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Kiranmala
Kiranmala braves the mountain of perils. Illustration by Dakshinaranjan Mitra Majumdar.
Folk tale
Name	Kiranmala
Aarne–Thompson grouping	ATU 707 (The Three Golden Children; The Three Golden Sons)
Region	Bengal, India
Related	The Story of Lalpila Saat Bhai Champa The Boy with the Moon on his Forehead

Kiranmala (Bengali: কিরণমালা) is a Bengali folktale collected by author Dakshinaranjan Mitra Majumder and published in the compilation Thakurmar Jhuli (Bengali: ঠাকুরমার ঝুলি; Grandmother's Bag ), a collection of Bengali folk tales and fairy tales.

The tale is classified in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as tale type ATU 707, "The Three Golden Children", a cycle of stories a woman promises a king she will bear a child or children with wonderful attributes, but her jealous relatives or the king's wives plot against the babies and their mother.

Translations

The tale has been published as Kirunmala, or the Wreath of Light, by author Francis Bradley Bradley-Birt; as The Story of Kiranmala by Geeta Majumdar; and as Kiranmala by Sayantani DasGupta.

Summary

The king wanders the streets at night to listen to his subjects' opinion of him, and stops by a house where three sisters are talking to one another: the first wanting to marry the feeder of the king's horses, the second to the royal cook, and the third to the king himself. The king brings them all to his presence the next day and marries the youngest.

Time passes, and the young queen is ready to give birth, but asks to be nursed by her elder sisters, instead of stranger. Unbeknownst to her, her sisters have begun to nurture envy at their cadette's fortunate marriage, and seize the opportunity to bring harm to her. The first time, the queen gives birth to a young boy, whom the elder sister replaced with a cur and throw him in the river in an earthen pot. The second time, the queen gives birth to another boy, who is replaced by a kitten, and in the following year, a girl is born, but a doll is put in her place. Thinking his wife is an evil woman, the king banishes her from the palace to sit astride a donkey.

As for the children, the two siblings share the fate of their elder, and are abandoned in the river in a earthen pot. However, each time a Brahmin, who was making his devotions near the river, finds each pot and rescues them, then raises them as their own. The Brahmin names the boys Arun and Barun (Varun) and the girl Kirunmala. After he dies, the siblings meet the king after a heavy storm on the road, and decide to build a palace. One day, a fakir passes by their palace, compliments their fine abode, but suggests the girl to send her brothers for "a silver tree with flowers of gold, a tree of diamonds with birds of gold perched on it; and a canopy of a net made of pearls". In this tale, the water is only used to disenchant Kirunmala's petrified brothers, and one of the birds of gold convinces them to invite the king to a banquet.

Analysis

Tale type

The tale is classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as ATU 707, "The Three Golden Children".

According to Stith Thompson' and Jonas Balys's index of Indian tales, the tale type ATU 707 shows 44 variants across Indian sources. In addition, researcher Noriko Mayeda and Indologist W. Norman Brown divided Indian variants of type 707 in five groups: (1) quest for wonderful items; (2) reincarnation into flowers; (3) use of wooden horses; (4) children sing a song; (5) miscellaneous.

Motifs

According to Giuseppe Flora, Kiran means 'ray, beam (of light)'. As for her brothers' names, Arun derives from Aruṇa, a Hindu deity associated with the sunrise and whose name means 'the reddish one'. Also, in the original, the silver tree is called rūpār gācha, the diamond tree is hīrār gācha, and the bird of gold is sonār pākhī.

Variants

Author Alice Elizabeth Dracott collected a tale from Simla with the title The Enchanted Bird, Music and Stream. In this tale, a prince likes to disguise himself as a poor man and mingle with his subjects. One day, while walking through a gulley, he overhears three sisters talking: the elder wants to marry a prince's servant, the middle one the prince's cook, and the youngest the prince himself. The next day, the prince sends for the three sisters and fulfills their marriage wishes. Some time later, the youngest sister, now the prince's wife, gives birth to a son. The elder sister, jealous of their cadette's fortunate marriage, replace the boy for a puppy and throw him in the stream in a box. The prince's gardener finds the boy and raises him as his own son. In the following years, the princess gives birth to two other children (a boy that is replaced by a kitten and a girl that is replaced by a rat), who are also cast in the river, but are saved by the gardener. The Prince, enraged at his wife, banishes her from the palace. As for the siblings, the gardener asks the Prince for a portion of land to live, and takes the children with him: the boys go hunting while the girl stays home. One day, an old woman pays the siblings' a visit, and says their house lacks a bird, music, and a stream of water. The girl tells her older brothers she wants the three things and they go on a quest for them. The elder brother fails in his quest and is turned to stone, and so does the middle brother. The girl ventures alone up a mountain and captures a talking bird in a cage. The bird then tells her to break a branch of a nearby tree and plant it on the ground, since it will produce music when the breeze blows through it; and to take some water from a stream. She also sprinkles the water on some stone and restores her brothers to life. At the end of the tale, the three siblings invite the Prince to their house and prepare a meal of kheer with a dish of pearls. The Prince remarks he cannot eat the pearls, and the bird replies to him that he believed his wife, the princess, gave birth to animals.

Indian author M. N. Venkataswami published an Indian tale titled The Two Princes and Their Sister: a poor woman has three daughters. One day, a fairy, under the guise of an old woman, is welcomed by the youngest and kind third sister into their house. The fairy blesses their house and leaves. One night, the three sister talk to one another: the eldest promises she can weave a great sail for a vessel, if she maries a captain; the middle one promises to give birth to a boy if she marries a king; and the youngest promises to give birth to twins, a boy with a golden chain on his neck and a girl with two stars on the front if she marries a prince. Coincidentally, a ship's captain, a king and a prince just happen to pass by the house at the exact moment and overhear their conversation. The men take each of the sisters as their respective wives. Jealous of the luck of the younger ones, the eldest sister deceives her brothers-in-law by replacing the king's son for a block and the prince's children for animals, and casting the babies in the water. The babies are saved by a country merchant and looked after by the fairy that visited their biological mothers years ago. When they are grown up, their aunt, the ship's captain's wife, sends them after the dancing-water, the singing apple and the singing bird that sings songs from "all climes and nationalities". According to Venkataswami's preface, the tale was provided by a Tamil herbalist named R. J. Samuel, who heard it from a Tamil pandit in the early 1870s.

Noriko Mayeda and W. Norman Brown collected a tale from Jammu from an informant named Des Raj Chopra. In this tale, titled The Slandered Queen, Khalifa Haroun-al-Rashid wanders the city streets at night and spies on three sisters talking: the elder wants to marry the king's cook; the middle one the king's butler; and the youngest the king himself, and bear him two sons and a daughter "of beautiful complexion". The king takes them to his court the next morning, and fulfills their marriage wishes. Jealous of their sister's good fortune, the queen's sisters replace the royal children (two golden-haired boys and a girl, born in consecutive years) for animals and throw them in the water. The children are saved by the king's gardener, and, years later, they are sent for a talking bird that knows the future, the golden coloured water and a tree that produces melodies when wind rustles its leaves.

In another tale from Jammu, also collected by Mayeda and Brown as a variant of The Slandered Queen, a king has three wives, and no son yet. One day, the oldest co-wife announces she is pregnant, to the jealousy of the other two, who conspire to take the child and son as they are born and cast them in the water. The child's two brothers, bron in the next years, are also cast in the water. All three are saved by a man who was fishing, and are raised by a wise man. Years later, they live a comfortable house with a beautiful garden. One day, the king passes by their garden and compliments it, but says it lacks the golden water and the celestial bird. The two brothers go on a quest for these two items, but fail and are turned into marble statues; their sister finishes the quest, saves them, and brings the objects home.

Mayeda and Brown summarized a tale collected by Jit Kour: a king has seven wives and no son yet. He decides to travel around until he stops by a house where maidens are talking among themselves, and the most beautiful of them states an astrologer predicted her future: she is to bear "two handsome boys" and "a lovely daughter". The king takes her as his eighth wife, to the chagrin of the other seven wives, who conspire to degrade her: as soon as the children are born (in three consecutive pregnancies), the queens take the children and cast them in the river, replacing them for monkeys. The children are saved and raised by a fisherman. Years later, an old woman visits the siblings' house and tells them to seek a sparrow that can talk. The brothers fail, but their sister takes the bird and sprinkles holy water to restore them to life. The sparrow then reveals the truth to the king during a banquet.

Adaptations

The 1979 Indian Bengali-language film Arun Barun O Kiranmala was also based on this folktale.

References

1. Espinosa, Aurelio M. “Comparative Notes on New-Mexican and Mexican Spanish Folk-Tales.” In: The Journal of American Folklore 27, no. 104 (1914): 230. https://doi.org/10.2307/534598.
2. Bradley-Birt, Francis Bradley; and Abanindranath Tagore. Bengal Fairy Tales. London: John Lane, 1920. pp. 162–167.
3. Majumdar, Geeta. Folk Tales of Bengal. New Delhi: Sterling Publishers, 1960. pp. 35-51.
4. DasGupta, Sayantani (1995). The Demon Slayers and Other Stories: Bengali Folk Tales. Interlink Books. pp. 62–74. ISBN 978-1-56656-156-3.
5. Bradley-Birt, Francis Bradley; and Abanindranath Tagore. Bengal Fairy Tales. London: John Lane, 1920. pp. 162–167.
6. Basu, Subrata. “Kiranmala”. In: Indian Literature 51, no. 6 (242) (2007): 111–17. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23347645.
7. Flora, Giuseppe. “On Fairy Tales, Intellectuals and Nationalism in Bengal (1880-1920)”. In: Rivista Degli Studi Orientali 75 (2002): 65–69. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41913063.
8. Thompson, Stith; Roberts, Warren Everett (1960). Types of Indic Oral Tales: India, Pakistan, And Ceylon. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia. pp. 95–96.
9. Aarne, Antti; Thompson, Stith. The types of the folktale: a classification and bibliography. Folklore Fellows Communications FFC no. 184. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1961. pp. 242–243.
10. Uther, Hans-Jörg (2004). The Types of International Folktales: A Classification and Bibliography, Based on the System of Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson. Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, Academia Scientiarum Fennica. pp. 381–382. ISBN 978-951-41-0963-8.
11. Crowley, Daniel J. "Haring's Herring: Theoretical Implications of the "Malagasy Tale Index"." In: Journal of Folklore Research 23, no. 1 (1986): 46, 48. Accessed May 19, 2023. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3814480.
12. Mayeda, Noriko; Brown, W. Norman. Tawi Tales; Folk Tales From Jammu. American Oriental Society New Haven, Connecticut, 1974. pp. 543-544.
13. Flora, Giuseppe. “On Fairy Tales, Intellectuals and Nationalism in Bengal (1880-1920)”. In: Rivista Degli Studi Orientali 75 (2002): 66 (footnote nr. 208). http://www.jstor.org/stable/41913063.
14. Flora, Giuseppe. “On Fairy Tales, Intellectuals and Nationalism in Bengal (1880-1920)”. In: Rivista Degli Studi Orientali 75 (2002): 67. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41913063.
15. Dracott, Alice Elizabeth. Simla Village Tales, or Folk Tales from the Himalayas. England, London: John Murray. 1906. pp. 200–213.
16. Venkataswami, M. N. (1927). Folk Stories of the Land of India. Madras: Methodist Publishing House. pp. 98-135 (Tale nr. 5).
17. Venkataswami, M. N. (1927). Folk Stories of the Land of India. Madras: Methodist Publishing House. p. xviii.
18. Mayeda, Noriko; Brown, W. Norman. Tawi Tales; Folk Tales From Jammu. American Oriental Society New Haven, Connecticut, 1974. pp. 233-238, 544.
19. Mayeda, Noriko; Brown, W. Norman. Tawi Tales; Folk Tales From Jammu. American Oriental Society New Haven, Connecticut, 1974. pp. 239-241, 550-551.
20. Mayeda, Noriko; Brown, W. Norman. Tawi Tales; Folk Tales From Jammu. American Oriental Society New Haven, Connecticut, 1974. pp. 547-550.

• Bengali-language literature
• Asian fairy tales
• Indian fairy tales
• Indian folklore
• Indian literature
• Indian legends
• Bengali folklore
• ATU 700-749