69-71] PADUMĀWATI. 35 sky became filled with starsl-her tears. 'Twas as though the dyke of the lake had burst (with a spring tide), and the waters had begun to flow away. The lotuses sank beneath the flood, and the hovering bees fled away. The star-tears fell and dropped, as though, deserting heaven, they rose from the lake which now they filled. Her necklace of pearls broke and its pearls were scattered. They fell and repaired the flood breaches in the banks of the lake.3 Whither hath this parrot flown ? Seek, friends, for its abode. Is it on earth or in the heaven, for the wind itself cannot overtake it?' 70. Her fellows stood all around, comforting her and saying, Thy parrot is gone. How can we now find him ? So long as he was in the cage, so long was he thy slave, and did serve thee continually. But now he is re- leased from his bonds, and how will he again come back unto his prison? He ate the flying-fruit on the day that he became a bird, and found wings to his body. He hath left the cage to her to whom it did belong, and is gone, and each hath got his own. 'Twas a cage with ten doors, and how could he escape the cat? How many such hath this earth not swallowed up? So strong- bellied is it, that it never looseth them again. "Where there is nor night nor day, where there is nor air nor water, in that forest doth thy dear parrot dwell. Who can bring him back to thee?' 71. The parrot passed ten days there in happiness, when one day came a fowler hidden behind a screen of leaves. Step by step he came, weighing heavy on the earth, and when the birds saw it their hearts became filled with fear. See,' cried they, this wonderful, this ill-omened sight. A tree walketh along towards us. All our lives have we lived in this forest, nor ever have we seen a tree to walk. If to-day a tree doth walk, it bodeth no good. Come, let us flee, and leave this forest.' So all the birds flew away, and sought for another forest, only the learned parrot mistook (the portent) in the weariness of his soul. He gazed upon the branches round him, and fancied them his kingdom. He sat there secure while the fowler approached. The ginº had five forks, each smeared with bird-lime. These became en- tangled in his body and his feathers.10 How did he escape without being killed ? 1 A lunar eclipse can only occur at full moon, when the stars are not visible till rendered so by the darkness of the eclipse. 8 i.e., her lotus face was drowned in tears, and her bee-like eyes were hidden. 3 The poet first says that her tears caused the lake to overflow and burst its banks. Then, to explain how the neighbouring city was not washed away, he adds that the pearls of her necklace fell and filled up the breaches. 4 The ța in suață is a diminutive of endearment. 6 There is a double meaning throughout this stanza. The parrot is taken to represent the human soul; the cage, the body; and the cat, death. 8 The Udūna-phara, is a fruit which confers the power of flight. It is eaten by every bird. 1 A reference to the nine doors or orifices of the human body, through which breath is expired at the moment of death. The poet counts ten by counting, instead of the mouth, the two orifices of the throat divided by the uvula. The ordinary list is the mouth (1), the two ears (3), the eyes (5), the two nostrils the organs of excretion and generation (9). The friends now suggest that the Parrot is dead. 8 The abode of the sonl after death. 9 See Bīhār Peasant Life, S 381, where the whole process is described. 10 Literally, his body filled with feathers.
