Page:Vāsavadattā (a Sanskrit romance by Subandhu).djvu/94

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VĀSAVADATTĀ

that very god whose garment is of rays, with his disc red as the eyes of a must buffalo[1] exhausted by heat. Then Makaranda, getting fruits and roots, brought an abundance[2] of pleasing food in some way or other, and himself ate the remainder of what had been enjoyed by Kandarpakētu. Thereupon, placing that most dear one on the tablet of his heart, looking on her as if limned by a pencil,[3] [108] Kandarpakētu, with unshaken resolution, slept on a couch of boughs prepared by Makaranda. Then, when but half a watch of the night[4] had elapsed, Kandarpakētu heard there, on the tip of the rose-apple tree, the chatter of a parrot and a maina[5] quarrelling one with the other, and he said to Makaranda: 'Good friend, let us now listen to the chit-chat of this pair'!

[109] Then the maina [6] said, in a voice tremulous with anger: 'Wretch! you have gone off courting some other maina! How else have you passed this night'? Hearing this,[7] the parrot said to her: 'My dear, an unprecedented story has been heard and witnessed by me[8]; for this reason there has been a loss of time.'

  1. Tel. ed. and Srirangam text, 'forest elephant.'
  2. Tel. ed. and Srirangam text omit 'abundance.'
  3. Tel. ed. and Srirangam text, 'looking on that most dear one as if limned by the pencil of fancy on the tablet of his heart.'
  4. Tel. ed. and Srirangam text, 'when but a watch of the night had elapsed,' also omitting 'there.'
  5. The association of the parrot and maina (here called śārikā) is a commonplace in both the ancient and the modern literature of India. In this association they convey weighty information in Swynnerton, Rājā Rasāllu, pp. 105, 115-117, Calcutta, 1884 (where the maina is called śārak); Knowles, Folk-Tales of Kashmir, 2 ed., pp. 65-66, London, 1893 (where it is termed hār); Schiefner, Tibetan Tales tr. Ralston, pp. 168-169, London, 1906; Steel and Temple, Wide-Awake Stories, 139, Bombay 1884; Ram Satya Mukharji, Indian Folklore, p. 60, Calcutta, 1904 (where the maina is called sari). On talking birds in general in modern Indian folk-tales cf. Knowles, op. cit., pp. 168-169, 198, 231, 434; Steel and Temple, op. cit., pp. 176, 412; Temple, Legends of the Panjāb, i. 9-10, Bombay, 1884' Day. Folk-Tales of Bengal, pp. 41-42, 134-135, London, 1883; Frere, Old Deccan Days, 2 ed., pp. 74-75, London, 1870; Dracott, Simla Village Tales, p. 62, London, 1906; Natesa Sastri, Dravidian Nights, p. 275, Madras, 1886; O'Connor, Folk-Tales from Tibet, pp. 160, 166, London, 1906. On the basis of the belief see MacCulloch, Childhood of Fiction, pp. 38, 247, London, 1905.
  6. Tel. ed. and Srirangam text, 'a maina in the rose-apple bower, in a voice tremulous with anger, said to a parrot that had come after a long time.'
  7. Tel. ed. and Srirangam text insert 'then.'
  8. Tel. ed. and Srirangam text, 'dismiss your wrath! An unprecedented great story has been witnessed by me.'