Apaddharmanushasana Parva — The story of a pigeon on the subject

Bhishma said lt so chanced that the fowler, O king, saw that pair while seated on their celestial car. Seeing the couple he became filled with sorrow and began to think of the means of acquiring the same end.

And he said to himself,-I must, by austerities like those of the pigeon, acquire such a high end!—Having made this resolution, the fowler, who had lived by the destruction of birds, started on an unreturning journey.

Without any attempt (for getting food) and living upon air alone, he renounced all other desires for acquiring heaven.

After he had gone for some distance, he saw an extensive and charming lake full of cool and pure water, adorned with lotuses and abounding with various sorts of water-fowi.

Forsooth, the very sight of such a lake is capable of satisfying the thirst of a person. Physically reduced with fasts, the fowler, however, O king, without casting his eyes upon it, gladly entered into a forest inhabited by beasts of prey, having previously learnt its wide extent. After he had entered the forest, he was painfully cut by sharp-pointed thorns.

Cut and torn by prickles, and bathed in blood, he began to wander in that forest, shorn of men but abounding with animals of various species.

Sometime after, on account of the friction of some huge trees caused by a strong wind, a wide spread forest-fire arose.

The raging element, appearing like the fire at the end of the Cycle, the powerful fire began to consume that large forest abounding with tall trees and thick bushes and creepers.

Indeed, with flames fanned by the wind and numberless sparks flying about in all directions, the all-consuming god began to consume that dense forest teeming with birds and beasts.

The fowler, desirous of renouncing his body, ran with a delighted heart towards that spreading fire.

Consumed by that fire the fowler became purged of all his sins and acquired, O best of the Bharatas, high success.

The anxiety of his mind gone, he at last saw himself in heaven, shining like Indra in midst of Yakshas and Gandharvas and persons endued with ascetic success.

Thus the pigeon and his devoted wife, with the fowler, went to heaven for their meritorious acts.

The woman who thus follows her husband speedily ascends to heaven and shines there like the she-pigeon of whom I have spoken.

This is the ancient history of the great fowler and the pigeon. Thus did they acquire highly meritorious end by their righteous acts.

No evil overtakes the person who listens every day to this story or who recites it every day, even if error possesses his mind.

O Yudhishthira, O foremost of all righteous persons, the protection of a suppliant is, indeed, a great act of merit. By following this duty, even the killer of a cow may be cleansed of sin.

That man, however, will never be cleansed who kills a suppliant. By listening to this sacred and sin-destroying story one becomes freed from distress and goes to heaven at last.'