Episode 69 – Brotherly Love – Myths Your Teacher Hated

Episode 69 Show Notes

Source: Tibetan Mythology

This week on MYTH, we’re off to the rocky crags of Tibet for a story with all the makings of the next hit Disney movie. You’ll see that murder makes great medicine, that children should definitely trust strange old men in caves, and that snakes aren’t as cold-blooded as royalty. Then, in Gods and Monsters, you’ll learn how to use a giant cobra as an umbrella. This is the Myths Your Teacher Hated podcast, where I tell the stories of cultures from around the world in all of their original, bloody, uncensored glory. Modern tellings of these stories have become dry and dusty, but I’ll be trying to breathe new life into them. This is Episode 69, “Brotherly Love”. As always, this episode is not safe for work.
Today’s story comes from the mountainous lands of Tibet, which we haven’t really touched on up until now. I figured it was high time we rectified this. This particular tale comes from The Giant Book of Myths and Legends (which has a lot of great stories from all over the world, making it a great jumping off point for a deeper dive into the mythos of a lot of different parts of the world), as translated and transcribed by Rachel Harriette Busk.
Long, long ago, a Khan named Kun-snang (which means ‘all-enlightening’) ruled over a vast, wealthy kingdom. He and his wife had a son named Sunshine, but as is so often the case in these stories, the woman died at some unspecified point in some unspecified way. The Khan remarried and had a second son named Moonshine. As the Khanin watched her beloved son grow, a dark thought gnawed on her heart in the quiet hours of the night: he was a prince, but he would never take the throne himself as long as Prince Sunshine was alive and well to inherit the kingdom. The more she thought about it, the more unfair it seemed that her son should be prevented from his birthright by the child of a dead woman. Moonshine deserved the throne, and his mother knew that the only way he could ever have it was if something happened to Prince Sunshine.
Her need to prepare the way for her beloved son grew and grew until she could ignore it no longer, and she began to scheme. One night, she threw herself onto the couch, clutching herself in feigned agony. All night long, she tossed and turned and moaned and wailed. The Khan was worried about his wife – probably all the more so having lost one wife already, which might have been what gave the wicked stepmother (a trope that pops up in a lot of cultures) the idea in the first place. “My beloved wife, what is wrong? Are you sick? What can I do to make you feel better?”
The woman cried out in feigned agony, breathing hard through imagined pain. “I have had these attacks for years, my love, before we met when I lived in my old home. It’s never been this bad before, though. I’ve tried every cure I know to no avail. All of the things that helped in the past have failed, which means that there is only one thing that can save me now, and it’s impossible. I don’t have what I need to make the cure.”
Kun-snang shook his head. “Nothing is impossible, my love. All of the resources of my kingdom are at your disposal. Just tell me what you need, and I promise you that I will get it for you. Just name it, anything, and it shall be yours, even if I have to forsake my very kingdom to provide it. There is nothing that I would not trade for your life, my beloved. What do you need?” His wife shook her head, pretending that she was unwilling to ask this thing of him, but her pretend pain grew more and more frenzied and agonized. The Khan repeated his vows of love and pleaded that she tell him what she needed so that he could save her. At last, she pretended to be suffering too fiercely to hold back any longer.
“The only thing that can stop this agony is the heart of a Prince, stewed in sesame oil (which was commonly used medicinally). The only princes in the kingdom are Sunshine and Moonshine, and either’s heart would save my life, but I couldn’t eat the flesh of my flesh. Moonshine’s heart would not be able to pass through my throat. You see, my love? It is impossible. Only by sacrificing Prince Sunshine can my life be saved. Say no more, my beloved husband, and watch me die.”
Kun-snang took a deep, steadying breath. That was not the ingredient he had been expecting, but he was a man of his word, and he had vowed to save her life no matter what the cost. Besides, he loved his wife, and he could not bear to watch her wither away and die in agony the way he had been forced to with his first wife, not when he had a clear means to save her. “I would sooner cut out my own heart than take the life of my dear Sunshine, but that is not the choice at hand. If there is no other way to save your life, then this thing must be done. The question is not ‘should I sacrifice my son to save my wife’ but ‘which son should I sacrifice to save her’. By your words, there can be only one option, and it shall be done. Do not fear, my beloved: I shall fetch you the heart of Prince Sunshine cooked in sesame oil. You will not die, my love.”
If you’re anything like me, your first thought upon hearing the Khan casually pronounce his own son’s execution is ‘holy shit, you’re just gonna jump right on the infanticide train? That’s somehow both extremely romantic and extremely fucked up at the same time.’ Well don’t worry, he’s not quite the stone-cold killer he seems. Kun-snang is a wise man, and he’s going to attempt a placebo before hauling off and murdering his son for some mystery cure he’s never heard of before. His plan was to take the heart of a young goat and give her that, doused in sesame oil, as a cure. Prince Sunshine would be sent off to a distant country with people he trusted until the Khanin was feeling better. Only then would he let her know that her step-son was totally alive and bring him back, leaving everyone relatively happy and healthy.
It was a good plan, all things considered, but there was a complication that neither he nor his wife had planned on. Prince Moonshine, who had a bed in his mother’s quarters, had been kept awake by his concern for his mother’s wailing (which he also thought was completely real). Neither of his parents realized that he was awake while they were discussing this plan; his mother hadn’t confided in him that she was trying to make him the heir, and his father obviously hadn’t told him that he wasn’t actually about to murder his brother. Prince Moonshine was a perfectly sweet, nice young man and he loved his brother Sunshine as much as his own life. He snuck out of the room while his dad was still comforting his mom and raced to go find his brother. He woke Sunshine up and told him everything he’d overheard, struggling to get the words out through his tears.
Sunshine hugged his brother, trying to comfort him. “Yeah, that’s not ideal. Thanks for telling me, Moony. It’s pretty clear that you’re safe here, and both dad and your mom love you. You stay here and be the prince while I get the hell out of here while I still can. I’ll slip out and go find a country far away where I can be safe.” He hugged his brother harder. “Goodbye forever, Moony.”
“Screw that, Sunny! If you go, I go. How am I supposed to stay here all by myself while you’re out having adventures?” Sunshine smiled at that, relieved to have his brother by his side. He’d been trying to put a brave face on things, but he was more than a little afraid of setting out on his own, and having Moonshine with him made it a lot easier to be brave. They ducked out of Sunshine’s room and went to a nearby priest that they knew to ask for a supply of baling cakes (a pyramid-shaped cake made from rice paste that’s easy to carry) for their journey. They could have asked the Khan’s cook, but they feared that they would be overheard and discovered before they could get safely away. The priest didn’t know exactly what was going on, but he was a kindly man so he provided them with a good supply. They set out before the first light of dawn was visible on the horizon.
The two brothers headed east by the light of the moon, neither knowing enough of the local country to have any real idea where they were headed. They figured that anywhere had to be better than here, since staying meant certain death for Sunshine (at least as far as they knew). They spent many days on the road, journeying over plains and mountains, coming eventually to a blasted, barren place. The land around was empty of life, and the only water was a muddy river that was too filthy to try and drink. Exhausted from more travel than they had ever endured before, Moonshine collapsed.
Panicked, Sunshine raced to the top of a nearby hill to see if he could see the glimmer of pure water for his brother, but saw only mud for miles around. Cursing their luck, Sunshine raced back to his brother, determined to drag him until they found a stream. He knelt down next to his brother’s still form to lift Moonshine over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, but he paused. Something was wrong. Sunshine put his ear against his brother’s chest, and heard only silence. No breath, no heartbeat, nothing. Moonshine was dead.
Sunshine dropped to the mud and cradled his brother’s body against him as he wept. He stayed like that throughout the day and at moonrise, he dried his tears and built a cairn of stones over Moonshine’s body. We wept for his lost brother the whole time, praying fervently that he and Moonshine might be allowed to live together again in their next lives.
When he had finished, Sunshine said a final prayer over his brother’s grave and then set out to continue on his way. Some time later (he was too depressed to pay attention to how long it had been), he came to a pass between two steep rocks. A red door was set in one of the rocks. I guess that, being a prince, Sunshine hadn’t been in the habit of knocking before he entered somewhere, because he went up to the red door, opened it, and went on in without bothering to ask anyone’s permission.
Inside, he found an old hermit living in a cave carved out of the living stone of the tall rock. “Hello, young man. Are you alright? You seem oppressed by a heavy grief, even at your young age. Where are you from?” Sunshine told the old man everything that had happened since Moonshine had burst into his room that fateful night. The hermit listened quietly to the boy’s story and when Sunshine had finished, he stood slowly. The hermit tucked a small corked bottle into the pocket of his robes and headed back the way the young prince had come until he found Moonshine’s grave.
With deliberate speed, the old hermit removed the stones from the dead prince and dripped the liquid in the small bottle onto his still form. Moonshine’s eyes shot open and he gasped a desperate breath, restored to life by the hermit’s mysterious magic. Sunshine nearly bowled his brother over with his fierce hug, and the two cried and laughed as they held each other. The old hermit smiled, and offered the two young princes the chance to live with him as his adopted sons. Sunshine and Moonshine were only too happy to agree, and the three soon became a tight-knit little family.
The barren waste where the hermit made his home was in the kingdom of a Khan renowned for his dazzling glory and his unstoppable might. Once a year, the Khan and his subjects would go and direct the flow of the water over the country towards the fertile fields in order to irrigate them and provide a bountiful harvest. The river was under the domain of the serpent gods, or the naga. The king of the nagas was Shesa, and they were worshipped in many parts of ancient Tibet and India. As was often the case with gods, the nagas traditionally demanded a sacrifice, and the naga of the river was no different. Each year, a youth of a certain age was picked as the sacrifice; this year, it would be someone born in the Year of the Tiger.
The Khan searched through his kingdom, looking for all of the people born in the Tiger Year, but all of his seekers came back empty-handed. It seemed that, in all of the Khan’s lands, there was not a single person of the required age. This was very bad news, and no one particularly wanted to think about what would happen if they weren’t able to offer the proper sacrifice to the naga. At last, a single herdsman was brought before the Khan with a story. He had seen an old hermit living out in the desert between two steep rocks with two young men. One of them, the herdsman claimed, appeared to be the right age. It was a thin branch to cling to, but it was all they had. The Khan sent out three envoys to fetch the hermit’s son as a sacrifice. Ye gods and little fishes, these poor boys just cannot catch a break!
The three envoys of the Khan made their way to the hermit’s red door and knocked. “Who are you? What do you want?” “As you know, the naga demands a sacrifice. In all of the kingdom, only you have a son born in the Year of the Tiger. For the good of us all, the Khan needs him to be the sacrifice. We have come to fetch the boy.” “You do realize that I am a hermit, living out here all by myself without a woman for many miles. How exactly do you think I would have any sons? Am I supposed to have gotten myself pregnant somehow?” The hermit doubted that he would be able to convince them to go away without a search however, so he motioned for Sunshine to crawl into a huge clay pot. Once the boy was inside, he sealed the top with clay to look like a jar of rice brandy. The story doesn’t mention where Moonshine is, but either he’s the wrong age and no one cares, or he also hides but since he’s not the one they’re after, no one cares.
Sure enough, the Khan’s envoys grew tired of the hermit’s word games and broke down his door. They rushed into the cave and began to search it top to bottom. The cave was empty, and the three envoys were enraged at their failure (and probably more than a little terrified of facing the Khan without the sacrifice they had been sent to gather). As bullies often do, they turned their fear and anger on the nearest available target, which happened to be the hermit. They began to beat the old man, cursing him for bringing them all the way out into the middle of the fucking desert for nothing.
Sunshine could hear them beating his adopted father, and his kind heart couldn’t take it. “Leave my father alone!” The three envoys stopped beating the poor old hermit, but only so they could break Sunshine out of his hiding place and drag him away to the Khan. Prince Sunshine had survived an assasination attempt only to end up a blood sacrifice instead. The hermit, bloodied and beaten, lay curled up and sobbing on the cave floor at the thought of his beloved adopted son’s imminent death.
The Khan’s daughter was watching from a window as the three envoys brought the young prince to the palace. She asked who the handsome young man was, and was aghast when she heard that he was to be the naga’s sacrifice. She rushed down and confronted her father’s men. “You can’t kill him! Look at how handsome he is! In my name, I ask that you save him, or if you must drown him for the naga, then throw me into the water along with him!” The three envoys barely hesitated. They marched the princess in to see the Khan right alongside Prince Sunshine.
When he heard what his daughter had tried to do, the Khan flew into a rage. He declared that she was not fit to be his daughter. If she wanted to die with this stranger and abandon her duties, then so be it – she would be permitted to do exactly that. He ordered his men to sew them up together in a bull’s skin and cast them both into the water to drown together as a sacrifice to the nagas.
Sunshine was not going to stand for this bullshit. “If you want to kill me for being the only unfortunate soul born in the Year of the Tiger, so be it. I understand that hard decisions need to be made for a kingdom. But to murder this beautiful young woman alongside me just for looking me in the eyes and pitying me is unbearable! How dare you!” At almost the same moment, the princess called her father on his bullshit as well. “If I am to die for the good of my people as a sacrifice to the naga, so be it. But to murder this handsome, noble young man alongside me is unbearable! How dare you!” The khan ignored them both and they were cast into the river.
The serpent-gods heard the passionate cries of the young couple, and saw how each was willing to die to spare the other’s life. The nagas flashed out into the water and saved Sunshine and the princess, giving them their freedom. Even without any actual deaths, the nagas accepted the selflessness of the two young people instead and caused the water to flow throughout the country to irrigate the rice and feed the people.
Having been saved, Prince Sunshine suggested that they each return home. “You go back to the Khan’s palace, and I will go visit my father in his home in the rock. He is surely mourning my death, and I don’t want him doing something stupid from grief. Once I have showed him that I am alive and well, I will come find you at the palace and we can get to know each other a little better. That work for you?” The princess was very eager to get to know this handsome young man who had risked his life for hers, so she happily agreed to this plan. She thought it was sweet that he was so dedicated to his adopted father.
Sunshine rushed back to the Hermitage, where the old hermit was lying on his bed and wasting away in despair (even though Moonshine was still alive and well and even more in need of a father, but of course emotion isn’t exactly logical, so I don’t blame him for almost being sad to death). He washed the old man and fed him, encouraging him to get his strength back up. Sunshine stayed with his father until he was sure that the hermit would recover.
The princess went home to the palace, astonishing the shit out of everyone who had seen her bound and tossed to a watery grave. The guards initially refused to allow her inside the gates, certain that she was a vengeful ghost out for bloody revenge. When they finally convinced themselves that she was actually her and still very much alive, she was permitted inside the palace and everyone swarmed around her to tell her how very glad they were that she had been miraculously survived. Never before had anyone been thrown into the waters as a sacrifice to the serpent-gods and been spared, and everyone was amazed.
Everyone that is except the Khan himself. “Of course you were spared, daughter. I definitely knew that was going to happen and didn’t just straight-up try to have you executed for being compassionate. The nagas have that kid born in the Year of the Tiger as a sacrifice, so they didn’t need you too.” The princess shot her father a look that told him she knew he was full of shit. “Actually, dad, the serpent-gods saved him too. In fact, they spared him specifically because he was so upset about you trying to have me executed alongside him like a petty little punk. And they spared me for trying to save him.”
“Really? Huh. Well in that case, I suppose we should bring him to the palace. I mean, I guess we owe him or whatever.” Servants were sent out to fetch Sunshine again, this time with assurances that he wouldn’t need to be a sacrifice for the good of the kingdom. The Khan went out to meet Sunshine, then brought him up to sit beside himself and the princess on an expensive custom seat.
“Thank you for saving my people from drought. I still can’t believe that you and my daughter escaped certain death as sacrifices to the serpent gods. It’s hard to believe that you’re just the son of a random hermit.” “Funny story, actually. I am in fact the son of a great and mighty Khan, but my stepmother wanted my brother (who’s right here beside me even though it hasn’t been mentioned until just this second) to become the heir, and so she tried to have me killed. My brother and I fled, and were taken in by the extremely nice and generous Hermit, who adopted us out of the goodness of his heart.”
The Khan was shocked, but he knew an opportunity when he saw one. His daughter was obviously infatuated with this young man, who turned out to be a powerful political match, so he immediately decreed that they should be married. The guy was obviously a favorite of the nagas, so it just made sense to keep him on the side of the kingdom. For good measure, he also decreed that Moonshine would marry the younger princess (who has never been mentioned before, but has definitely been around and doing her own important stuff I’m sure). He also bestowed vast riches on the young man (which was going to go to his daughter anyway, so it wasn’t much of a sacrifice) and gave him an escort of soldiers to protect them on the way back to Sunshine’s home. It was a very elaborate way to say ‘I’m sorry I tried to have you ritually murdered.’
Emissaries rode out ahead of the returning princes to let their father know that Prince Sunshine and Prince Moonshine were alive and well, and coming home. The Khan and Khanin had been absolutely distraught at the loss of their children (although the Khanin was only really sad about Moonshine, having tried to kill Sunshine). They had isolated themselves from everyone in their grief, but they came back to themselves at the impossible news of the returning princes. When they entered, the Khan rose to embrace his beloved sons, but the Khanin, overcome with shame and guilt when confronted with the faces of her crimes, fell down stone dead on the spot. The Khan shrugged. “Fuck her. She got what she deserved, right?” So…happy ending?
This is a variation on a pretty standard story format, complete with one of the earliest wicked stepmothers I’ve seen, but I love that the two brothers are actually very close. Unlike a lot of stories, the two boys never think of each other as half-brothers, and both want what’s best for the other, even to their own detriment. The two princes are actually very good people, which is sort of a rarity among heroic royalty. And so, with both princes alive and healthy to inherit a kingdom (I assume that Sunshine and his wife will rule one and that Moonshine and his wife will rule the other), it’s time for Gods and Monsters. This is a segment where I get into a little more detail about the personalities and history of one of the gods or monsters from this week’s pantheon that was not discussed in the main story. This week’s god slash monster is the naga.
The nagas are a race of half-human, half-serpent beings that are usually divine or semi-divine in a number of South Asian and Southeast Asian cultural traditions. They are common to Hinduism, Jainism, and (relevant to this week’s story) Buddhism, including Tibetan Buddhism. The word comes from the Sanskrit word ‘nag’, which is still the word for snake – especially the cobra, which is the common naga form. The term ‘naga’ actually encompases a fairly wide category of beings including divine snakes, primordial ocean deities, earth spirits, and even dragons.
The nagas are usually said to dwell in the underground kingdom of Naga-loka or Patala-loka, which is filled with incredible palaces decorated with sparkling precious stones. The nagas were relegated to the nether-regions of the world by the creator deity Brahma because they became too abundant and were overtaking the world. They were also commanded to bite only truly evil people and those destined to die prematurely (which I’m pretty sure is anyone who gets bit by a giant cobra, so catch-22 Brahma).
The naga king (whose name varies from place to place, but is often said to be the storm god Varuna, also known as the Nagarajah or the Tibetan version Apala Nagarajah, also known as Mucalinda Nagarajah) once sheltered the Buddha from the rain for 7 days with his cobra hood or seven snake heads while he was meditating and was rewarded for his loyalty. A number of royal lines claim ancestry from a human-naga coupling in the distant past. They are powerful creatures, capable of spreading disease or misfortune when angered, but also potentially powerful protectors if pleased (as we’ve seen). In many stories, the nagas have the ability to take on fully-human form (making sex with humans much easier). So if a snake starts coming on to you, don’t say no right away – it might be a sexy water god in disguise.
That’s it for this episode of Myths Your Teacher Hated. Keep up with new episodes on our Facebook page, on iTunes, on Stitcher, on TuneIn, and on Spotify, or you can follow us on Twitter as @HardcoreMyth and on Instagram as Myths Your Teacher Hated Pod. You can also find news and episodes on our website at myths your teacher hated dot com. If you have any questions, any gods or monsters you’d want to learn about, or any ideas for future stories that you’d like to hear, feel free to drop me a line. I’m trying to pull as much material from as many different cultures as possible, but there are all sorts of stories I’ve never heard, so suggestions are appreciated. The theme music is by Tiny Cheese Puff, whom you can find on fiverr.com.
Next time, we’ll journey to the shadow of an active volcano for some cautionary tales. You’ll discover what lives under the lake, what happens when you crawl into a monster tunnel, and what happens when you slack off work. Then, in Gods and Monsters, we’ll toast a flying cryptid with its namesake beer. That’s all for now. Thanks for listening.