Story · 27
The Three Unreal Princes: A Mother’s Lullaby
A mother once told her child a story with nothing at all inside it, and still the child fell asleep. And if you press for the truth, we are all living inside that same story.
Rama asked, “Gurudev, can there be a story in which nothing at all is true?”
Vasishtha said, “Yes, Rama, there can be. There was once an old nursemaid who told a story of three princes. But those three princes never existed at all. Listen.”
One night an old nursemaid was trying to lull a child to sleep, but the child would not sleep.
The child said, “Dai Ma, tell me a story.”
The old woman thought for a moment, then began.
“Many years ago there was a kingdom where truly nothing existed. There was no king there, and no kingdom either, only a name.
“In that kingdom there lived three princes.
“All three were great warriors, all three had won many battles, and all three had slain many demons.
“But there was one thing.
“The three of them had never been born.
“Their parents had never existed.
“Their kingdom had never existed.
“Their demons had never existed. All of it was false.
“And yet the three of them lived exactly as though everything were true.
“Each day they ruled the kingdom, each day they went to war, and each evening they returned to the palace. But in truth they were nowhere at all.
“Then one day the three of them were sitting on the bank of a river.
“The eldest said that he felt they were not real. The second said he felt the same, and the third said the same as well.
“The three of them looked at one another.
“And then all three vanished, because they had never existed at all.”
The child was watching the old woman. He asked, “Dai Ma, were the three of them really never there at all?”
The old woman said, “No.”
“Then how did you tell me about them?”
The old woman said, “Child, I simply spoke. That is what a story is.”
“But I heard it.”
“Yes.”
“And for a little while the three of them were inside me.”
“Yes.”
“Then where did they go?”
The old woman said, “Child, sleep now. This story is finished.”
And the child fell asleep.
That child grew up, and one day this story came back to him. He thought to himself that his own life was also a story, and that he too was a prince. Perhaps he too had never been born, perhaps his parents had never existed, and perhaps all of this was only a story that someone else had told.
He closed his eyes and looked within.
Within there was nothing, only a still, settled quiet. And that was his true form.
Rama was silent for a while, then said, “Gurudev, am I like that too?”
Vasishtha said, “Rama, decide that for yourself.”
Rama looked toward the water, where the evening light lay still.
Literary context
This story is drawn from the Yoga Vasistha, the Utpatti Prakarana, canto 3.101. It is the most meta of the scripture’s tales, a story that testifies to its own status as a story. It is a very old version of modern metafiction.
The philosophical view
An old nursemaid tells a story to lull a child to sleep. Three princes, three empires, three wars. And yet the three of them were never born. Their parents never existed. Their demons never existed. Still the story runs on, the child listens, and for a few moments the three of them turn real inside him. The story is saying this: if a false tale can become real inside us, then this tale that looks so real is perhaps resting on the very same stillness.
The Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) explained language games in his Philosophical Investigations (published posthumously in 1953): meaning lives in the way words are played, in how they are used, and the moment the game changes, the meaning changes with it. The story of the three princes is the children’s version of that very idea. The three were nowhere and are nowhere, yet the game of their existence runs on, and as long as we are inside the game, they are.