Introduction
This ‘Indian fable’ is Indian only in the sense that Francis Bain was a professor of history at Deccan College in Pune when he wrote it. He sprinkled it with evocative images gathered from the Vedas, and claimed he had translated it from an ancient Sanskrit manuscript entrusted to him by a dying Brahman. Whether Bain expected anyone to believe him is unclear, but quite a few people did.
In the beginning, when Twashtri* came to the creation of woman, he found that he had exhausted his materials in the making of man, and that no solid elements were left. In this dilemma, after profound meditation, he did as follows. He took the rotundity of the moon, and the curves of creepers, and the clinging of tendrils, and the trembling of grass, and the slenderness of the reed, and the bloom of flowers, and the lightness of leaves, and the tapering of the elephant’s trunk, and the glances of deer, and the clustering of rows of bees,* and the joyous gaiety of sunbeams, and the weeping of clouds, and the fickleness of the winds, and the timidity of the hare, and the vanity of the peacock, and the softness of the parrot’s bosom, and the hardness of adamant, and the sweetness of honey, and the cruelty of the tiger, and the warm glow of fire, and the coldness of snow, and the chattering of jays, and the cooing of the kókila,* and the hypocrisy of the crane,* and the fidelity of the chakrawáka;* and compounding all these together, he made woman, and gave her to man.
But after one week, man came to him, and said: Lord, this creature that you have given me makes my life miserable. She chatters incessantly, and teases me beyond endurance, never leaving me alone: and she requires incessant attention, and takes all my time up, and cries about nothing, and is always idle;* and so I have come to give her back again, as I cannot live with her. So Twashtri said: Very well: and he took her back.
* Twashtri is the name of a Hindu deity, the blacksmith of the gods, comparable to the Greek god Hephaestus (Vulcan in Roman folklore).
* “Hindoo poets” remarked Bain in a footnote “see a resemblance between rows of bees and eye-glances.” He did not give any examples, but in the Vishnu Purana V.18 we read: “Bright is the morning that succeeds to this night for the women of Mathurá, for the bees of their eyes will feed upon the lotus face of Achyuta”. Many of the other expressions used of Woman by Bain may indeed be found in the Vedas.
* Bain offered this brief footnote: “The Indian cuckoo”. This was typical of Bain, who would leave selected words untranslated in the body text and then footnote them in a learned manner, in order to heighten the feeling of authenticity. The Indian cuckoo is classified as Cuculus micropterus.
* Bain asserted, “The crane is a by-word for inward villainy and sanctimonious exterior.”
* A chakrawaka is a Brahmany duck, also known as the ruddy shelduck (Tadorna ferruginea). “The chakrawáka, or Brahmany drake,” Bain wrote in a footnote, “is fabled to pass the night sorrowing for the absence of his mate and she for him.”
* Women might have something to say about this. See Aristophanes on The Trouble With Men.
Précis
In a fable with an Indian flavour, Francis Bain told how Twashtri, the Hindu god, gathered all the exotic and elusive ingredients not needed in making Man, and fashioned for him Woman as a companion — a bewitching creature, but full of contradictions. After a week’s trial Man returned Twashtri’s gift, complaining that she was impossible to live with. (58 / 60 words)
In a fable with an Indian flavour, Francis Bain told how Twashtri, the Hindu god, gathered all the exotic and elusive ingredients not needed in making Man, and fashioned for him Woman as a companion — a bewitching creature, but full of contradictions. After a week’s trial Man returned Twashtri’s gift, complaining that she was impossible to live with.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 65 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 55 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: about, although, ought, since, unless, whereas, whether, who.
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