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Prakrit and Apabhramsa Studies
the king to seek favour. He forgets the verse on his way, but seeing some fowls, picking in a refuge dump, is inspired to loudly utter an instantly composed verse-line. The fowls look up with stretched necks and another line comes out. The huddled up fowls inspire a third line and when the scared birds run away, the dullard completes the verse. This absurd doggerel he recites in the King's assembly. It baffles the pundits. The king trying to make out the recondite meaning of the verse recites at midnight in his bed the verse-lines one by one at short intervals. The thieves near his bed room, overhearing and construing these utterances as referring to them run away. The thieves were palace guards themselves. They own up next day. The Brāhmaṇa is rewarded.
The feature of disconnected lines, spontaneously composed by a dullard, is common between this tale and the Brhatkathākosa version of the tale of Yava.
Notes and References 1. jai dā kramda-silogehi yamo maraņādu phedio rāyā /
patto ya su-sāmannam kim puna jiņa-vutta-sutteņa // (Bha. Ārā., v. 772 = Bha. Pa, v. 87 with the variants : kamda-silogehim javo tā; rakkhio). Sricandra in his Kanākosu explains Khanda-śloka as a verse not connected with the scriptural text or alternatively, 'a verse composed on the spur of
the moment. But it was probably equivalent to śloka-khanda. 2. Ed. by Chaturvijaya and Punyavijaya, Part 2, Bhavnagar, 1936. 3. See A. Metter, 'Eine Jinistische Parallel zum Mūsika-Jātaka',
K. Brühn and A. Wezler (ed.), Studien zum Jainimsus und Buddhismus (Gedenkschrift für L. Alsdorf), Wiesbaden, 1981,
pp. 155-161. 4. BỊhat-kalpa-stra, 2, p. 359-361. 5. ädhävasi padhāvasi, mamam va vi nirikkhasi / lakkhio te mayā bhāvo, javaṁ pat!hesi gaddabhā //
(BKS, v. 1157). Variants : jäsi esi puno ceva, păsesu trițillasi / (according to the Curri).
