time and
again in history. Betaal granted his
wish and vanished in thin air.