This is a story which my father used to narrate to me when I was younger. I was very eager to read it as I had forgotten most of it, but the fearful corpse and the witty king.
A brave and courageous king Vikramaditya of Ujjain, is the hero of this book and was called King Vikram. A sage lived near his kingdom. He performed evil deeds and even forced his own brother to enter a corpse and when his brother did so, he hung him on a tree. He then went to the palace and gave the king a fruit with a jewel inside it. Vikram the king, thought that he was a pious sage. For two days he handed over such fruits to him and on the third day he requested the king to bring the corpse to him.
The brave king accepted the challenge and started on his mission. He reached the tree, brought the corpse down and carried it on his shoulders. The corpse agreed to go with Vikram under the condition that if ever he spoke, it would go back to the tree. The king agreed to this condition.
The corpse would narrate a story and at the end of it ask a question to Vikram. He would warn that if he knew the answer and did not reply, his head would burst into a thousand pieces.
Vikram known for his intelligence and wit would each time give the correct answer and by the time he could realize, the Vetal would go back to the tree.
The creator of these stories, Sage Bhavabhuti, has used a different way of explaining the morals, to his students and readers in this book. I felt a little scared when I read about the corpse and the dead body talking, but after a few stories I understood that the sage inside the corpse was a good one.
I was happy to know that I was correct, because at the end of the book, which had many stories told by the corpse, the Vetal narrated the real story of his brother, who was an evil man. Hearing about his evil deeds, King Vikram took the corpse to the evil sage. King Vikram killed the sage and Vetal came out of the corpse and thanked the king, who returned to his palace enriched with wit, knowledge and wisdom.
I liked this book very much as King Vikram answered all the questions wittily at the right time. The role of the corpse in teaching the king and the readers the good morals is very interesting. It is eerie, scary but at the same time, it is thrilling and exciting with good lessons.
- Archit Venugopalan (8 years)
Please Note: This is a review sent in as an entry to the Chillibreeze Writing Bee Contest for kids. The review has not been edited. The views in this review are the reviewer’s own and not endorsed by Chillibreeze.
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