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Overview
A city suffers from a light said to kill anyone who sees it. Watching from a prepared platform, a prince discovers its source: the Nāga King comes from the nāga world, puts a Cobra Stone out of his mouth, then goes away to feed as a cobra. The prince covers the stone with a cow-dung basket; the returning king mistakes a water pot for the culprit, allowing the prince to kill him with a sword.
The prince washes and keeps the stone, then follows the king’s route to the nāga world, where his three daughters live. They warn that their father would eat the visitor, until the stone proves his death. The tale describes the stone’s radiance and the king’s cobra form; it does not name him Maṇi-Kaṇṭha, whose separate Jātaka story appears only in Parker’s comparative notes, nor make this stone automatically grant every wish.
Origins & earliest records
Sri Lankan narratives collected and translated by H. Parker
Records & interpretation
Complete tale and all its printed variants/comparative notes read; relevant introduction passages on collection and translation directly read.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
Village Folk-Tales of Ceylon, Volume I
No. 47, The Golden Tree, pp. 264–270
Family, evolution & connections
The Nāga king’s three daughters in The Golden Tree
Parker’s 1910 English collection, tale No. 47.
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Repeated explicit father–daughter statements in the named tale. Three daughters share one profile. No mother is identified, and daughter-to-transformation or daughter-to-husband mappings are unspecified. The human princes’ father is a different king.
Three nāga princesses of the Golden Tree
The Nāga king’s three princesses identify him as their father. They collectively become the golden tree, silver flower and silver cock; the tale supplies no individual daughter names or one-to-one form mapping.
Primary records and illustrations
Village Folk-Tales of Ceylon, Volume I
Volume I. No. 47, The Golden Tree, pp. 264–270
Complete section read including all printed variants, comparative notes and narrator attribution. Composite princess forms retained without invented mapping, unnamed king separated from Jataka comparison, and human Kinnara hunters not misclassified as celestial beings.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- Historical collected oral narrative translationParker, Village Folk-Tales of Ceylon I — No. 47, The Golden Tree, pp. 264–270Research access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
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