The Dove and the Hunter

The deathless sage Markandeya told the Pandavas the tale of the pigeon and the fowler - a story of how the perfect keeping of the law of hospitality, even toward an enemy, transformed a cruel man's heart and lifted two small birds to heaven.

There was once a fowler, a hunter of birds, hard-hearted and cruel, who roamed the forests setting his nets and snares to trap the creatures of the air, killing them or caging them to sell, caring nothing for their suffering. He had spent his whole life in this trade of cruelty, and his heart had grown as hard as his calling. One day he went out into the forest as always, with his net and his cage, hunting birds.

That day the fowler caught in his net a female pigeon, a gentle dove, and he shut her in his cage and made to carry her off. But before he could leave the forest, the sky darkened and a fierce storm broke - cold wind, driving rain, and a bitter chill that froze him to the bone. Night fell, and the fowler, soaked and shivering and lost in the dark wood, could go no further. He took shelter beneath a great spreading tree, and there he huddled, freezing and starving, utterly miserable, with the caged pigeon beside him.

Now it happened that this very tree was the home of the captured pigeon's own mate - the male pigeon, her husband, who lived in its branches. He had been grieving all the long evening for his wife, who had not returned to the nest, fearing the worst. And now, from the branches above, he heard, in the cage at the foot of his own tree, the voice of his beloved wife.

The male pigeon, hearing his captured wife so near, cried out to her in grief, lamenting that she had been taken and that he could not save her. But the captured female pigeon, from within the cage, spoke to her husband words of a wisdom and a goodness that have been remembered ever since.

'Do not grieve for me, my husband,' she said, 'and do not hate the man who has trapped me. Look - he sits beneath our very tree, frozen and starving and miserable, lost in the storm. He has come to our home, to the foot of the tree where you dwell. And whoever comes to one's home, even an enemy, even one who has done us harm, is a guest - and a guest must be honored. That is the eternal law: that a guest who comes seeking shelter is to be received and cared for, whoever he is, even if he is one who has wronged us. This man is now our guest, frozen and in need. Set aside your grief and your anger, and do your duty: receive him, and warm him, and feed him, and treat him as an honored guest. To do good even to one who has done us evil - that is the highest dharma. Do not fail in it, even toward the one who has caged me.'

The male pigeon heard his wife's counsel, and though it was a hard thing to honor the very man who had stolen her away, he saw the truth and the goodness of it, and he resolved to do exactly as she said - to be a perfect host even to his enemy.

So the male pigeon came down from his branches and addressed the freezing, miserable fowler with courtesy and welcome, as a host welcomes a guest. 'You are my guest,' he said, 'come to the foot of my tree on this cruel night. Be at ease; I will do for you all that a host can do. You are cold - I will give you warmth; you are hungry - I will give you food. Do not despair.'

The fowler, astonished to be welcomed so by the very bird whose mate he had caged, listened in wonder. And the pigeon set about honoring his guest. Seeing that the man was frozen nearly to death, the little bird gathered together some dry leaves and twigs, and by his efforts kindled a small fire there beneath the tree, and bid the fowler warm himself at it. The freezing man drew gratefully near the flames and began to thaw, his life coming back into his stiff limbs - warmed by a fire made for him by the husband of the bird he had stolen.

The fowler was warmed now, but he was still starving, and the law of hospitality is not fulfilled until the guest is fed as well as warmed. But the little pigeon had no food to offer - no store of grain, nothing to set before his hungry guest. And the perfect keeping of the sacred duty demanded that the guest be fed.

So the pigeon did the only thing left to him, and it was a thing of supreme and terrible devotion. To give his guest the meal that hospitality required, and having nothing else in all the world to offer, the little bird circled the fire he had kindled, and then flew straight into the flames, offering his own body - his own small life - as food for the freezing, starving man who had caged his wife. He sacrificed himself, casting himself into the fire, that his guest might eat and live; he gave the only thing he had, which was himself, to fulfill to the very last the law of hospitality toward his enemy.

The fowler watched the little bird fly into the fire and give up its life to feed him - a creature he had wronged, offering its own body to him as a guest, with no anger, no reproach, only the perfect keeping of a sacred duty. And the sight broke open his hard heart utterly.

He was overwhelmed with shame and remorse and a sudden, piercing revulsion at his whole cruel life. 'What manner of being is this,' he cried, 'that I, who have spent my life trapping and killing such creatures, who caged this very bird's own wife, should be served and saved and fed by the bird's own self-sacrifice? This little creature has shown more goodness in its death than I have shown in all my years. Cursed be my cruel trade, and my hard and sinful life! How can I go on as I have been, after such a thing?'

The hunter could bear his old life no longer. He had been transformed in an instant by the bird's example. He took the cage that held the female pigeon and opened it and set her free; he cast away his net and his snares and his weapons, the tools of his cruelty, renouncing his trade forever. And he resolved to spend the rest of his days in penance and atonement, harming no living thing, walking the path of non-violence - changed wholly, from a cruel killer into a man of mercy, by the self-sacrifice of a single small bird.

But the female pigeon, set free from her cage, did not fly away to safety. She had heard and seen everything - her husband's perfect hospitality, his self-sacrifice in the fire for the sake of their enemy - and she could not bear to live on without him, parted from a husband of such surpassing goodness. So she too, out of love and out of devotion to the same high virtue he had kept, cast herself into the same fire, following her husband into the flames, unwilling to remain in the world without him.

And because of the perfect virtue of the two little birds - the husband who kept the law of hospitality to the very edge of self-sacrifice even toward his enemy, and the wife who counseled that goodness and then followed him in love - they did not perish into nothing. They rose up together from the fire in shining celestial forms, reunited, and ascended to heaven, to dwell together in the highest worlds in reward for their goodness. The two pigeons, who had shown more dharma than the men who hunted them, were lifted to heaven for it.

Markandeya drew the lessons of the tale for the Pandavas.

"See the height to which the sacred law of hospitality can rise, son of Pandu. A guest who comes to one's door, even an enemy, even one who has done one grievous harm, is to be honored and cared for - this is among the most sacred of duties. The little pigeon kept that duty toward the very man who had caged his wife, and kept it perfectly, even unto the giving of his own life to feed his enemy-guest. To do good to those who do us good is easy and common; to do good even to one who has wronged us, to honor an enemy as a guest, is the rare and the highest dharma, and it was kept here by a small bird.

"And see the power of such goodness to transform even the hardest heart. The cruel fowler, who had spent his life in killing, was changed in a single moment - not by any rebuke or punishment, but by the sheer example of the bird's selfless goodness - from a killer into a man of mercy. There is no sermon so powerful as a deed of true selflessness; a single act of perfect goodness can melt a heart that no amount of preaching could move, and turn a cruel man toward the good. Be such an example, the tale teaches, and you may redeem even your enemies; keep the highest dharma even toward those who wrong you, and you may lift both them and yourself to heaven."

And the Pandavas, who would have many enemies and many wrongs to bear, took to heart the pigeon who honored his enemy as a guest, and the hunter whom that goodness redeemed.