Page:The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago.djvu/194

Rh the Vedas at Vâranâsi, whose name was Apanchika. His wife Sâli having proved faithless to him, and afraid of punishment, joined a company of pilgrims, who were going to Kumâri, and while returning from Kumâri gave birth to a child and abandoned it in a dark wood. Attracted by the cries of the baby, a cow approached and licked it, and fed it with its milk for seven days. A Brahmin from Vayanankodu happened to pass with his wife by the wood, and hearing the cry of the infant, he searched for the child and found it. Pitying its helpless condition he and his wife carried it to their home. He brought up the child as his own son and taught him the Vedas and other sacred texts. When he grew up into a young man he happened to go into a neighbouring house occupied by a Brahmin, and was surprised and grieved to find a cow which was tied to a post, lowing piteously like a deer caught in a hunter’s net. It was decked with flowers and intended to be sacrificed on the next morning. Feeling deep horror for the cruel fate that awaited the cow he determined to save it: and in the midnight he stole the cow and led it out of the village. His theft was however discovered, and the Brahmins chased and arrested him, and thrashing him soundly, asked him to confess why he had stolen the cow. Meanwhile the cow burst from its captors, and having gored the master of the sacrifice, fled into the jungle. The boy prayed to the Brahmins not to beat him, and asked them to tell him why they wanted to kill a harmless cow, which had from the day of its birth done no injury to any one: but had eaten of the green grass growing on meadows, and had given its sweet milk for the use of man.

“Not knowing the sacred books revealed to us by Brahma,” said the Brahmins, “you have reviled us You are verily the son of a beast.”

“Asalan was the son of a deer: Siringi was the son of a cow: Vrinji was the son of a tiger: Kesakambalam was the son of a fox: and these you honor, as your sages. Why do you spurn me as the son of a beast?” retorted the youth.

“I know the birth of this boy,” said one of the Brahmins, in indignant tones. He is the son of Sâli, the wife of a Vedic teacher of Varanasi, who having behaved in a manner unbecoming a Brahmin woman and afraid of punishment, came away