374 Birds in Sanskrit Literature Darter and fish are quite appropriate for the Lord of the Rivers as all three are permanently associated with the water. 8. The interpretation of as the clean weg bird by arep may not be correct but the view that a bird who spends much of his time in or upon the water shares the purity of that element seems to have been in favour with the ancients, for we find two spiritual preceptors named and and 'flying down' (f) to impart spiritual knowledge to young. The supposed association between cleanliness and spirituality is obvious in this picture and the position of honour given to the lowly Silverlaced Snake- bird is perhaps unique. The graceful Swan has of course been honoured in every country and particularly in India where the Sun and the Moon (“हंस: शुचिषत्)” and the liberated human soul have frequently been pictured as the Swan par excellence. 9. prohibits , the Cormorant, as food and decrees that water- thief would be reborn as that bird and thus condemned to an aquatic life. In the same way a person stealing animal-fat is destined to be a Darter (मद्गु). काकमद्गु in घृतं हृत्वा तु दुर्बुद्धिः काकमद्गुः प्रजायते । -महाभारत and ब्रह्मपुराण, 5 is again the Little Cormorant with the glistening oily plumage not affected by constant immersion in water. punishes theft of drinking water, the punishment this time consisting of a denial of all but a few drops of rain-water, for the thief must be reborn as a Hawk- Cuckoo (). Do these point to the Indo-Aryans having lived in areas stricken with drought or of the nature of a desert before they settled down in the happy land of the Five-rivers? Or did they suffer from a long period of water-scarcity in the Punjab itself? and 10. The reference to these birds in the are more interesting. T offers his love to eat in captivity and she insults him with a number of disparaging similes two of which are based upon a com- parison between the mean-looking Darter on the one hand and the princely Peacock and the graceful Goose on the other:- यदन्तरं वायसवैनतेययोः यदन्तरं मद्गुमयूरयोरपि । यदन्तरं सारसगृधयोर्वने तदन्तरं दाशरथेस्तवैव च ॥ -रामायण 1. On RV 1.124.4. 2. जावाल सत्यकाम-छान्दोग्य उपनिषद्, 4.7.1 and 4.8.1-2 3. 5.12. 4. 12.62. 5. 13.111.122 and 217.107 respectively. 6. 12.7. 7. 3.47.47. Cormorants and Darter क्रीडन्ती राजहंसेन पद्मखण्डेषु नित्यशः । हंसी सा तूणमध्यस्थं कथं द्रक्ष्येत मद्गुकम् ॥ -Ibid.¹ It need hardly be added that the Darter is most awkward on the land as compared with the beautiful and dignified gait of the Peacock on land and of the Goose both on land and on water. 11. The characteristic pose of the Darter as it perches on a stake in the water with wings spread out to dry finds poetical expression in : इयत्प्रमाणोऽपि सर: प्रदेशः तव प्रसादेन ममास्तु भोग्यः। इत्येष सन्दर्शयतीव मद्गु, हंसाय शोषाय विसारितांसः ॥ 375 -जानकीहरण 1. 3.56.20. 2. 3.30, Here the wooden stake would seem to demarcate the clear waters of a lake from the area covered with lotuses and lilies, and the bird extending his arms as it were, addresses the Goose sporting in the lotus-bed, "I may be permitted, Sir, to have the water on this side for my own use." The Darter fishes only in clear and weed-free waters.
