The Boy at the Bottom of the Well

There was once a teacher named Ayoda Dhaumya who had three pupils, and he tested each of them hard. This is the test of the pupil called Upamanyu.

"Go, my child," said Dhaumya. "Look after the cows."

Upamanyu took the herd out every morning and watched it all day. In the evening he came back, stood before his teacher and bowed. Dhaumya looked him over.

"Upamanyu, you are very plump. What are you living on?"

"I beg for my food, sir."

"What you get by begging you should bring to me first."

So the boy brought everything he was given, and his teacher took all of it. Days passed. He stood before Dhaumya again, and he was still not thin.

"I take all your alms and leave you nothing. How do you keep yourself now?"

"When I have given you the first lot, sir, I go round and beg a second time."

"That is not right. You are taking food from others who live by begging. It is greedy."

Upamanyu agreed and went back to the cows. Some days later the teacher asked again.

"I drink the milk of these cows, sir."

"You did not have my leave to do that."

The boy agreed. The next time, he was living on the froth that the calves let fall when they sucked.

"The calves are kind," said Dhaumya. "They must be dropping a great deal of it for your sake. You are robbing them of their meal. That is forbidden too."

Upamanyu agreed to this as well and went out with the herd. Now he had no alms, no second round, no milk and no froth.

One day in the forest, weak with hunger, he ate the leaves of the arka plant. They are bitter and burning. They went to his eyes, and he became blind. He crawled about and fell into a pit.

The sun went down behind the western hills, and he had not come home.

"I have stopped him from eating anything at all," said Dhaumya to his other pupils. "He is late. Let us go and look for him."

They went into the forest, and the teacher shouted. "Upamanyu! Where are you?"

A voice came up out of the ground. "Here, sir. At the bottom of a well."

"How did you get there?"

"I ate arka leaves and went blind, and I fell in."

"Praise the twin Ashvins," said Dhaumya. "They are the physicians of the gods. They will give you back your eyes."

So the blind boy began to sing where he was. He called the twins two birds with beautiful wings. He said they weave the cloth of the year with the white thread of day and the black thread of night. He sang of the wheel of time, with its seven hundred and twenty spokes of days and nights, which they set turning. "I am caught in that wheel," he sang. "Ashvins, set me free. Give me my sight, so that I may live."

The Ashvins came.

"We are pleased," they said. "Here is a cake. Take it and eat."

After so much hunger, this is the place where you would expect the boy to eat. He did not.

"Your words are never false," said Upamanyu. "But I dare not eat this without offering it to my teacher first."

"Your teacher once called on us, just as you have," said the twins. "We gave him a cake like this one. He ate it and did not offer it to his own teacher. Do what he did."

"Forgive me, Ashvins. I cannot take it without offering it to him."

"We are pleased with this devotion of yours," said the two gods. "Your teacher's teeth are of black iron. Yours shall be of gold. Your sight will return, and good fortune will come to you."

Upamanyu could see again. He went to his teacher, bowed and told him everything.

Dhaumya was glad. "It will be as the Ashvins have said. All the Vedas will shine in you, and all the books of law."

That was the test of Upamanyu.