Pūjanī
Pūjanī was a sparrow who lived in the royal palace of Brahmadatta, king of Kāmpilya. The Āpaddharma Parva, within the Śānti Parva of the Mahābhārata, tells of her. She had great wisdom, and she could understand human speech and answer it. She also brought fruits from the Himālaya that gave the memory of past lives.
A prince killed her chick, and she blinded him in the same measure. She then stayed to speak with the king himself about enmity, about answering harm with harm, and about the limits of the bond between a guest and the house that shelters her. After this she left the palace for good.
Nature and gifts
Pūjanī was not an ordinary bird. The Mahābhārata shows her as a being of rare wisdom who had settled in Brahmadatta’s palace at Kāmpilya by her own choice. She could understand human speech and answer it with deep thought.
Her best-known gift was the wondrous fruits she brought from trees in the Himālaya. Whoever ate them gained jāti-smṛti, the memory of past lives. This was a rare spiritual gift, and the tradition values it highly. The king and his household gained from it, and it was the base of their good relation with Pūjanī. The Śānti Parva tells this in Chapter 139.
The killing of her chick and her answer
The break came when a young prince of the palace household killed Pūjanī’s chick. The account suggests this was careless or thoughtless cruelty, not the act of a planned enemy. Pūjanī’s answer was measured and deliberate. She blinded the prince.
Her reasoning was that the prince had taken from her what was most dear to her, her offspring, and she took from him his sight. The measure was not by chance. It was a principle at work. The Śānti Parva tells this in Chapter 139.
The talk with Brahmadatta
Pūjanī did not flee at once. She stayed to speak with Brahmadatta, and this talk holds the teaching of the account.
She named five kinds of enmity:
- The open enemy who attacks directly.
- The hidden enemy who looks like a friend but acts to destroy.
- The enemy who caused harm without knowing it.
- The enemy made by circumstance, not by character.
- The enemy from a bond of an earlier birth (pūrvajanma-vaira).
The prince stood between harm done without knowing and harm done carelessly. Such harm is less blameworthy than deliberate malice, yet it is not without result.
The limit of the shelter bond. Brahmadatta argued that the trust and hospitality between Pūjanī and the palace bound her to hold back. Pūjanī answered that even the most sacred bond of hospitality does not ask a mother to accept the killing of her children without a response.
Wrong for wrong. Brahmadatta asked whether answering harm only keeps harm going. Pūjanī said that silence in the face of injury is weakness, not dharma, and that a measured answer is the right reply to a great harm. The Śānti Parva tells this in Chapter 139.
Her departure
When the talk was over, Pūjanī said that the bond was changed for ever. The happiness of the place was gone for her. She could not live where she had been made to see her child killed and had been forced to strike back at the household that had sheltered her. She left.
In Bhīshma’s telling, her departure was not a punishment. It shows that some losses cannot be undone, and that a wise being does not stay in a place that has been broken beyond repair for her. The Śānti Parva tells this in Chapter 139.
Sources
- Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva, Āpaddharma Parva, Chapter 139