Funday Times

The princess who loved school
Continued from last week
Udaya bought the horses, and hid with them near the palace. To his surprise he found the cunning peasant also resting in the same place. Although Udaya asked him to leave he refused to do so and soon pretended to fall asleep.

The weary Udaya now fell into a deep slumber. The cunning peasant quietly stole both horses and went below the window of the royal bedroom. He waved a scarf at Anula who slipped down a rope of knotted robes. As it was pitch dark, Anula never saw who her companion was. She hastily mounted one horse, the peasant the other, and they galloped away.

When the sun rose Anula was shocked to see the cunning peasant. She quickly thought of a clever plan to get rid of him. She cried out, “I am dying of thirst! Water! Water!” As soon as they came to a stream the peasant dismounted from his horse to get her some water. Anula immediately pulled out her sword, killed the peasant’s horse and galloped away alone.

AS she galloped through the forest Anula’as path was blocked by seven Veddah hunters. Each one of them wanted to make her his wife. Clever Anula promised to marry the Veddah who could shoot furthest with his bow and arrow.

She lined them up for the archery competition and ordered them to shoot all at once in the same direction. As they all ran to pick up their arrows to see who had shot furthest, the princess sprang on to her horse’s back and galloped away in the opposite direction.
At long last she arrived at a distant city and disguised herself as a man in the robes of a Brahmin teacher. She met a little schoolboy from whom she borrowed a palm leaf page and a stylus pen. On the palm leaf she wrote down a few words in beautiful ancient script and told the boy, “Show this letter to your school teacher”. The boy did as he was told.

The teacher found he just could not read the strange writing and took it to the palace. The king was astonished and said, “This has been written in the ancient writing known only to very few learned Brahmins. Go at once! Get me this Brahmin”. This was done. Never knowing this was a disguised princess, the king said, “I place you in charge of the palace school from today”.

Far away in the other land, Udaya had woken only to discover that both his horses had disappeared while he had been asleep. There was also no sign of the princess. He was heartbroken and set out to look for her. This was a journey that took many months.
Meanwhile, the Princess-Brahmin had been teaching school for many months. She seemed so beautiful in spite of her disguise that some of the courtiers whispered to the king that she was really a woman.

The king was determined to find out the truth. His plan was to invite the Brahmin to visit the royal flower garden and take his pick of flowers. He was sure that if the Brahmin was really a woman, she would pick herself a large bouquet of lovely flowers. However, if he was a true Brahmin, he would pick just one flower and walk about carefully studying it.

The plan was overheard by Anula’s clever talking parrot who flew back and repeated it to her. She was thus well prepared when she visited the royal flower garden, at the king’s invitation. She picked one single flower and walked around studying it. The king who secretly watched her behaviour now became convinced that disguised Anula was a man after all.

Anula however, never gave up hope of discovering Udaya. She carved a little marble figure of herself as a young woman and gave it to a group of traveling tradesmen.
She told them, “Show it to everybody you meet. If anybody recognizes it, bring them back to me at once, and I will reward you”.

The first to recognize the statue were the seven Veddahs. The tradesmen brought them back to the city. The Princess-Brahmin was now greatly trusted by the king and had become very powerful. She ordered the Veddahs thrown into jail.

The tradesmen set out once again with the statue. This time they met the cunning peasant who readily came back with them. He too was thrown into jail in turn. The third time they met the heart-broken Udaya who came back happily with them.

Immediately Anula saw her prince, after so long, she was so overjoyed that she flung away her Brahmin disguise and dressed herself in the robes and jewellery of a princess. Both Anula and Udaya then called on the king. He was wonder struck to hear the story of their amazing adventures and asked how he could reward them.

Princess Anula who loved school and learning, said, “We love nothing better than to teach children”. The king then built her a school with a beautiful house nearby. Both Prince and Princess spent a happy lifetime together teaching children of the kingdom – which is what they loved to do. From Princes Peasants and Clever Beasts by Tissa Devendra

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