A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

Overview

A magician at Vārāṇasī brings out-of-season fruit and flowers from Gandhamādana to King Brahmadatta by means of the Gāndhāra-Mantra. A Brahman youth enters his service to learn the art and is rewarded after patiently supporting the teacher’s broken bed through the night. The youth flies to the mountain and supplies the same produce through the royal priest, who urges the king to replace the earlier magician. Once the teacher loses his employment, the ungrateful pupil loses his magical power.

The narrative identifies the teacher as a Chaṇḍāla and the pupil as a Brahman, while one sentence inconsistently calls the teacher a Brahman. The priest’s caste hierarchy, the narrator’s generalization about Brahman pride and the footnote’s social definition are historical rhetoric, not accepted judgments about communities. Neither magician is personally named, and the book provides no operative text of the mantra.

Teacher of mountain-fetching magic whose pupil loses the borrowed artBuddhist narrative witness
01

Origins & earliest records

Indian Buddhist narrative preserved in Tibetan translation

02

Records & interpretation

Whole chapter and its footnotes directly read in the digitized1906 edition.

In the literature

“his magic power deserted him”
Anonymous Buddhist narrative tradition; F. Anton von Schiefner and W.R.S.Ralston, mediated translators · Tibetan Tales Derived from Indian Sources — XX The Magician’s Pupil
XX The Magician’s Pupil, hosted printed-page marker290 · W.R.S.Ralston, English from Schiefner’s German Tibetan translation

The final narrative consequence of the pupil’s ingratitude.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

  1. 01

    Tibetan Tales Derived from Indian Sources

    F. Anton von Schiefner, Tibetan-to-German translator; W. R. S. Ralston, English translator · 1906

    XX, The Magician’s Pupil, pp. 288–290; note cites Kah-gyur iv. f. 171

  2. 02

    Tibetan Tales Derived from Indian Sources — XX The Magician’s Pupil

    Anonymous Buddhist narrative tradition; F. Anton von Schiefner and W.R.S.Ralston, mediated translators · 1906

    Tibetan Tales Derived from Indian Sources, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1906, title-page transcription independently checked. Tibetan Kah-gyur to German by F. Anton von Schiefner, then German to English by W.R.S.Ralston. Complete selected chaptersXX288–290 andXXII–XXVIII296–313 with all notes independently read; source-language originals not collated.

Family & connections

A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.

Primary records and illustrations

Direct primary record

Schiefner/Ralston, Tibetan Tales Derived from Indian Sources (London, 1906)

XX, The Magician’s Pupil. XX, The Magician’s Pupil, pp. 288–290; note cites Kah-gyur iv. f. 171

Complete chapter and all notes read. Translation’s canonical locator retained; original Tibetan not independently inspected. Actual endings, explicit identities and comparative material kept separate, with no death/kinship/anatomy inferred beyond the telling.

Inspect the digitized plate · Source collection manifest

Located primary passages

Specific passages supporting details in this entry, grouped by their published witness.

Tibetan Tales Derived from Indian Sources

Tibetan Tales Derived from Indian Sources, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1906, title-page transcription independently checked. Tibetan Kah-gyur to German by F. Anton von Schiefner, then German to English by W.R.S.Ralston. Complete selected chaptersXX288–290 andXXII–XXVIII296–313 with all notes independently read; source-language originals not collated.

  1. A Chaṇḍāla magician obtains out-of-season fruit and flowers for Brahmadatta. A Brahman pupil earns instruction by supporting the teacher’s broken bed through the night. He immediately flies to the mountain, then uses his new skill and caste-favouring advocacy to displace the teacher’s royal employment. His ingratitude causes his magical power to desert him.

    XX The Magician’s Pupil, complete288–290; note Kah-gyuriv.f171

German-mediated historical English translation, not direct Tibetan manuscript inspection. Whole book not claimed read. Page labels are hosted transcription markers, not separate facsimile collation. No ritual, spell formula, verse, medical procedure or modern adaptation copied.

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

  1. Historical translation of Buddhist narrativeSchiefner/Ralston, Tibetan Tales (1906), XX, The Magician’s Pupil, pp. 288–290; note cites Kah-gyur iv. f. 171Research access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

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