Cambodia's great treasury of folk tales opens at its own beginning. A pupil asks his teacher three riddles — what woman is the best of women, what water is the sweetest water, what fish is the finest of all fish — and the answers are darker and wiser than he expects. Then come the rascal tales the book is loved for. Chao Pal pledges a gold chain to Lord Rat, and ruins him with a false chain and a court of law. Chao Pal again — shaven-headed, in a stolen monk's robe — comes to a widow's lonely house as the healer of her sick child, and sets his trap at the great rice-pounder. And a hermit of such perfect virtue that he brings back a single strand of thatch he never meant to take — until the Bodhisatta, born as a merchant, sees what that virtue is hiding.
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
Chapters:
00:03 — The Good Woman, the Sweet Water, and the Fish
04:37 — Lord Rat Outwitted by Chao Pal
10:40 — Chao Pal Disguised as a Monk
18:48 — The Rascal Who Restrained Himself Too Much
From the Gatiloke by Suttantaprija Ind (1859–1924), Cambodia's treasury of Khmer folk tales, first published in parts in Phnom Penh in 1914–1921 — public domain, and told here in a fresh in-house English rendering made from the Khmer text, in the book's own order. One question-chapter near the opening is held back from this episode: its matter is murder itself, and by house rule such a tale is not read until it is ruled on; it stands recorded in the collection's written register, in its place.
KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
