Vikram and Vaitaal
Stories From Other Sources
- Introduction
"These
stories have been taken from other sources, such as Internet sites, other
books etc. Our purpose to keep them here is not to copy them here, but to
keep them all at one place without losing them, as it is very common with
Internet sites that they disappear within no time. This site lists 6
stories in all.
Introduction
Once
upon a time there lived a great king in Pratishthaanpur situated on the
banks of Godaavaree. His name was King Vikramaaditya. He used to sit in
his court daily. A beggar used to come and offer a fruit to the king. But
the king did not eat it and give it to his treasurer. Treasurer also kept
it in a storage place. The beggar continued to bring the fruit and the
king handed it over to his treasurer, and treasurer kept it in the
storage. Once Vikram got curious about those fruits, so he asked his
treasurer to check on those fruits. The treasurer went to the storage
place. He was surprised to see what he saw there, that all the fruits have
disintegrated and there are emeralds and pearls scattered there. He told
this to the King. King also got very surprised to know this.
When
the beggar came next day, he asked him about this. He said - "I
am performing some magic spell and I need your help." Then he asked
the King to come to cremation ground after the evening on the 14th of the
dark fortnight. Vikram reached there on time, he found the beggar. The
beggar asked him to bring a corpse which was hanging upside down from a
tree from some distance in deep woods. Vikram went there, found the corpse
and as he took it off the tree, he realized that it was possessed by a
vampire.
He
took it off, kept on his shoulder and walked down the path. But whenever
Vikram spoke on the way, the corpse jumped back to the tree. In the end,
Vikram took it off silently and started walking away. The vampire started
telling him a story. In the end of the story, he asked Vikram a question,
but as he answered the question, that vampire jumped to the tree. This
happened 24 times. The 25th time Vikram could not answer.
These
25 stories are famous in Indian literature as Vikram-Vaiaal tales. After
the 25th story, Vaitaal asked him to rest on a piece of wood when he would
be sacrificed. In that situation, Vaitaal asked Vikram to get rid of the
beggar. Vikram did so and Vaitaal granted him a boon. Vikram asked him to
let these stories be famous for long time. Wherever these stories are
told, vampires do not dare to come, hence the Vikram-Vaitaal stories.
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