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SUMATINÄTHACARITRA
281
it is evident that the boy is yours. Take him and go home. For he is not this woman's child, even though cared for and cherished (by her). The offspring of a cuckoo, even though nourished by a crow, is a cuckoo.” 424
When the Queen had given her decision by the power of the embryo, the fourfold assembly opened their eyes wide in astonishment. Then the mother and the stepmother of the boy went home, joyful and depressed, like the day-blooming and night-blooming lotuses at dawn.
His birth (179–182) Then the embryo gradually increased, like the moon in the bright fortnight, producing no pain in the Queen as if it were decreasing. In nine months, seven and a half days, on the eighth day of the white half of Vaišākha, the moon being in conjunction with Maghā, Lady Mangalā bore with ease a jewel of a son, gold color, marked with a curlew, like the east bearing the moon. For a moment there was light in the three worlds; and comfort for the hellinhabitants for a moment; and the thrones of Sakra, etc., shook at that time.
Birth ceremonies (183–186) The Dikkumāris performed suitably the birth-rites for him, and Sakra took the Lord from Mangalā's couch to Sumeru. The sixty-three Indras, Acyuta and others, bathed in turn the Lord, seated on Sakra's lap, with water from the tirthas. Placing the Lord on Išāna's lap, Sakra bathed him with water rising from the horns of four bulls made of crystal. After he had anointed the Lord and worshipped him with garments and ornaments, and had waved the light vessel, Sakra praised him with devotion :
42% 176. With reference to the cuckoo's habit of laying her eggs in the nests of other birds.
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