Life and Stories of Jaina Savior Parcvanatha

Author(s): Maurice Bloomfield
Publisher: Maurice Bloomfield

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Life and Stories of Pārçvanātha
ashamed of his caste, he had left his home to roam in strange lands. The king then ordered some servants of his to slay that night any man who came alone by a certain route to the palace. When night came he sent a call to Lalitāñga to come to him in the palace, by that route. But Pușpāvati, alert and suspicious, induced Lalitāõga to send Sajjana in his place, whereupon the latter was duly slain by the king's men.24 Puşpāvati heard the uproar, and bade Lalitānga flee outside the city with an army. His father-in-law threatened war, but his ministers checked him with wise cautions, illustrating by the following story the folly of hasty action (323-381):
Story of the parrot that brought the fruit of immortality.
Strike but hear 25
In a great forest in the Vindhya mountains, on a banyan-tree, lived a pair of parrots. Theirs was a beloved young parrot. One day it few off, but being very young, it fell upon the ground. A hermit picked it up, took it to his hermitage, fed it, educated it, and treated it like a son. One day the young parrot overheard the abbot of the hermitage tell his pupils that in the middle of the sea there was an island, Harimela, in whose north-east corner stood a large mango-tree, bedewed with ambrosia; and that the fruit of this tree restored youth by curing deformities, diseases, and old age. The young parrot, remembering bis decrepit parents, considered that he
* See additional note 8 on p. 188.
" See the author, in Festgruss an Ernst Windisch, p. 359 (with note). In addition to the parallels there given see also Siamese Paksi Pakaranam, in Hertel, Das Pañcatantra, p. 350 (nr. xvii); Taylor, Catalogue Raisonné of Oriental Manuscripts, vol. ii, p. 615; Kingscote, Tales of the s 350. Cf. Benfey, Pascatantra i, 416. Parrot and poison-tree in different application, Mahabh. 13. 5. 1 ff.