Chapter 9 - The Vulture’s Story

[Sanskrit text for this chapter is available]

Note: Here the great efficacy of worshipping Śiva with Damanaka (Artemisia Indica, called Davaṇā in Marathi) is shown. We still worship Śiva with Damanaka on the 14th day of the Bright Half of the (Lunar) month Caitra. This festival includes rocking the god in a swing (dola).

The Owl said:

1. Thus everything connected with my previous birth has been told, viz. the form, the cause of long life and the birth as an owl.

2. After saying this to that one having the same name as Indra (i.e. King Indradyumna), when he stopped, the crane Nāḍījaṅgha who was sad, spoke these words to his friend:

Nāḍījaṅgha said:

3. The purpose for which we all have come, O highly intelligent one, has not been achieved. Therefore, it has come to this that all the three of us should die.

4. If Indradyumna is not recognized and known this, gentle Sir, will wish to die. Following him, Mārkaṇḍeya (will die) and it is clear (that) I (will die) after him.

5. Fie upon the life of the affectionless evil-minded one who watches (his) friend dying as the task of (his) friend is unaccomplished!^[1]

6. Therefore, O bird, I shall follow these two who are dying. I take leave of you. Here is my final obeisance and embrace.

7. After being unable to accomplish what has been promised to a friend or to a guest, how is it that those who have shattered hopes, but, yet desire to live, do not feel ashamed?

8. Hence I shall undoubtedly enter fire along with these two. I have taken leave of you. Out of affection, kindly offer me water libations.

9. When Nāḍījaṅgha said thus, the owl steadied himself and spoke these words of nectar-like sweetness, in a faltering voice and with tears in his eyes.

Uūka (the owl) said:

10. (Defective verse) If you die when I, your friend, am alive, from to-day onwards who will take (i.e. covet) my heart (i.e. friendship)?

11. There is a great means of escape (i.e. way out) in this matter. There is a friend of mine on the mountain Gandhamādana. He is a friend as dear to me as my own life. He is a vulture who has lived a longer life than I.

12-13a. He will know and recognize king Indradyumna.

After saying thus, the owl stepped forward and stood there. He, the king, (sage) Mārkaṇḍeya and the crane went to Gandhamādana.

13b-15a. On seeing his friend coming and standing in front of him, the vulture (came out) from his nest. He was very delighted. He came before all of them. After duly welcoming and honouring them at the outset with great hospitality, offering of seats and foodstuffs, the king of vultures asked the owl his object (of visit).

15b-16. He replied: “This crane is a friend of mine. The sage is his friend. The third one is a friend of the sage. It is on his behalf that this matter has been taken up- He will himself live when Indradyumna is seen and recognized and not otherwise.

17-18. Clearly he will enter fire. After that we will (also do so). He has been forbidden by me because I know you to be long-lived.

So if you know him, tell us. Grant the lives unto the four of us. After protecting us, obtain good reputation and the destruction of all sins.”

The Vulture said:

19. Since my birth, O owl, fifty-six Kalpas have elapsed, but king Indradyumna has neither been seen nor heard of.

20. Indradyumna was struck with wonder on hearing it. Though he was distressed, he asked the bird the cause of his long life.

The vulture said:

21. Listen, O gentle Sir, formerly I was born as a monkey. I was very fickle. Once in the due order of seasons, the season of spring appeared.

22-23. On the fourteenth day in the bright half of the month of Caitra, the constellation being Hasta and the Yoga being Harṣaṇa, the Damanaka festival was celebrated in a Śiva temple in the middle of the forest, (in the temple) named Jagadyogeśvara, in front of the lord of Devas, the origin of the world.

24-27. The Liṅga had been placed here in a golden swing by the people. At night I climbed on to it and rocked the swing again and again for a long time on account of the fickleness natural to my species.

In the morning the people who came there for the purpose of worship saw a monkey in the swing. They beat me with sticks and rods. I died even as I was within the swing in the temple of Śiva. I died due to their many hard beatings and blows as unbearable as thunderbolt. Thanks to the greatness of swinging Śiva, I was reborn in the palace of a king.

28-31. I was known as Kuśadhvaja^[2] and was the son of the lord of Kāśī. I had the power to remember (the incidents of) the previous birth. I succeeded to the kingdom and inherited great fortune and power. I celebrated the Damanaka festival popular all over the earth, in the month of Caitra.

As one swings Śiva stationed in the Dolā (‘Swing’) all inauspiciousness vanishes and merit comes, O gentle Sir.

I took Śiva-Dīkṣā (‘initiation for the purpose of the worship of Śiva’). I was consecrated by means of all consecratory rites by Śivācāryas (i e. preceptors in the sacred rites and literature pertaining to Śiva). After getting all the consecratory rites ending with Nirvāha-Dīkṣā (the Dīkṣā of completion and conclusion) from the Āgamas, I became rid of Paśupāśas (‘the bondages of individual souls’).

32. With the mind internally directed, I thus propitiated the lord of Devas, the consort of Umā, the preceptor of the worlds, and the cause of the destruction of all distresses.

33. I restrained the activities of the mind and practised Vairāgya (i.e. detachment, having no attachment to the worldly affairs). I repeated the Udgītha Mantra and meditated upon its meaning. I thought of the eighth sentiment (i.e. Adbhuta or wonder).

34. On knowing that I was unaffected by Antarāyas (i.e. obstacles, hindrances) through Praṇidhāna^[3] (‘abstract contemplation’) and deep-rooted practice, Hara became pleased and said:

Īśvara said:

35. O Kuśadhvaja, I am satisfied. Choose whatever is desired as your boon. None else has such a steady (spiritual) practice on the whole of the earth.

36. On hearing this, Śaṃbhu was told by me, “I shall be one of your Gaṇas with this body itself”. The Lord spoke the words. “So be it.”

37. Then he brought me to Kailāsa and granted me an aerial chariot which was studded with all precious stones. It was a divine aerial chariot equipped with divinely miraculous features.

38-39. Seated in it and delighted very much, I used to move about. After the lapse of some time on this very mountain in spring when the gentle southern wind was blowing, I was seated near the window (of my Vimāna) and saw the daughter of a sage. The fire of love blazed in me.

40-44. O gentle Sir, I saw the daughter of sage Agniveśya^[4] standing in water without any clothes on. She was on the threshold of youth. She was a Śyāmā,^[5] with slender waist. She was fawn-eyed. She had ample buttocks. Her thighs resembled the interior of a plantain tree (full, round and lovely). Her breasts were very close to each other. Beauty was gradually sprouting in her body. Her face resembled the lotus that was in full bloom. She could be adequately described only by good scholars and that too in accordance with their intellect and not in accordance with her instrinsic [intrinsic?] nature. Her side glances were like volleys of arrows. Smara (‘god of Love’) seemed to occupy her body himself and struck me hard with those arrows. She was playing as she liked surrounded by her friends. Impatient with love I got down from the aerial chariot and abducted her.

45. On being seized by me and placed in the aerial chariot she lamented loudly for a long time shouting “O father, O father”, O gentle Sir.

46-47a. Her friends were very sad. They ran to the sage and said to him, “Your daughter is being taken away by a certain Vaimānika (‘one moving about in an aerial chariot’). O holy lord, she is crying. Save her. Get up.”

47b-49a. On hearing these words of those (girls) from all round, the gentle sage, the storehouse of austerities, Agniveśya, hurriedly came up to her in the sky. “Stop, stop,” said he to me and restricted my movement through the power of his penance. The infuriated sage then spoke these unbearable words to me:

Agniveśya said:

49b-51a. My daughter was carried away by force by you in the manner in which a piece of flesh is carried away by a vulture in the sky. So, be a vulture now immediately.

My daughter, an ascetic girl, has been abducted by you against her will. O vicious one, obtain its fruit now itself.

51b-52a. On hearing this I was overcome with fear. I bent down my face with shame. I grasped the feet of the sage. I fell down at his feet and grasped them. I lamented loudly.

52b-54a. (I then said thus:) “She has not been abducted by me after knowing (that she is an ascetic girl). She has not been outraged till now. O ascetic, be pleased. Take back your curse. Ascetics naturally forgive those who bow down. They are good people. So, be pleased. Let me not become a vulture.”

54b-56. When I sought refuge in him and bowed down to him thus, the great sage became appeased and said, “My words cannot at ail be untrue. But when you assist in recognizing King Indradyumna, you will get freed from the curse.”

57. After saying this that sage took with him his daughter whose modesty had not been violated and went to his own abode. I became a vulture then.

58. Thus, O gentle Sir, everything has been recounted to you. My birth in the royal abode was due to the rocking of the swing of Īśvara at the time of the celebration of Damanaka festival. This is how I became an attendant of Śiva and (later) was transformed due to the curse of Agniveśya into a vulture.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

The word ‘vinirvṛtte’ in mitrakārye vinirvṛtte should be emended as anirvṛtte[?].

[2]:

This king is different from his namesake, the king of Videha. It is only in this Purāṇa that the name of the king is used to illustrate the efficacy of Damanaka-Vrata.

[3]:

The term is taken from Patañjali’s Yoga-Sūtra 1.23 where it is translated as ‘devotion’ (J.H. Woods, Yoga System of Patañjali).

[4]:

He is different from Agniveśya mentioned in Mbh, Ādi 12 9.39-40, Vana 26.23.

[5]:

A beautiful lady of golden complexion.