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than I, for I cannot move them." When the great hermit heard this, he summoned the Himálaya, and made the same proposal to him. That mountain answered him; " The mice are stronger than I am, for they dig holes in me."
Having thus got these answers in succession from those wise divinities, the great rishi summoned a forest mouse, and said to him, " Marry this maiden." Thereupon the mouse said, " Shew me how she is to be got into my hole." Then the hermit said, " It is better that she should return to her condition as a mouse." So he made her a mouse again, and gave her to that male mouse.
" So a creature returns to what it was, at the end of a long peregrination, accordingly you, Chirajívin, will never become an owl." When Raktáksha said this to Chirajívin, the latter reflected; " This king has not acted on the advice of this minister, who is skilled in policy. All these others are fools, so my object is gained." While he was thus reflecting, the king of the owls took Chirajívin with him to his own fortress, confiding in his own strength, disregarding the advice of Raktáksha. And Chirajívin, being about his person, and fed with pieces of meat and other delicacies by him, soon acquired as splendid a plumage as a peacock.*[1] One day, Chirajívin said to the king of the owls; " King, I will go and encourage that king of the crows and bring him back to his dwelling, in order that you may attack him this night and slay him, and that I may make †[2]f some return for this favour of yours. But do you all fortify your door with grass and other things, and remain in the cave where your nests are, that they may not attack you by day." When, by saying this, Chirajívin had made the owls retire into their cave, and barricade the door and the approaches to the cave, with grass and leaves, he went back to his own king. And with him he returned, carrying a brand from a pyre, all ablaze, in his beak, and every one of the crows that followed him had a piece of wood hanging down from his beak. And the moment he arrived, he set on fire the door of the cave, in which were those owls, creatures that are blind by day, which had been barricaded with dry grass and other stuff.
And every crow, in the same way, threw down at the same time his piece of wood, and so kindled a fire and burnt the owls, king and and all. ‡[3]
- ↑ * This reminds one of Babrius, Fabula LXXII.
- ↑ † I follow the Sanskrit College MS. which reads bhajámi not bhanjámi.
- ↑ ‡ See Liebrecht's notes on the Avadánas, translated by Stanislas Julien, on page 110 of his " Zur Volkskunde." He adduces an English popular superstition. " The country people to their sorrow know the Cornish chough, called Pyrrhocorax, to be not only a thief, but an incendiary, and privately to set houses on fire as well as rob them of what they find profitable. It is very apt to catch up lighted sticks, so there are instances of houses being bet on fire by its means." So a parrot sets a house on fire in a
