Sambodhi 1978 Vol 07

Author(s): Dalsukh Malvania, H C Bhayani, Nagin J Shah
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 78

76
Vijay Pandya
himself and falls headlong in love with Mahāśvetā and dies. This is all because of his innate irresoluteness which persists in his next birth of Vaisam pāyana. On the bank of the Acchoda lake, his dormant love of previous birth for Mahāśvetā is awakened, reminiscences are aroused and he is again drawn to Mahāśvetā who all the while is penancing for reunion with Pundarika. Vaisampāyana makes advances to Mahāśveta and prattles declaring his love for Mahāśvetā. Mahāśvetā unknowingly curses him to , be a parrot. He is born as a parrot in the forest of the Vindhya mountain. The parrot happens to obtain shelter in the hermitage of the sage Jābāli who relates the previous life-history of the parrot. The parrot remembers everything of his past. Meanwhile he is advised by his friend Kapiñjala to remain in the hermitage only. But as is his wont, he cannot have patience and sets out to meet his beloved. Again he is trapped but this time in the care-taking affectionate hands of his heavenly mother Lakşmi, who is in- . troduced as Cāņdālakanyā in the beginning of the story. Now in these three births covering the expanse of the entire work consisting of Pūrvabhaga and Uttarabhāga both, the character of Pundarika or Vaišampāyana as a friend of Candrāpida or a parrot has displayed out and out, the trait of irresoluteness. Why? The author of the Uttarabhāga with a remarkable perspicacity points out the reason that he was born of a female semen only. This obviously has a reference to the story that Lakşmi by the mere sight of the sage Svetaketu conceived and gave birth to Pundarika.
Take the character of Kapiñjala, a friend of Puņdarīką. He is turned into a horse on account of the curse of a space-traveller i. e, a God with whom be collided in baste. When Candrāpīda rides on this horse for the first time, he offers his apology-.
महात्मन्नवन. योऽसि सोऽसि । नमोऽस्तु ते। सर्वथा मर्षणीयोऽयमारोहातिक्रमोऽस्माकम । अपरिगतानि देवतान्यप्यनुचितपरिभवभाजि भवन्ति ।'
While chasing a Kinnara-couple, Candrapida traverses many more miles and comes a far from the camp of his army. As he was resting on the bank of the Acchoda lake the author describes the horse first listening to the notes of the song. At that time the reader takes it to be the intention of the author to delineate the effects of such a heavenly voice even on animals. But the reader is in for a surprise. The end of the story discloses that it was all the deliberate doings of the horse which in fact was Kapinjala retaining the previous birth's faculties. This shows the consummate skill displayed by the two authors in the Plot-construction.
"It was Tagore who with his keen poetic sensibilities pointed out the faw deal which the character of Patralekhā received at the hands of the