The Mythology & Folklore Database
One day, as he was roaming about in the wood to assist others, he saw a great well and looked into it. And a woman, who was in it, said to him in a loud voice: "Noble sir, here are four of us, myself a woman, a lion, and a golden-crested bird, and a snake, fallen into this well in the night; so take us out; have mercy upon us."
When he heard this, he said: "Granted that you three fell in because the darkness made it impossible for you to see your way, but how did the bird fall in?"
The woman answered him: "It fell in by being caught in a fowler's net."
Then the ascetic tried to lift them out by the supernatural power of his asceticism, but he could not; on the contrary, his power was gone.
He reflected: "Surely this woman is a sinner, and owing to my having conversed with her, my power is gone from me. So I will use other means in this case."
Then he plaited a rope of grass, and so drew them all four up out of the well, and they praised him. And in his astonishment he said to the lion, the bird and the snake: "Tell me, how come you to have articulate voice, and what is your history?"
Then the lion said: " We have articulate speech and remember our former births, and we are mutual enemies; hear our stories in turns."
So the lion began to tell his own story as follows:
Then his father cursed him, saying: "Fall into the world of mortals."
Then his arrogance was extinguished, and his knowledge left him, and smitten with the curse he wept, and asked his father to name a time when it should end. Then his father Padmavesa thought a little, and said immediately: "You shall become a Brahmin's son on the earth, and display this arrogance once more, and by your father's curse you shall become a lion and fall into a well. And a man of noble character, out of compassion, shall draw you out, and when you have recompensed him in his calamity, you shall be delivered from this curse."
This was the termination of the curse which his father appointed for him.
Then Vajravega was born in Malava as Devaghosha, the son of Harighosha, a Brahmin. And in that birth also he fought with many, confiding in his heroism, and his father said to him: "Do not go on in this way quarrelling with everybody."
But he would not obey his father's orders, so his father cursed him: "Become immediately a foolish lion, over-confident in its strength."
In consequence of this speech of his father's, Devaghosha, that incarnation of a Vidyadhara, was again born as a lion in this forest.
After the lion had said this, he went away, and the golden-crested bird, being questioned by that Bodhisattva, told his tale.
In his childishness he kept begging for the pinjara, saying: "Give it me, I too want to play on it."
And when she would not give it him, in his flightiness he seized the pinjara, and flew up to heaven with it in the form of a bird.
Then his sister cursed him, saying: "Since you have taken my pinjara from me by force, and flown away with it, you shall become a bird with a golden crest."
When Rajatadamshtra heard this, he fell at his sister's feet, and entreated her to fix a time for his curse to end, and she said: "When, foolish boy, you fall, in your bird-form, into a blind well, and a certain merciful person draws you out, and you do him a service in return, then you shall be released from this curse."
When she had said this to her brother, he was born as a bird with a golden crest.
When the bird had said this, he departed.
Then the snake, being questioned by that Bodhisattva, told his story to that great-souled one.
Formerly I was the son of a hermit in the hermitage of Kasyapa. And I had a companion there who was also the son of a hermit. And one day my friend went down into the lake to bathe, and I remained on the bank. And while I was there, I saw a serpent come with three heads. And, in order to terrify that friend of mine in fun, I fixed the serpent immovable on the bank, opposite to where he was, by the power of a spell. My friend got through his bathing in a moment, and came to the bank, and unexpectedly seeing that great serpent there, he was terrified and fainted.
After some time I brought my friend round again, but he, finding out by meditation that I had terrified him in this way, became angry, and cursed me, saying: "Go and become a similar great snake with three crests."
Then I entreated him to fix an end to my curse, and he said: "When, in your serpent condition, you fall into a well, and at a critical moment do a service to the man who pulls you out, then you shall be freed from your curse."
When the snake had said this, he departed, and the woman told her story.
When the sinful woman had said this to the Bodhisattva, she went to the town of a king named Gotravardhana. She obtained an interview with him, and remained among his attendants, in the capacity of maid to the king's principal queen.
But because that Bodhisattva talked with that woman, he lost his power, and could not procure fruits and roots and things of that kind. Then, being exhausted with hunger and thirst, he first thought of the lion.
And, when he thought of him, he came and fed him with the flesh of deer, and in a short time he restored him to his former health with their flesh; and then the lion said: "My curse is at an end, I will depart."
When he had said this, the Bodhisattva gave him leave to depart, and the lion became a Vidyadhara and went to his own place.
Then that incarnation of a portion of a Bodhisattva, being again exhausted by want of food, thought upon that golden-crested bird, and he came, when thought of by him.
And when he told the bird of his sufferings, the bird went and brought a casket full of jewels and gave it him, and said: ''This wealth will support you for ever, and so my curse has come to an end, now I depart; may you enjoy happiness!"
When he had said this, he became a young Vidyadhara prince, and went through the air to his own world, and received the kingdom from his father.
And the Bodhisattva, as he was wandering about to sell the jewels, reached that city where the woman was living whom he had rescued from the well. And he deposited those jewels in an out-of-the-way house belonging to an old Brahmin woman, and went to the market, and on the way he saw coming towards him the very woman whom he had saved from the well, and the woman saw him. And the two fell into a conversation, and in the course of it the woman told him of her position about the person of the queen.
And she asked him about his own adventures. So the confiding man told her how the golden-crested bird had given him the jewels. And he took her and showed her the jewels in the house of the old woman, and the wicked woman went and told her mistress, the queen, of it.
Now it happened that the golden-crested bird had managed artfully to steal this casket of jewels from the interior of the queen's palace, before her eyes. And when the queen heard from the mouth of that woman, who knew the facts, that the casket had arrived in the city, she informed the king. And the king had the Bodhisattva pointed out by that wicked woman, and brought by his servants as a prisoner from that house with the ornaments. And after he had asked him the circumstances, though he believed his account, he not only took the ornaments from him, but he put him in prison.
Then the Bodhisattva, terrified at being put in prison, thought upon the snake, who was an incarnation of the hermit's son, and the snake came to him.
And when the snake had seen him, and inquired what his need was, he said to the good man: "I will go and coil round the king from his head to his feet. And I will not let him go until I am told to do so by you. And you must say here, in the prison: 'I will deliver the king from the serpent.' And when you come and give me the order, I will let the king go. And when I let him go, he will give you half his kingdom."
After he had said this, the snake went and coiled round the king, and placed his three hoods on his head.
And the people began to cry out: "Alas I the king is bitten by a snake."
Then the Bodhisattva said: "I will deliver the king from this snake."
And the king's servants, having heard this, informed him.
Thereupon the king, who was in the grasp of the snake, had the Bodhisattva summoned, and said to him: "If you deliver me from this snake, I will give you half my kingdom, and these my ministers are your guarantees that I will keep my promise."
When his ministers heard this, they said, "Certainly," and then the Bodhisattva said to that snake: "Let the king go at once."
Then the snake let the king go, and the king gave half his kingdom to that Bodhisattva, and thus he became prosperous in a moment. And the serpent, as its curse was at an end, became a young hermit, and he told his story in the presence of the court and went back to his hermitage.
Thus you see that good fortune certainly befalls those of good dispositions. And transgression brings suffering even upon the great. And the mind of women cannot be relied upon; it is not touched even by such a service as rescue from death; so what other benefit can move them?