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Reading Notes: The Indian Story Book by Richard Wilson Part A

Visvametra refusing to give up his asceticism, despite a beautiful goddess being sent to try and convince him to enjoy life. The gods feared that his determination would eventually give him power over them.



The first of the stories for this reading was "Sabala, The Sacred Cow." Not to start out too critically, but the story begins with a very generous and successful king being unhappy because his life and kingdom were too peaceful, and he didn't have anyone to fight with. Of all the silly things. And then when he tries to put together an army, everyone flocks to his side and he actually has to go and try to find someone to pick a fight with.
I really liked one piece of wisdom from this story, said by the stage with whom the cow lives:
"There is no credit in virtue which is not assaulted by temptation." While it is said in the context of the king trying to come up with reasons for the sage to give up his holy cow, it still holds a lot of wisdom.

Another piece of wisdom from the story of the surprisingly foolish king is: "Laughter which never ceases can become as wearisome as woe."

Overall, I thought the story was good. He was a man determined to fight, and his strength of will was no match for the internal virtue of the brahmin he encountered. In wanting to get strong enough to fight the brahmin, he fought himself his whole life, and finally achieved true wisdom by learning to expel all of his own vices. I thought this was similar to the Christian saying "remove the log from your own eye before you point out the speck in your brother's", which more simply put means that you have to get all of your own stuff taken care of before you can try and criticize someone else.

The second story is titled "The Great Drought". I liked this one a lot as well, but it ended more abruptly. I liked the more poetic tone of this one.



Citations:

  • Sabala, The Sacred Cow: https://archive.org/stream/indianstorybook015651mbp#page/n191/mode/2up
  • The Great Drought: https://archive.org/stream/indianstorybook015651mbp#page/n244/mode/1up
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