The King and the Corpse

This very old story from India has not had the shake and bake handling of a jungian analyst as I can find and except for Heinrich Zimmer, an Indologist not an analyst, I can find no other attempt to interpret. It is a rather long story so I will leave out much in a synopsis. A king was quite content in his office and would meet daily with the people of the kingdom to give them access to him for a short time each day. A peasant shows up and begins offering him fruit everyday which the king politely accepts and then gives to his treasurer who tosses them through a window into a treasure room. This went on for ten years until one day the peasant gives the fruit to a monkey that escaped from the women's quarters in the castle. The monkey takes a bite and throws it down revealing a large gem in the center of the fruit. Now the king is interested and has the treasurer check on all the other fruit in the room only to find many gems with fruit in some state of decomposition, The king is intrigued with the peasant and the next day asks the peasant what he, the king, could do for him. The peasant tells him he could be a hero and directs him to a sorcerer. The necromancer tells the king he must go to the graveyard and cut a corpse down from the large tree on which the criminal was hanged. The king finds the corpse and cuts him down and carries him on his back to the sorcerer but on the way a voice from the corpse begins to tell the king a riddle and if the king knew the answer he must tell it or his head would explode in many pieces. The king asnwers the first riddle and the corpse flies back to the tree. The king trudges back to cut him down again and begins the trek back to the sorcerer but along the way the corpse tells him another riddle that the king, if he knows, must answer or else his head will explode in many pieces. The king answers the next riddle and the corpse flies back to the tree. This goes on all night with the king answering 24 riddles. Then the 25th riddle the king could not find an answer and with that the corpse is impressed and reveals to the king a secret. That when he brings the corpse back to the necromancer he will try to kill the king by instructing him to kneel down and lower his head so that the king can be given power over the world of souls and spirits but the necromancer will cut off the king's head instead and he will become the ruler over all the world visible and invisible so the corpse spirit told the king when the necromancer tells him to do this to ask the sorcerer to show the king how it is done and when the sorcerer bows his head the king would cut it off with the same sword and that is what is done. The corpse spirit in gratitude offers the king power over all the visible world and when he dies over the spirit world as well. The corpse spirit, in gratitude for the king completing the journey offers the king whatever his heart desires and the king simlpy asks that the 24 tales and his own story be handed down through the ages for all mankind and this is done.

Work this story around for a while and we will discuss next posting.