Note 6 — Chapter LXXXVII · (Vetála 13.)

He said, “I will do so,” and took the vessel of rice, and placed it at no great distance under a banyan-tree on the edge of the lake; and he washed his hands and feet in the lake, and rinsed his mouth, and then came back in high spirits to eat the rice. But while he was thus engaged, a kite, holding a black cobra with its beak and claws, came from some place or other, and sat on that tree. And it so happened that poisonous saliva issued from the mouth of that dead snake, which the bird had captured and was carrying along. The saliva fell into the dish of rice which was placed underneath the tree, and Harisvámin, without observing it, came and ate up that rice.6 As soon as in his hunger he had devoured all that food, he began to suffer terrible agonies produced by the poison. He exclaimed, “When fate has turned against a man, everything in this world turns also; accordingly this rice dressed with milk, ghee and sugar, has become poison to me.”