Note 15 — Chapter XXII

And he said from a distance to those foolish snakes, who were terrified on account of the boon granted to him, “Here is the nectar brought by me, release my mother and take it; if you are afraid, I will put it for you on a bed of Darbha grass. When I have procured my mother’s release, I will go; take the nectar thence.” The snakes consented, and then he put the vessel of nectar on a pure bed of Kuśa grass,15 and they let his mother go. So Garuḍa departed, having thus released his mother from slavery; but while the snakes were unsuspectingly taking the nectar, Indra suddenly swooped down, and bewildering them by his power, carried off the vessel of nectar from the bed of Kuśa grass. Then the snakes in despair licked that bed of Darbha grass, thinking there might be a drop of spilt nectar on it; the effect was that their tongues were split, and they became double-tongued for nothing.16 What but ridicule can ever be the portion of the over-greedy? Then the snakes did not obtain the nectar of immortality, and their enemy Garuḍa, on the strength of Vishṇu’s boon, began to swoop down and devour them. And this he did again and again. And while he was thus attacking them, the snakes17 in Pátála were dead with fear, the females miscarried, and the whole serpent race was well-nigh destroyed. And Vásuki the king of the snakes, seeing him there every day, considered that the serpent world was ruined at one blow: then, after reflecting, he preferred a petition to that Garuḍa of irresistible might, and made this agreement with him—“I will send you every day one snake to eat, O king of birds, on the hill that rises out of the sand of the sea. But you must not act so foolishly as to enter Pátála, for by the destruction of the serpent world your own object will be baffled.” When Vásuki said this to him, Garuḍa consented, and began to eat every day in this place one snake sent by him: and in this way innumerable serpents have met their death here. But I am a snake called Śankachúḍa,18 and it is my turn to-day: for that reason I have to-day, by the command of the king of the snakes, in order to furnish a meal to Garuḍa, come to this rock of execution, and to be lamented by my mother.”