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Story of Crīgupta
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thief's punishment (259). At the urgent request of his ministers, as well as Çrīgupta's father, he finally agreed to subject Çrīgupta to a second ordeal, this time supervised by a manager of ordeals (divyamāntrika), named Kuçalin (266). In this ordeal Çrīgupta's hands were burned, whereupon he confessed. Out of regard for his father, Çrigupta was allowed to go free, but was banished. He went to Gajapura, there met Kuçalin, slew him, but was caught, and hanged upon a tree. The weight of his body broke the branch, he fell to the ground, regained consciousness, and fled to a distance (274). Arriving at a jungle he heard the sermon of a Muni, and was converted (286).
While going to sleep upon the branch of a banyan tree he overheard the conversation of a pair of parrots.27 The male told the female that he had learned from a certain Sage that there was a tīrtha at Çatrumjaya to which all the blessed Sādhus, beginning with Crīpuņdarīka 28 had resorted; by bathing there one might rise in the scale of existences. Crīgupta asked the parrot to coinmunicate to him the instruction which he had received from the Sage, which he did. Thereupon Çrigupta turned ascetic, and the parrot went to the mountain of Çatrumjaya (309).
In the mean time Çrīgupta's father had gone in search of his son. He found him a devout ascetic, and took him home with him. The king received him kindly. The parrot, who had in the mean time become a god in the Sanatkumāra Kalpa, visited him in a dream, and told him that he would die at the end of seven days. Çrigupta devoted his last days to severe penance, died, went to heaven, and will gradually attain perfection (237-328).
» See additional note 2, on p. 185. » See the story on p. 142.
