Adapted from the Jataka tales
Once upon a time, there lived a king and queen in a land full of monkeys. The queen loved to stroll in the royal fruit orchards and bathe in the pool there. One of her friends would sit on the bank to guard her belongings.
That day too, the queen went for a dip with her companions while one of them sat on the banks, grumbling, “Pff! I too want to have fun. Why must I have to do the boring job of guarding the queen’s clothes and jewels?” She decided to look up and admire the flowers. Lost in her daydreams about the beautiful flowers and her rosy future, she dozed off.
Monkey see – Monkey like!
A monkey sitting atop a fruit tree was observing the group having fun. Her gaze fell on a shining gold necklace. This she-monkey had always wanted to possess something beautiful. She swooped down, took her prize, and swiftly climbed up the tree. She was very pleased with herself after trying it on. At the same time, she knew that she would be deep trouble if anybody caught her with the necklace. So she took it off, hid it inside a hollow, and sat on her usual branch pretending to be innocent.
The queen finished her bath and noticed that the necklace was missing. The friend who was supposed to be guarding the possessions woke up at the same time and realized what had happened. She panicked, “The queen’s necklace is missing. Someone stole it! thief…thief… thief!”
The guards who heard the commotion came running to look for the necklace thief. The only person the guards found outside the orchard was a woodcutter who was walking at a fast pace for he had been late that day. The guards chased after him saying, “Stop, you thief! Return the queen’s necklace.”
Who stole the queen’s necklace – not me
The woodcutter realized that he had poor luck that day. Not wishing to get caught and imprisoned, he started to run. The guards, too, ran after him faster. Finally, they caught him. The thought dawned on him that there was no getting out of the situation. Therefore, he veered the blame away from himself and pointed his finger towards a priest passing by. His logic was that the guards were less likely to harm a religious man.
However, the guards arrested the woodcutter and the priest. The priest was confused. “no, don’t…don’t hurt me. I am a priest. I wouldn’t get involved in such business,” he said. But the guards wouldn’t let go of him so he shifted the blame to a musician performing nearby. When the guards caught the musician, he started telling them another version of the story where he stole the necklace for the dancer who was getting out of a palanquin. The dancer was perplexed. She had just arrived in this city to perform and was hurt and angry for being accused of a theft. She agreed to testify before the king.
The trial
The king’s men rounded up all four people connected to the case and took them to the king, who listened to their accounts. He then instructed his minister to investigate this matter as none of the accused had the necklace. The minister interrogated all four of them and realized they were all in the clear. But for some reason, the first three were lying.
He decided to go to the scene of the crime to study the orchard and the pool. Looking around, he realized that there would be no way anybody could have come in and gone out without the guards taking note. He looked up and saw that the grove was full of monkeys. Immediately, he got an idea.
Catch a monkey with glass beads
He instructed the guards to go to the bazaar and get some glass beads. Further, he told them to put a glass bead necklace on each monkey. The monkeys started to jump around, extremely happy. They were showing off the new jewels to each other. With all this banter going on, the she-monkey, who had stolen the queen’s necklace, was miffed for she did not get a beaded necklace.
Wanting to put her friends in place and show her sense of style, she put on the stolen necklace. The minister’s plan worked- the jewel thief was identified. The guards lunged at the monkey to retrieve the necklace. The latter realized the futility of losing her life over a chunk of gold and surrendered it to them willingly.
The minister presented the necklace to the extremely happy queen. In the end, everybody was happy. The friend, who was responsible for keeping the necklace safe, was relieved too. The court apologized to the dancer and the first three men were let off with a caution.
That was the tale of the queen’s necklace and how it stands as the metaphor for beauty and greed and truth and lies.
References
Fernandes, Luis M., and G. R. Kamat. 1982. The Queen’s Necklace: A Collection of Jataka Tales. Mumbai: Amar Chitra Katha, ACK Media.
Note
All stories have been collected from various sources, including oral histories and temple histories and compiled to form one narrative. Hence, there may be differences from the master narrative. The project hopes only to be a curator of stories and not an expert on history, religion and iconography.