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lived a great king named Sumanas. He was of extraordinary splendour, and crossing difficult and inaccessible regions, he conquered the fortresses and fastnesses of his foes. Once, as he was sitting in "The hall of assembly, the warder said to him— " King, the daughter of the king of the Nishádas, named Muktálatá, is standing outside the door with a parrot in a cage, accompanied by her brother Víraprabha, and wishes to see your Majesty." The king said "Let her enter," and, introduced by the warder, the Bhilla maiden entered the enclosure of the king's hall of assembly. And all there, when they saw her beauty, thought— " This is not a mortal maiden, surely this is some heavenly nymph." And she bowed before the king and spoke as follows— " King, here is a parrot that knows the four Vedas, called Śástraganja, a poet skilled in all the sciences and in the graceful arts, and I have brought him here to-day by the order of king Maya, so receive him." With these words she handed over the parrot, and it was brought by the warder near the king, as he had a curiosity to see it, and it recited the following śloka:
" King, this is natural, that the black-faced smoke of thy valour should be continually increased by the windy sighs of the widows of thy enemies, but this is strange, that the strong flame of thy valour blazes in the ten cardinal points all the more fiercely on account of the overflowing of the copious tears wrung from them by the humiliation of defeat."
When the parrot had recited this śloka, it began to reflect, and said again, " What do you wish to know? tell me from what śástra I shall recite."
Then the king was much astonished, but his minister said— " I suspect, my lord, this is some rishi of ancient days become a parrot on account of a curse, but owing to his piety he remembers his former birth, and so recollects what he formerly read." When the ministers said this to the king, the king said to the parrot— " I feel curiosity, my good parrot, tell me your story, where is your place of birth? How comes it that in your parrot condition you know the śástras? Who are you?" Then the parrot shed tears and slowly spoke: " The story is sad to tell, king, but listen, I will tell it in obedience to thy command.
The parrot's account of hit own life as a parrot.:— Near the Himálayas, O king, there is a rohiní tree, which resembles the Vedas, in that many birds take refuge in its branches that extend through the heaven, as Bráhmans in the various branches of the sacred tradition.*[1] There a cock-parrot used to dwell with his hen, and to that pair I was born, by the influence of my evil works in a former life. And as soon as I was born, the hen-parrot, my mother, died, but my old father
- ↑ * An elaborate pun on dvija and śákhá.
