Min Yu Wa - 38 Wedding Stories (Volume 1)

The Mango and the Gwedauk Tree story

Mango tree and dogwood tree

In ancient times, King Dadhivahana ruled in the land of Varathi. He had a wise and learned minister. One day, the king had a net placed under the bank of a river and was playing in the water. At that time, a mango fruit from a mango tree growing near the Sakamunda lake fell into the lake and ended up in the river.

It was caught in a net that was constantly drifting. When the king's friends took the net, they found the mango. It was golden in color and they gave it to the king.

Shay tha yaw akhar, long, long ago, King Dadiwarhana ruled over the Kingdom of Bayarna-thi. One day, the King decided to go for a picnic by a river. While he and his companions were having fun in the water, a mango fruit floated by and slowly stopped at the bank of the river.

A Ponna, one of the King's wise companions, saw the mango and noting that the fruit had a golden glow, decided to offer it to the King,

The king tasted the mango and found it to be sweet and had a unique aroma and taste. So he planted the seeds in his garden. When the plants sprouted, he had them watered with milk.

When the King ate the fruit he realized that it was an extraordinary mango. Not only did it look good, it had a wonderful scent and it was also very sweet tasty.

As soon as he finished eating the fruit, he ordered his Chief Royal gardener to plant the seed in his Royal Garden. When the shoot appeared, he watered the plant lovingly and carefully with fresh milk.

After three years, the mangoes began to bear fruit. The king tasted them. He found that they were as sweet as the original mangoes, with a unique aroma and taste. The king ate the mangoes himself. He also gave some to other kings as gifts.

However, because of the fear of reproduction, before giving the gift, the place where the mango sprout will sprout is pierced with a frog's spine and then sent.

After three years, this mango plant had grown into a tree, a tree big enough to produce many fruits. The King ate a mango from this tree and was delighted to find that it tasted as sweet as the mango by the river. It was also just as fragrant. The King decided to send some of these mangoes as gifts to other kings

However, he did not want those kings to grow their own trees from the seeds so he had the seeds pierced with an extremely fine, long thorn before he sent them. This way, the growing inner part of the seeds were destroyed.

The kings who received the mangoes as gifts were very fond of them. They liked them very much because they had a special smell and taste. So they planted the seeds. However, the plants did not grow. When they investigated the reason, they learned about King Dawahana's plan. Meanwhile, a king called a gardener who was skilled in cultivation.

"My dear, go to Varanasi and make the mangoes of King Dadhivahana bitter and tasteless," he sent. He also gave him a thousand pieces of silver as a reward.

The kings who received their mango gifts tasted them. They relished the exceptional quality of these mangoes so they asked their gardeners to plant the seeds. But no shoots came up, and no trees grew. They wondered why and started asking questions

One of the kings found out about King Dadiwarhana's secret thom and he became so angry that he called his own trusted and skilled gardener and said, "Go to the Kingdom of Bayarnathi. Go and make his mangoes bitter and tasteless!"

The gardener approached King Diwahana. | He told him how skilled he was in cultivation. The king was pleased and appointed him to work in the garden with his own gardener.

This gardener went to King Dadiwarhana and convinced him that he was an excellent gardener. King Dadiwarhana liked him so much that he gave him the job of Royal Gardener to work with his own Chief Royal Gardener.

The new gardener has been working harder than the current gardener since the day he arrived. He has made the garden better than before. He has made the flowers bloom in season, not in season. He has made the trees bear fruit in season, not in season.

The king was so pleased with the new gardener that he fired the old one and put the new gardener in charge of the entire garden.

From his first day at work, the new gardener worked very, very hard to prove that he was better than the old Chief gardener. He made flowers bloom even when it was not the season for them to bloom. He made trees bear fruit even though it was not their time to bear fruit.

All this made King Dadiwarhana so pleased with his new gardener that he dismissed his old gardener and made the new gardener the Chief Royal Gardener.

As soon as the entire garden was in his hands, the ingenious new gardener planted a perimeter around the mango tree, along with tamarind and dogwood trees.

Soon the roots and branches of the tamarind and the dogwood trees became intertwined with the roots and branches of the mango tree. Then the previously sweet mango fruit was no longer sweet. Not only was it not sweet, it became as bitter as the tamarind. And then the gardener ran away.

As soon as he was made Chief, the new gardener planted Tamar and Gwedauk trees around the Mango trees. In a very short time the roots of the Tamar, Gwedauk and Mango trees began to intertwine with each other under the ground. The mango fruit became as bitter as the fruit of the Gwedauk tree. They were no longer sweet. When this happened, the new gardener ran away.

King Dadhivahana asked the wise minister to investigate the reason why the mangoes turned bitter. The wise minister went to the garden to investigate.

Then he said to the king, "Your Majesty, the mango tree is mixed with the tamarind and the dogwood trees, so the mangoes have turned bitter. If you want to make them taste sweet as they were originally, you must remove the tamarind and the dogwood trees. You must feed them with new and good fertilizer, and you must pour milk and honey on them."

King Dadiwarhana asked the wise man,

ponna to find out how to solve the problem. He went to the garden and examined the trees. He returned to tell the King about the mixing of the roots.

Then he advised the King that the situation could be reversed if all the Tamar and Gwedauk trees and roots were removed. New rich soil would have to be used and the mango trees would have to be watered again with milk.

The king called the old gardener back. The wise minister did as he was told. The old gardener first uprooted the tamarind and dogwood trees and removed them. Then he fed the mango tree with new manure and good soil. He poured milk, honey, and fragrant juice on it. In this way, when the next mangoes came, they were as sweet as ever, with a unique aroma and taste.

The old Chief Royal Gardener was asked to return and take care of the mango trees. He followed the advice of the wise Ponna. When the mango trees bore fruit again, the mangoes were as sweet as they had been before.

Therefore, the wise say, "Even inanimate things are destroyed by bad company. Living beings are destroyed by bad company."

"What good would it do to be together?" they say.

So the wise caution us: Not to associate with fools

Even as the good, sweet mango trees bore bitter fruit when they mixed with bitter Gwedauk trees, so too, should good people learn from this story not to mix with foolish, harmful companions, for in doing so. you too, may become foolish and harmful like them.

Translated, adapted and retold by Sheila Desmond