Chakkammuvaeso

Author(s): Madhusudan Modi
Publisher: Oriental Institute

Page 63

Liv
pleased with her. The woman-ascetic died and was born in that birth as a sheparrot.
Thus the she-parrot told her narrative. The queen wept to hear it. The she-parrot said that on seeing them both she remembered her previous birth. [K. 10.). The king asked the she-parrot what she desired. She asked him to give back to her, her husband alive. The king released the parrot and ordered the paddy-guard to give the couple rice by making it into a heap. The couple was happy and the she-parrot put forth two eggs while her co-wife gave birth to one egg. While her co-wife was out, she took away her egg. When she returned, she began to lament on not seeing her egg. [K. 11.] When she saw her cowife's plight, she had a feeling of mercy and secretly left her egg in its place. The co-wife was pleased to find the egg ; but the she-parrot thereby was bound by her bad act. They all then lived happily on rice there.
Once in the Jina-temple came a Cāraṇa-sage. The king asked him about the worship with rice. The sage extolled that worship. [K. 12] The sheparrot heard it. They always began to worship the Jina with rice. All the four after death, having enjoyed in the first heaven were born again. The parrot be. came king Hemaprabha in Hemanagari. The she-parrot became his queen by name Jayasundari. [K. 13.] The co-wife of the parrot became his second queen by name Rati. He had afterwards five hundred wives but his affection was on those two. Once the king suffered from heavy fever. The physicians could not cure him. But in the night a goblin came and told him that if any of his wife, sacrificed herself in fire as an oblation, he would be cured of his fever. [K. 14.] The goblin went away. In the morning, the king told the incident to his ministers. Rati was ready to immolate herself. The king requested her to desist from falling into the fire-altar. But she was firm. (K. 15.) As she was falling, the goblin took her up in the piece of cloth in the mid-air. He was pleased and asked her what she wanted. She said she wanted to have her husband free from fever. People praised her. [K. 16. ] The king asked her for some boon. She said that she would ask for it when she liked. Rati, for a son, worshipped the family-deity and vowed before the deity to offer her the son of Jayasundari as a sacrifice, if she would get a son. She had thereafter two sons but she was thinking how to offer Jayasundari's son as a sacrifice to the deity. The way came to her mind. [K. 17.] She asked the king for a boon to give her the kingdom to rule for five days. Then by the end of a night, she took the son of Jayasundari and was going with him to the temple of the deity in Nandanavana. In the meantime, Vidyunmati, the king of Meghapura, from the air-car saw the child. [K. 18. ] He lifted up the living child and placed a dead one in its place. He took the child to his place and gave it to his queen. He grew up there. [K. 19 ] Rati on the other side offered the dead child to the deity and went home. But