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banyan tree but one of his legs was left hanging down. Right below the tree was camping a royal army unit. An elephant from that unit got stuck in the leg of the bird and as the bird started flying, the elephant was also pulled up. The soldiers in the camp raised a hue and cry and some archers shot the crane down with their arrows. The crane died and fell to the ground. When its stomach was cut up, the python gradually slithered out. The soldiers also cut it and there came out the goat and from the stomach of the goat came out the cucumber and the whole village emerged out of the cucumber along with the cowherd who had bundled the cows blanket. He collected his cows and went back to the pasture and all the villagers that came out from the cucumber also went back to their usual business.
Elāsādha continued, "Now you have to tell me whether you consider my story to be logical or absurd." The others replied that it sounded alright to them but Elāsādha asked them, "How can a blanket hold all the cows and the cucumber the whole village ?"
The reply was, "Don't you remember what has been mentioned right at the outset in the Mahabharata, that the whole world formed one ocean and in that ocean there was an egg and that egg contained the entire universe including the mountains, jungles and all the wilderness. So, your blanket is quite enough for the cows and the cucumber for the whole village. Then your story says that the crane held the python, python held the goat and the goat held the cucumber ... We think it is quite possible because we are told that the entire universe, the heaven and hell, mountains and jungles, all could be comfortably accommodated in Visnu's stomach and Visnu himself lay in Devaki's womb and Devaki' lay on her bed. If we accept these things as true, why shouldn't we accept your story ?"
Now Śaśa started narrating his story:
"We were the sons of a village chief. We once went to plough our farm and also do the sowing. We sowed sesamum seeds. Soon enough the plants grew so big that we had to use axes to cut them. As I was busy cutting a sesamum tree, I was being attacked by an elephant. I ran fast and climbed a tall sesamum tree. The elephant
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