Tuesday, December 9, 2014

16. Hitopadesh -The Lapwings Who Lived Near The Sea

Long time ago, there lived a pair of Lapwing birds near a sea shore.

Once, the female Lapwing was set to hatch eggs. So she asked the male Lapwing to search for a quite and safe place where she could lay eggs and incubate them safely.
But the male Lapwing liked the place where they lived very much. He didn't want to relocate to another place and asked his wife, “Dear, we have been living here for quite sometime now. what is wrong with this place?”

The female Lapwing said, “Indeed, we have been living here for months now. So you should remember that every month during the phase of high tide the place gets flooded.”

But the male Lapwing was enraged by what his wife said. He shrugged his neck angrily and said, “I am not so weak that a tide will sweep me away”.

The female Lapwing was humble and wise. She tried to calm her husband and make him understand the danger of facing the force of ocean waves. But the male Lapwing was adamant was refused to move to another place. The female Lapwing was sad and told her husband, “You will pay for being so high headed”.

The might ocean heard what the two birds spoke between themselves.

After some day, the female Lapwing hatched eggs on the shore. The new parents were very happy and started protecting their eggs.

When the ocean saw the birds with their eggs, he decided to teach the male Lapwing a lesson.

Soon giant waves came and washed the far shore. The eggs were swept away.

When the female Lapwing saw this, she wept and cried to her husband, “Our eggs have been swept away by waves”.

The male Lapwing replied, “Do not worry. I shall get them back.” Then he called an assembly of birds and told them about their eggs.

The assembly went to Garuda, the king of birds. The male Lapwing said, “O King!  I have come to you for justice. My eggs have been swept by the ocean. We have lived on the shore peacefully for months and never did any harm to the ocean. But last night while we were sleeping, he swept away our eggs. We are helpless and wrecked by loss of our eggs. Kindly, grant us justice.”
Hearing the plea, Garuda went to Lord Vishnu and told him about the incident. The Lord approached the ocean and asked him to return eggs of the Lapwing birds.
Seeing Lord Vishnu, the ocean was petrified. He apologized to Him for wrongdoing and returned the eggs of Lapwing birds.

Thus, the male Lapwing bird lost his eggs due to arrogance and got them back with his self confidence.


Moral: Arrogance leads to destruction whereas self confidence is the key to success.

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