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Life and Stories of Pārçvanātha
piştakurkuța, or pistamaya kurkuţa, 'a cock made of dough. In Samarādityamkşepa 4. 260 ff., Surendradatta, beloved son of King Amaradatta and Queen Yaçodharā, rules in Viçālā; he is married to the beautiful Nayanāvali. Discovering the messenger of Dharma' (a grey hair: see JAOS. xxxvi. 57 ff.) in his head, he decides to take vows, and tells Nayanāvalī, who pretends to be so attached to him, that she would follow him into homelessness. But by night, while reflecting how hard it would be, after all, to leave behind Nayanāvali, he discovers her in a bower, in the company of a hunchbacked night watchman, who is chiding her because she has come late. Surendradatta is about to cut down both, but is deterred by the low caste of the offender, and his purpose of turning ascetic.
He has an evil dream about which he consults his mother Yacodharā. She advises him to make a sacrifice of living things from earth, water, or air to the family divinities, to avert the evil (çantikarma, averruncatio). He is horrified at the suggestion, proposing instead to offer flesh and blood from his own body. As he is about to use his sword on himself, his mother stops him, bidding him sacrifice a cock who is just then crowing. But he persists in refusing to injure any other than himself.
He then consents to a proposal of his mother that he offer a cock made of dough (piştakurkuța). The mother slays' the cock with his sword, in front of a family divinity, with the express prayer that the sacrifice avert the evil dream. She then orders the cook to prepare the cock's 'flesh'; the son eats of it, after his mother has pointed out that it is only make-belief flesh. He thus establishes for himself a fateful karma, which his mother shares with him.
Surendradatta makes over his kingdom to his son Gunadhara, and proposes to go out into the life of an homeless ascetic. Nayanāvali decides to poison him, so as not to have to join him. In order to elude the eyes of the poison-detecting cakora birds, she sets unpoisoned food before him, but gives him a poisonous magic pill with his rinsing-water. This he drinks down with the water and falls to the ground. A watchman perceives the situation, but, while he calls physicians, Nayanāvalī, in pretended grief, falls upon her husband and chokes him to death.
Surendradatta is reborn as a peacock on the mountain of Silindhra. While still young, he is caught by a hunter, who presents
