Story 173 - How The Parrot Explained The Law-suit

IN a certain country there is a King, it is said. For the King there is not a Queen. Near the royal palace there is a widow woman; the King is associating with that widow woman. The King gives the woman at the rate of five hundred masuran a day.

While they were living in that way, another man thought of conversing much with that woman.

Having thought it, one day the man having come near the woman, says,

“Ane ! Every day in a dream I am conversing much with you regarding the doubt in my mind.”

Then the woman said,

“If so, seeking five hundred masuran come and converse much with me.”

After that, the man, seeking five hundred masuran, came on the following day. Having come there he gave the five hundred masuran into the hand of the woman.

After that, the woman, taking the masuran and having placed them in the house, says to the man,

“Ha; now then, should we converse much in the dream it is so much, should we converse in reality it is so much (that is, they are equal). Now then, our talk is finished; go you away.”

Having said it she neither gave the masuran nor conversed much with the man; she drove the man away.

After she drove him away the man instituted a law-suit before the King who associates with the woman. After he instituted it, when hearing the action the King, because he is associating with the woman, declared judgment for the woman to win, and the man’s [claim] came to be rejected. While the Parrot which had been reared in the palace was [there], this man’s [claim] comes to be rejected.

On account of it, the Parrot having gone there said to the King,

“How was the way the woman won that lawsuit ? Is it not as though one saw a reflection below the water, what one says in a dream ?”

Having said [this], the Parrot explained the law-suit, and the five hundred masuran became the property of the man.

Owing to it, the woman, through enmity against the Parrot, catching the Parrot and having given the Parrot into the hand of her girl (daughter), said,

“Pluck this Parrot and cook it, and place it [for me to eat] when I come.”

Having said [this] the woman again went to the palace.

The girl, having plucked the Parrot and finished it and placed the Parrot there, went into the house for the billhook in order to cut up the Parrot. At the place where the Parrot was put there was a covered drain. The Parrot having gone rolling and rolling over fell into that drain. When that girl, taking the bill-hook to cut up the Parrot, came there, the Parrot was not [there]. After that, the girl through fear of that woman having killed a chicken which was there, cooked it, and placed [it ready].

That woman having come and said,

“Where is it ? Quickly give me the Parrot’s flesh,”

asked for it. Then that girl brought the fowl’s flesh and gave it.

Well then, that woman while eating the fowl’s flesh, says,

“Is it the Parrot’s flesh ! This I am eating is indeed the mouth that cleared up the law-suit! This I am eating is indeed the Parrot which said that he ought to give the masuran to that man !”

Saying and saying it, she ate all the flesh of the chicken. When she was saying these things that Parrot stayed at the end of the drain; keeping them in his mind he remained silent.

When cooking at the house, having washed the cooking pots they throw down the water at the end of the drain in which is the Parrot. Having squeezed coconut [in water, to make coconut milk], they also throw the coconut refuse there. When the Parrot, continuing to eat these things, was there a considerable time the Parrot’s feathers came [again].

The woman thoroughly performed meritorious acts. The woman, having told a carpenter, causing a statue of Buddha to be made and placing the statue in the house, makes flower offerings evening and morning to it.

After that, the Parrot having gone near a Barbet, said,

“Ane ! Friend, you must render an assistance to me.”

The Barbet asked,

“What is the other assistance ?”

Then the Parrot said,

“In the house of such and such a woman there is a statue of Buddha made of wood. You go and prepare a house (chamber) in it of the kind that I may be inside it. When I have gone inside it block it up.”

Afterwards the Barbet having said “Ha” and come with the Parrot, the Barbet dug out a house in the statue of the size that the Parrot can be in it. At the time when the Parrot crept into it, having blocked it up from the outer side so that they were unable to know the place where it was dug, the Barbet went away.

After that, when the Parrot was there a considerable time, that woman every day in the morning and evening having come near the statue, and said stanzas, and made flower offerings, goes away. The Parrot every day remains listening.

One day the woman having come and said stanzas, when she was making the flower offerings the Parrot being inside the statue said,

“Now then, indeed ! You are near going to the God-world. Still you have been unable to do one [really] meritorious act. Just as you are doing that meritorious act they will take you to the God-world while you are alive.”

Then the woman thought,

“After the speaking of the statue, I am indeed near going to the God-world.”

Thinking it, she asked,

“What is that meritorious act ?”

Then the Parrot said,

“Having taken only this statue of Buddha half a mile (haetaekma) away and placed it there, and put all the other things in this house, and locked the house up, and sat outside, and set fire to this house, that indeed is the meritorious act.”

After that, the woman having taken the statue of Buddha and placed it half a mile away, and come back, and put all the other things into the house, and shut the door of the house, and locked it, the woman, sitting outside, set fire to the house.

While the house is burning the woman is looking on, having said,

“To take me to the God-world they will come at this very instant, they will come at this very instant.”

Then the Parrot, having been inside the statue of Buddha, came out, and having come flying says to this woman,

“Haven’t you gone yet to the God-world ? There ! Look ! It is indeed in the God-world that that fire is blazing. Thou atest my mouth ? For thy eating the mouth of the Parrot which explained the law-suit, this is what the Parrot did. There !”

Having said [this] the Parrot flew away and went to the flock of Parrots.

North-western Province.

 

Note:

In Old Deccan Days (M. Frere), p. 118, a woodcutter dreamt that he married a dancing-girl and gave her a thousand gold muhrs. A dancing-girl who heard him say this determined to try to get the money from him, so she claimed him as her husband, demanded it from him, and took the matter before the Raja. Her friends having supported her statements the Raja could not decide the case, but a merchant’s clever parrot (Vikrama Maharaja in disguise) gave judgment in favour of the woodcutter. When the girl afterwards obtained the parrot as a reward for her dancing, she ordered her maid to cook it. While the servant went for water after plucking it, the parrot got into the drain for kitchen refuse, the servant substituted a chicken for it, and the dancing-girl ate this, jeering meanwhile at the parrot. After its feathers grew again, it flew off and perched behind the statue of the deity in a temple. When the girl prayed to be transported to heaven, the parrot replied, " Your prayer is heard,” and told her to sell everything, give away the money, break down her house, and return in seven days. She obeyed, and was accompanied by a crowd when she returned. Then the parrot flew over her head, told her it was a chicken she ate, and jeered at her. She fell down, dashed her head on a stone, and died.

In Folk-Taies of the Telugus (G. R. Subramiah Pantulu), p. 17, a courtesan demanded one hundred pagodas from a Brahmana who had seen her in a dream. He appealed to the King, who promised to give her payment. He caused the money to be hung from the top of a post, and told her to take it out of a mirror placed beneath.

In the Tota Kahani (Small), p. 14, a merchant who had left his parrot in charge of his house heard on his return from a journey that his wife had misconducted herself. Thinking the parrot had informed him she plucked out its feathers and threw it out, pretending the cat had run ofi with it. The parrot lived in a tomb at a cemetery on fragments of food left by travellers. When the merchant drove his wife away she went to the cemetery, and heard a voice—the parrot’s—from a tomb telling her she should be reconciled to her husband after shaving her head and fasting for forty days. She did this; the parrot then told its master the wife’s story was true regarding its being eaten by a cat, and that God had sent it to reconcile the husband and wife. The husband then brought her home again.

In A. von Schiefner’s Tibetan Tales (Ralston), p. 163, when a merchant who had made a bet of five horses that a courtesan could not induce him to visit her, stated that he had been with her in a dream, she claimed the horses. The King was unable to give a decision, but the Minister’s wife settled the matter by allowing her to see the reflection of the horses at the edge of a sheet of water.

In the same work, p. 172, after the King of Videha had married the daughter of the King of Pancala, the latter induced his daughter to send him a clever parrot that was assisting the former King against him. He plucked it bare, threw it out of the window, a falcon caught it, and being promised daily food placed it in a temple, where it got hid and ordered offerings to be made daily by the King, who thought this was the deity’s voice. When its feathers had grown, it induced the King, Queen, Prince, and Ministers to come with shaven heads to receive forgiveness of their sins, and then it flew aloft jeering at them.