I am trying to find the title of a book I read some years ago.  I
don't know the author or the date of publication.  I do know, however,
that it is an Indian (as in the Asian sub-continent) folktalke/myth
that concerns a displaced King travelling around India meeting
different people from all different castes.  Along the way he is
helped by Krishna (or perhaps another Hindu god) in many different
forms, one of which is a bear, and the other is a phoenix.  He somehow
comes into possesion of a ruby as well. The book was around 200 pages
in length, and I checked it out from the Pack Memorial Library in
Asheville, NC.  Thank you for helping me.

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Request for Question Clarification by juggler-ga on 18 Jan 2006 14:37 PST

How about "The King and the Corpse" by Heinrich Zimmer?

"...it is the story of an Indian king who has to take part in a
quest.This turns out to be an unexpected and thoroughly comprehensive
lesson in life and the king emerges from it as a new and wiser
person."
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691097798/

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Clarification of Question by laneb2005-ga on 18 Jan 2006 15:30 PST

I don't think it is the "King and the Corpse".  It was a hardback,
though.  It could be under the genre of children's literature, I
think.  Or perhaps fantasy.  It was not a collection of works, which
is why I don't that's the right book.

Bet you dollars to donuts this is it:


http://www.strandbooks.com/profile/?isbn=0141303484
Iron Ring
by Lloyd Alexander


pafalafa-ga


search strategy -- I read this book to my kids a while back, and Kyle
remembered the name of the author.

Thanks a lot.

It sounds like Siddartha by Herman Hesse.  I'm not sure though, as it
has been a long long time since I've read that one.  It's about 200
pages long, though, as I recall it.

It might be one of the two books listed below:

Romantic Tales from the Panjab with Indian Nights' Entertainment
(HardCover) -Charles Swynnerton Excerpted story title: "Of the man and
the bear."

My best answer would be the play by Kalidasa about King Pururavas.
Excerpt from the text: "Pururavas enters, and in a long poetical
soliloquy bewails his loss and seeks for traces of Urvashi. He vainly
asks help of the creatures whom he meets: a peacock, a cuckoo, a swan,
a ruddy goose, a bee, an elephant, a mountain-echo, a river, and an
antelope. At last he finds a brilliant ruby in a cleft of the rocks,
and when about to throw it away, is told by a hermit to preserve it:
for this is the gem of reunion,....etc"

Does that ring a bell?

I think it was in fact "Iron Ring" by Lloyd Alexander.