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was extinguished, and his knowledge left him, and smitten with the curse he wept, and asked his father to name a time when it should end. Then his father Padmavega thought a little, and said immediately; " You shall become a Bráhman's son on the earth, and display this arrogance once more, and by your father's curse you shall become a lion and fall into a well. And a man of noble character, out of compassion, shall draw you out, and when you have recompensed him in his calamity, you shall be delivered from this curse." This was the termination of the curse which his father appointed for him.
Then Vajravega was born in Málava as Devaghosha, the son of Harighosha a Bráhman. And in that birth also he fought with many, confiding in his heroism, and his father said to him, " Do not go on in this way quarrelling with every body." But he would not obey his father's orders, so his father cursed him— " Become immediately a foolish lion, over-confident in its strength." In consequence of this speech of his father's, Devaghosha, that incarnation of a Vidyádhara, was again born as a lion in this forest.
" Know that I am that lion. I was wandering about here at night, and as chance would have it, I fell into this well; and you, noble sir, have drawn me up out of it. So now I will depart, and, if you should fall into any difficulty, remember me; I will do you a good turn and so get released from my curse." After the lion had said this he went away, and the golden-erested bird, being questioned by that Bodhisattva, told his tale.
The golden- crested bird's story.:— There is on the Himálayas a king of the Vidyádharas, named Vajradanshtra. His queen gave birth to five daughters in succession. And then the king propitiated Śiva with austerities and obtained a son, named Rajatadanshtra, whom he valued more than life. His father, out of affection, bestowed the knowledge of the sciences upon him when he was still a child, and he grew up, a feast to the eyes of his relations.
One day he saw his eldest sister, by name Somaprabhá, playing upon a pinjara. In his childishness he kept begging for the pinjara, saying, " Give it me, I too want to play on it." And when she would not give it him, in his flightiness he seized the pinjara, and flew up to heaven with it in the form of a bird. Then his sister cursed him, saying;— " Since you have taken my pinjara from me by force, and flown away with it, you shall become a bird with a golden crest." When Rajatadanshtra heard this, he fell at his sister's feet, and entreated her to fix a time for his curse to end, and she said, " "When, foolish boy, you fall, in your bird-form, into a blind well, and a certain merciful person draws you out, and you do him a service in return, then you shall be released from this curse." When she had said this to her brother, he was born as a bird with a golden crest.
