Life and Stories of Jaina Savior Parcvanatha

Author(s): Maurice Bloomfield
Publisher: Maurice Bloomfield

Page 91

Story of King Vikrama as a parrot
77
Majesty! At the time when you started upon your jour.. ney, I uttered a fond prayer to Candi for your safe return, vowing not to look upon my beloved before adoring her. Now, having failed to do so, Candi felled me to the ground. Therefore I shall let you know myself, O king, the time for paying devotion to the goddess. The king then retired (173).
At this time the minister was adorning the state elefant? for the royal entry, so that the people should see their sovereign, at length returned. Now the menials who were painting the ornamental marks on the elefant discussed the fake king's strange conduct, and Vikrama saw thru the treachery of the Brahman. Bitterly regretting his misplaced confidence, he decided to escape, lest the rogue should mount as a tuft upon his wretched person. This he did, escaping hot pursuit in a distant forest, where he took rest in the shade of a banyan tree. There he perceived a man standing between the trunks of the tree, engaged in killing parrots with a sling-shot. The king, worried by his great and unwieldy body, decided to make a change, and entered into the body of a parrot. Then this parrot said to the hunter, ‘Friend, what do you want to be killing so many parrots for? Take me to Avanti, and you will surely get a thousand tanka coins for me; you must, however, give me assurance of personal safety.' This the hunter did, and went with the parrot to Avantī, where he stood on the king's highway, offering the parrot for an exorbitant price, and justifying that price on the ground that the parrot could recite whatsoever Çāstras people asked for (195).
At this juncture some attendant maids of queen Kama
Now inhabited by Vikrama.
dhanurgolikå: the word recurs in our text, l. 317, in the form dhanur. gulika. Neither compound is in the Lexicons.