THE PARROT.
SUMMARY.
Haris and harit; harayas and harî; green and yellow called by a
common name.--The moon as a green tree and as a green parrot; the
parrot and the tree assimilated.--The wise moon and the wise
parrot; the phallical moon and the phallical parrot, in numerous
love stories.--The god of love mounted on the parrot--The parrot
and the wolf pasture together.
The myth of the parrot originated in the East, and developed itself
almost exclusively among the Oriental nations.
I mentioned in the chapter on the Ass, that the words _haris_ and
_harit_ signify green no less than fair-haired, and hence gave rise to
the epic myth of the monsters with parrot's faces, or drawn by parrots.
The solar horses are called harayas; harî are the two horses of Indras;
Haris is a name of Indras himself, but especially of the god Vishnus;
but there are more fair-haired figures in the sky then these; the golden
thunderbolt which shoots through the cloud, and the golden moon, the
traveller of the night, are such. Moreover, because green and yellow are
called by this common name, all these fair ones, and the moon in
particular, assumed the form, now of a green tree, now of a green
parrot. A very interesting Vedic strophe offers us an evident proof of
this. The solar horses (or the sun himself, Haris) say that they have
imparted the colour haris to the parrots, to the pheasants (or
peacocks.[468] Benfey and the Petropolitan Dictionary, however, explain
_ropanâkâ_ by drossel or thrush), and to the trees, which are therefore
called hârayas. As the trees are green, so are the parrots generally
green (sometimes also yellow and red, whence the appellation haris is
always applicable to them).[469] The moon, on account of its colour, is
now a tree (a green one), now an apple-tree with golden branches and
apples, now a parrot (golden or green, and luminous). The moon in the
night is the wise fairy who knows all, and can teach all. In the
introduction to the _Mahâbhâratam_, the name Çukas or parrot is given to
the son of Krishnas, _i.e._, of the black one, who reads (as moon) the
_Mahâbhâratam_ to the monsters. In the chapter on the Ass, we saw the
ass and the monster of the _Râmâyanam_ with parrots' faces. But inasmuch
as the ass is a phallical symbol, the parrot is also ridden by the
Hindoo god Kâmas, or the god of love (hence also called Çukavâhas). The
moon (masculine in India) has already been mentioned, in the first
chapter of the first book, as a symbol of the phallos; in the same way
as the thunderbolt pierces the cloud, the moon pierces the gloom of the
night, penetrates and reveals the secrets of the night. Therefore, the
parrot being identified with the night in the _Çukasaptatî_, and in
other books of Hindoo stories, we see the parrot often appearing in
love-stories, and revealing amorous secrets.
Some of the stories concerning the parrot passed into the West; no
doubt, by means of literary transmission, that is to say, of the
mediæval Arabic and Latin versions of the Hindoo stories.[470]
Some of the Hindoo beliefs concerning the parrot had already passed into
ancient Greece, and Ælianos shows himself to be very well acquainted
with the sacred worship which the Brâhmans of India professed for it.
Oppianos, moreover, tells us of a superstition which confirms what we
have said concerning the essentially lunar character of the mythical
parrot; he says that the parrot and the wolf pasture together, because
the wolves love this green bird; this is the same as saying that the
gloomy night loves the moon. One of the Hindoo epithets applied to the
moon, moreover, is raganîkaras, or he who makes the night.
FOOTNOTES:
[468] The parrot is sung of by Statius in connection with the same
birds in the second book of the _Sylvæ_--
"Lux volucrum plagæ, regnator Eoæ
Quam non gemmata volucri Junonia cauda
Vinceret, aspectu gelidi non phasidis ales."
[469] A pathetic elegy in Sanskrit distiches, of a Buddhist character,
of which I do not now remember the source, presents us the çukas, or
parrot, who wishes to die when the tree açokas, which has always been
his refuge, is dried up.
[470] Such as, for instance, the following unpublished story,
communicated to me by Dr Ferraro, which is related in the Monferrato,
and of which I have also heard, in my childhood, a variation at
Turin:--A king, going to the wars, and fearing that another king, who
is his rival, will profit by his absence to seduce his wife, places by
her side one of his friends transformed into a parrot; this friend
warns her to remain faithful every time that the rival king sends to
tempt the queen by means of a cunning old woman. The queen pays
attention to the parrot's advice, and remains faithful till the
husband's return. This is, in a few words, the contents of the seventy
Hindoo tales of the parrot, of which the _Tuti-Name_ is a Persian
version.--In the story which I heard at Turin, the wife is, on the
contrary, unfaithful and covers the parrot's cage that it may not see;
she then fries some fishes in the guest's honour; the parrot thinks
that it is raining. The fish and the rain remind us of the myth of the
phallical and pluvial cuckoo.