Shali Vahana

Gauthami and her son Shatha Karni became homeless after the death of Shatha Karni’s father. When they were wandering they met an old potter who also did not have anybody. That potter liked Shatha Karni very much and requested him and his mother to live with him. Shatha Karni learned the art of pottery from the old man. One day a saint came to their house. He predicted that Shatha Karni would become king of Prathisthana. Shatha Karni believed he would become a great king. So as a boy he went on making statues of soldiers, elephants, horses etc and stored all of them in a well in his home. He also used to play “king”, along with his friend. He used to sit on a branch of Shali tree and used to claim, that it was his horse. His friends used to tease him and call him “Shalivahana (he who rides on a shali)”.

One day a very rich merchant called Suvarna was attacked by a group of robbers. Shalivahana fought with the robbers and rescued Suvarna. After this, he along with his friends learnt the art of fighting with the money given to them by Suvarna. The robbers were terribly afraid of Shalivahana. They went and complained to King Mahapana of Prathisthana, that Shalivahana is planning to attack the king. The king got furious and marched with his army to fight and kill Shalivahana. But Shalivahana and his friends waged a war of surprise and defeated King Mahapana. Since he was not very educated Shalivahana made two great scholars called Sarvavarma and Gunadya as his ministers. Shalivahana met princess Naganika in the home of a sage and married her. She was a learned scholar.

One day Shalivahana and Naganika were swimming and playing in a pond. When Shalivahana splashed some water at her, Naganika shouted “maudaka” .Shalivahana thought she was asking for the sweet called Modaka and asked his servants to bring Modakas. But the princess told him that what she told was “Ma Udaka” meaning “Do not splash water”.

This made Shalivahana desirous of learning Sanskrit. He requested his ministers to teach him Sanskrit in the quickest possible time. While Gunadya told that he would be able to teach him Sanskrit in 12 years, Sarvavarma said that he could teach him Sanskrit in 6 months. Gunadya did not agree and told, “If the king learns Sanskrit in six months, neither will I speak nor write in Sanskrit.” Being extremely intelligent Shalivahana learned Sanskrit in six months. Gunadya true to his word stopped speaking in Sanskrit and went away from Prathisthana.

After a few years, two forest living people approached Shalivahana along with a book. They told, “Sir this book of stories called “Bruhat Katha Manjari (Great bouquet of stories)” has been written by our Guru in Paisachi language(Language of the forest people). Please accept it.” King Shalivahana said that Paisachi is a crude language and should not be used to write books and refused to accept the book. After this once Shalivahana fell ill because of eating inferior meat. When Sarvavarma , made enquiries , he came to know that all forest animals without any interest in food were listening to the stories of one saint living in the forest. Because of this good meat was not found. Shalivahana hearing this went o the forest. There he saw, Gunadya reading a story from the leaf of a book and throwing it in fire. Shalivahana stopped further destruction of this great story written in Paisachi and gave lot of publicity to it. This is the only book written in Paisachi that we have.