Page:Hindu Feasts Fasts and Ceremonies.djvu/110

94 watch. He thought that beasts which argued in such an honest fashion would never prove untrue. During the third watch our hero met a third antelope, which happened to be the child of the first two antelopes. This beast also astonished the hunter by a similar request, which of course was readily granted, to be spared till the fourth watch of the night.

Thus the three watches of the night were spent by the hunter in strict wakefulness. He had not had even a wink of sleep. The tree on which he lodged for the night happened to be the Bilva tree (crateva religiosa) the leaves of which are held to be sacred to Siva; and in dropping the leaves he was unwittingly offering worship to. Siva throughout the night, for the leaves happened to fall on a ruined image of Siva which lay under the branches of that tree. To add to the hunter’s fortune, the night on which all these things took place happened to be a Sivaratri night, though the hunter was ignorant of it. The three watches were over. The hunter was anxiously waiting for the return of the three antelopes as they promised to do. The fourth watch also was running out fast. Still the beasts never came back. The hunter