4. Motifs (18): The parrot

The curse of Mahodara transforms Gandharvaka into a parrot, who is relieved from that cursed state at the touch of the magic mantle sent by Tilakamanjari to Harivahana to enable him to see the city unobserved. This transformation of Gandharvaka helps Harivahana and Kamalagupta by serving as a means to carry their messages to each other. This could have been done by Gandharvaka even without the transformation. But the episode of the sudden appearance of the parrot in response to the invocation of Kamalagupta and later on in the novel, though actually at first in poetic reality, of Harivahana, promotes the suspense sustaining thereby the interest in the narrative.