Lubdhaka the Hunter

Lubdhaka was a hunter. He appears in the Kapota-Lubdhaka Saṃvāda, the talk of the pigeon and the hunter, in the Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva, Āpaddharma Parva, Chapters 143–149.

He caught Kapotī, the female pigeon, in his net. He came into the forest hungry and cold. He did not get his captive as food. Instead he saw the pigeon couple keep the highest atithi-dharma (the duty to a guest). Kapota offered his own body to the fire, to feed the hunter. Then Kapotī followed her husband into the flames.

The hunter’s whole way of life broke down when he saw this. He turned deeply to vairāgya (detachment). He went on his mahāprasthāna (great departure) in the forest, and he too reached svarga (heaven).

His character

From the start, Lubdhaka is shown as a man who killed for a living and felt no regret. All his life he had seen the creatures of the forest only as things to use. No ṛshi had taught him, and he had not practised any tapas (austerity). His change came from what he saw with his own eyes, and from nothing else.

The change in him

Kapota flew into the fire after telling the hunter: “My body is all I have to offer you.” The hunter sat stunned. No creature had ever walked into flames of its own will to feed him. The pigeon’s gift of himself came without show and without blame. He did it simply as his duty to a guest. It struck the hunter at the root of his habit of taking.

Then Kapotī followed her husband into the same fire. After that the hunter could no longer return to his old life. He sat in the forest for a long time and could not move. Thoughts rose in him: “What am I doing with this life? Those birds gave everything to a stranger who had harmed them. What have I ever given?”

Mahāprasthāna and svarga

The Mahābhārata records Lubdhaka’s vairāgya as real. He put down his tools and walked into the forest. He stopped eating. He entered a state of mahāprasthāna, the great departure. Little by little he let go of the body through fasting and by living in the open in the wilderness. When fire came, he entered it. He too reached svarga.

The same act, going into the flame of one’s own will, completed the pigeons’ atithi-dharma. It also completed the hunter’s renunciation.

Sources

• Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva, Āpaddharma Parva, Chapters 143–149