2. Pigeon & Cat
Abolakara | Children’s stories from Odisha
Abolakara and his master walked and walked until they reached a new town. Abolakara set out to fetch some firewood. When he returned, he had got his question for the master.
On the way, I saw a cat pinning a pigeon to the ground, and then bowing to it. Tell me what to make of it.
And so the master said.
This was the kingdom of Hariharapura. The childless king was met by a sage who promised to give them seven sons but only on a condition- he would take the eldest to be his disciple. The anxious couple agreed.
After a few months, the couple had not only seven sons but also a daughter. The eldest had the symbols of the shankha and the chakra on his torso. The wise men all agreed that he would grow to be a king. He was named Pratapa Chandra.
As time flew, the impatient sage reminded the king of his promise. The hesitant parents were finally convinced by their own son. As Rama had to leave the throne for his father’s promise, so will I. Do you not know?
Even the brilliance of the Sun is overcome by the eclipse. Even the power of the elephant is defeated. Even the wisest are helpless in the hands of poverty.
What is in fate will happen.
The wise men nodded their wise heads in approval.
You will enjoy and suffer your fate - whatever is in store for you.
And so the determined prince left his sobbing parents. The sage educated him. Eventually he made him the treasurer of his hermitage. But he kept the key to his temple with him.
Sometime later an old Brahmin met the sage. He wanted the sage to keep his two sons in his ashrama while he went for a pilgrimage. The sage made him agree to the condition that he could take back only one of his sons when he returned- he would keep the other as a disciple. The poor Brahmin agreed- the sage would probably take better care of his son than he could. He left the next day.
The sage had now devised his plan- he was quite confident the old man would take the elder son, not the younger. The younger was also the cleverer one. So he taught the younger boy all he knew.
A month later, the sage left for the annual Kumbh Mela. He kept all his keys with the prince, but warned him not to open the temple.
But, as they say,
The crow, too clever, eats rubbish.
So did this clever boy do.
He went and opened the temple straightaway. Inside he saw eight human heads laughing at him. This he found amusing- so he laughed. The heads warned him — “The sage is a tantrik. He sacrifices men to the dasha-mahavidya. We are eight. You shall be the ninth and the Brahim’s son the tenth. Once he offers ten heads, the sage will get mystic powers.”
The prince knew just what he had to do. He went and told the old Brahmin to ask for his younger son; not the elder. Days later the sage returned. He dressed the elder son in silk and gave him golden ornaments; the younger he dressed in rags. But the old man asked for the younger son and his plan was foiled.
A sanyasi with desires, a yogi who resorts to trickery, a whore with a child, a doctor who is ill, a Brahmin who is shy and a thief who coughs now and then — these six are bound to lose their livelihood,
Desperate, he followed them in the form of a crow.
The old man was chatting with his son. They had met after months, hadn’t they? He flew closer to listen.
“Father, you must have spent all our money during your pilgrimage. How’ll we manage now?”
The father had no answer.
“I have a plan. The sage taught me a lot of things. Let me turn into a rooster. Make me fight and at the end, sell me for a thousand coins. But never let go of the string tied to my feet. After three days, utter my name and tug at the string, and I’ll be back.” The ‘rooster’ with the power of a man killed every other bird. It was but obvious that people wanted to buy him. Easy money. Three days later, they had a thousand bucks with no work. They could surely do this again.
“Let me be a horse this time. Sell me then tug at my bridle & I’ll be back”
Three thousand. This was going great.
“I’ll be an elephant this time. You’ll keep the goad with you. Do not sell it.”
The sage had to interfere. He turned to a merchant.
“I’ll give you five thousand for the tusker. How much for the goad?”
“The goad cannot be sold. The creature is yours.”
“Will five thousand be enough for the goad?”
He sold the goad. Who would let go of such a deal?
The insatiable suffer the most.
Now the boy could not return. The merchant took him and tied him to a tree. He then went for a dip in the nearby pond. The restless elephant shook the tree and the goad fell in his trunk.
Immediately he transformed into a frog and leapt away.
The sage slithered behind him as a snake.
The frog turned into a fly.
The snake now flew behind him as a crane.
The fly turned into a necklace of mustard grains.
A girl picked the necklace and wore it around her neck.
The sage went to her family and accused her of theft. Afraid, she flung it out of the window. The string snipped and the grains scattered all over the place. The sage turned into a pigeon and pecked on the grains. However, one grain remained and that became a cat. The cat pounced on the pigeon.
Now he pinned the sage down to the ground. But how could he devour his guru? And so the cat dug up a hole and pushed the bird inside it. Then he prostrated himself before the pigeon.
Abolakara, tomorrow the kingdom will have a new prince. We should go for the feast, isn’t it?
Notes
- There are multiple places called Hariharpur in the states of Karnataka, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand. It is very probable that we are talking about the place in Bengal, since the first story starts from a place in Odisha and the next one moves on to a place in Bihar.
- The Kumbh Mela is a grand Hindu festival in which people gather to dip in rivers. It is said to be the largest human gathering on the planet.
- The general mystery surrounding tantra and its esoteric rituals makes for fantastic horror stories in Indian folklore.
- The Dasha-Mahavidya are a group of ten goddesses specially revered in tantra. Their worship is said to grant certain magical abilities, called ‘siddhis’.
- One who possesses these siddhis is called a siddha. The Mahasiddhas were tantrikas who had mastered the siddhi of perfection. In Vajrayana Buddhism, there are 84 Mahasiddhas. Many of them including Luipa, Kanhupa and others lived in the 8th-century Odisha and had a significant effect on the poets & philosophers of Odisha after them. Thus, we find a clear trace of their legends in folklore.
- There are eight great siddhis, together known as the ashta-siddhi. These include the power to expand or reduce one’s body, to become infinitely heavy or weightless, to teleport at will, realising desires, controlling nature and controlling forces. Hanuman is said to be a master of all of them.
- The kamarupa-siddhi is the shapeshifting power; the ability to turn to any form you desire. Krishna mentions it as one of the ten secondary Siddhis in the Bhagavata Purana.
This project was created to make traditional children’s literature in Odia available to everyone.
The stories have been translated into English by Prateek Pattanaik. It is supported by Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik.
