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Prakrit and Apabhramśa Studies
by means of various clever tricks. After nine months she left for her father's house for delivery. On her way she halted at a place near a banyan tree, where she found a new-born boy abandoned by some poor woman travelling with a foregoing caravan. She at once informed her nurse and attendants that she had brought forth a son. The message was sent to Rajagṛha and her husband's parents asked her to return. As the boy was born under a banyan tree, he was named Nigrodha-kumāra, or Master Banyan. That same day, the daughter-in-law of another merchant, on her way home to her father for the birth, brought forth a son beneath the branches of a tree; and him they named Sakha-kumāra, Master Branch. And on the same day, the wife of a tailor in the employ of this merchant bore a son amidst his bits of cloth; and him they called Pottika, or Dollie. The great merchant sent for these two children and brought them up with Master Banyan.
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They all grew up together, and by and by went to Takkasila to complete their education. Both the merchant's sons had two thousand pieces to give to their teacher for a fee; Master Banyan provided Pottika with an education under his own wing.
When their education was finished, they took leave of their teacher and left him, with intent to learn customs of the country folk, and travelling on and on in time they came to Benares, and lay down to rest in a temple. They slept under a tree. At dawn Pottika awoke, and sitting up began to chafe Banyan's feet. Then a quarrel started among the two cocks roosting upon that tree because the cock on the upper branch let a dropping fall upon the cock on the lower branch. They boasted of their importance. The lower cock declared that whoever ate his flesh would receive a thousand pieces of money that very morning. The upper cock declared that whoever ate his fat would become a king that very morning; he that ate his middle flesh, would become Commanderin-Chief; who ate the flesh about the bones, he would be Treasurer.
Pottika heard them.He caught the upper cock, killed it and cooked it. The fat be gave to Banyan. the middle flesh to Branch
