Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/38

 put mo under bis wing, and fostered me tenderly. And be continued to live there, eating what remained over from the fruits brought by the other parrots, and giving some to me.

Once on a time, there came there to bunt a terrible army of Bhillas, making a noise with cows' horns strongly blown; and the whole of that great wood was like an army 'fleeing in rout, with terrified antelopes for dust-stained banners, and the bushy tails of the chamarí deer, agitated in fear, resembling chowries, as the host of Pulindas rubbed upon it to slay various living creatures. And after the army of Śavaras had spent the day in the hunting-grounds, in the sport of death, they returned with the loads of flesh which they had obtained. But a certain aged Śavara, who had not obtained any flesh, saw the tree in the evening, and being hungry, approached it, and he quickly climbed up it, and kept dragging parrots and other birds from their nests, killing them, and flinging them on the ground. And when I saw him coming near, like the minister of Yama, I slowly crept in fear underneath the wing of my father. And in the meanwhile the ruffian came near our nest, and dragged out my father, and wringing his neck, flung him down on the ground at the foot of the tree. And I fell with my father, and slipping out from underneath his wing, I slowly crept in my fear into the grass and leaves. Then the rascally Bhilla came down, and roasted some of the parrots and ate them, and others he carried off to his own village.

Then my fear was at an end, but I spent a night long from grief, and in the morning, when the flaming eye* of the world had mounted high in the heaven, I, being thirsty, went to the bank of a neighbouring lake full of lotuses, tumbling frequently, clinging to the earth with my wings, and there I saw on the sand of the lake a hermit, named Maríchi, who had just bathed, as it were my good works in a former state of existence. He, when he saw me, refreshed me with drops of water flung in my face, and, putting me in the hollow of a leaf, out of pity, carried me to his hermitage. There Pulastya, the bead of the hermitage, laughed when he saw me, and being asked by the other hermits, why be laughed, having supernatural insight, he said " When I beheld this parrot, who is a parrot in consequence of a curse, I laughed out of sorrow, but after I have said my daily prayers, I will tell a story connected with him, which shall cause him to remember bis former birth, and the occurrences of his former lives." After saying this, the hermit Pulastya rose up for his daily prayer, and, after he had performed his daily