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152
Secondary Tales of the two Great Epics
Some twice-born lost his way into a dreadful forest infested with ferocious animals fearsome even to Death. Seeing them the fellow was horripilated and much perturbed. Then he saw the dense forest covered with the hands of a fearful woman. It was also surrounded by the five-hooded serpents. In the middle of the forest was a well covered by creepers and concealed. The man fell there and got entangled in the bough of creepers and was hanging there head-down, feet-high. Then, again, he saw on the well a mighty elephant with six heads and twelve feet. On the branches of the trees lived dreadful bees, collecting honey. The dripping honey was drunk by that man as he was hanging. His thirst, however, was never quenched. And even in that situation, his hope of life did not diminish. The tree was also being cut by black and white rats.
The tale is only a sustained metaphor which is explained by Vidura himself. This world is the forest; dieseases, the ferocious animals; old-age, the fearful woman; human body, the well; Time, the great serpent; the hope of life, the creepers from which the man hangs; year with its six seasons and the twelve months, the elephant; days and nights are the white and black rats; desires are the bees and the joy in the earthly objects of desire is the dripping honey. It does not become a tale, it remains only a metaphor. But it is a gem of such metaphor-stories reflecting the Sramana view of life, as Winteroitz rightly points out.315 The motit seems to have been so popular that the epic-redactors bave used it for a completely opposite purpose. While wandering in the forest, the sages Jaratkāru316 and Agastya317 see their ancestors hanging head-down from the branch of tree sprung from the side-wall of a pit in the forest, and the branch is being cut by a cat. The branch is the body of the sage himself, the rat is Time. When the sage, who has not yet been married, dies childless, the ancestors will fall in the hell. The sage, thereupon, agrees to get married and procreate so that his ancestors may obtain deliverance. Thus the very motif which the ascetics used for preaching the renunciation of the world has been used craftily by the Brāhmin redactors for preaching acceptance of the world,
Vidura also refers in the same speech to an "historical" episode in which śukrācārya advises the Asuras to give up one of their own brethren, Jambha, in order to save the whole clan. Vidura quotes the famous sloka of the sage which says : a man should be given up to salve one's family, one's family should be given up for the sake of one's own village, the village for the territory, and for the sake of one's Self, this entire earth should be given up.318 Vidura had quoted the same sloka once before, at the time of the birth of Duryodhana, 319 when, seeing the ill-omens upon the prince's birth, he had advised the Kauravas to give the child up. Vidura repeats that advice now. 315 History of Indian Literature. M. Winternitz, Tr. Mrs. S. Ketkar, Calcutta, 1927. Vol.I.ii.
p.408. 316 AdiP. 13.11-27. 317 VanP. 94,11-15. 318 SabP. 55.11-12. 319 AdiP. 107. 32
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