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came back in high spirits to eat the rice. But while he was thus engaged, a kite, holding a black cobra with its beak and claws, came from some place or other, and sat on that tree. And it so happened that poisonous saliva issued from the mouth of that dead snake, which the bird had captured and was carrying along. The saliva fell into the dish of rice which was placed underneath the tree, and Harisvámin, without observing it, came and ate up that rice.*[1] As soon as in his hunger he had devoured all that food, he began to suffer terrible agonies produced by the poison. He exclaimed, " When fate has turned against a man, everything in this world turns also; accordingly this rice dressed with milk, ghee and sugar, has
become poison to me."
Thus speaking, Harisvámin, tortured with the poison, tottered to the house of that Bráhman, who was engaged in the sacrifice, and said to his wife; " The rice, which you gave me, has poisoned me; so fetch me quickly a charmer who can counteract the operation of poison; otherwise you will be guilty of the death of a Bráhman." When Harisvámin had said this to the good woman, who was beside herself to think what it could all mean, his eyes closed, and he died.
Accordingly the Bráhman, who was engaged in a sacrifice, drove out of his house his wife, though she was innocent and hospitable, being enraged with her for the supposed murder of her guest. The good woman, for her part, having incurred groundless blame from her charitable deed, and so become branded with infamy, went to a holy bathing- place to perform penance.
Then there was a discussion before the superintendent of religion, as to which of the four parties, the kite, the snake, and the couple who gave the rice, were guilty of the murder of a Brahman, but the question was not decided †[2]
" Now you, king Trivikramasena, must tell me, which was guilty of the murder of a Bráhman; and if you do not, you will incur the before- mentioned curse."
- ↑ * Oesterley refers to Benfey's Panchatantra, Vol. I, p. 362, for stories in which snakes spit venom into food. Benfey gives at length a fable found in the Latin translation of John of Capua and compares a story in the Sindibád-námah, Asiatic Journal, 1841, XXXVI, 17; Syntipas, p. 149; Scott's Tales of the Seven Vizírs, 196; The 1001 Nights (Breslau) XV, 241; Seven Wise Masters in Grässe, Gesta Romanorum II, 195; Bahár Dánush 1, second and third stories; Keller, Romans des Sept Sages, CL ; Dyocletian, Einleitung, 49; Loiseleur-Deslongchamps, Essai, 119, I.
- ↑ † I.e., Dharmarája, possibly the officer established by Aśoka in his fifth edict; (see Senart, Les Inscriptions de Piyadasi, p. 125.) The term Dharmarája is applied to Yudhishthira and Yama, It means literally king of righteousness or religion. There is a Dharm Raja in Bhútán. Böhtlingk and Roth seem to take it to mean Yama in this passage.
