हिन्दी
Once the land of the Kurus was hit by a bad thunderstorm, and a young man living there named Uṣasti, the son of Cakra, was in great distress. He left home accompanied by his child-wife and moved to a prosperous village.
Uṣasti saw an elephant-driver eating some pulses of poor quality, and he begged for a share of his food. The elephant-driver replied: ‘This food in my bowl is all I have to eat. Besides this, I have nothing. (What should I do?)’.
Uṣasti said to the elephant-driver, ‘Please give me some (of the pulses).’ The driver then gave away the pulses and said, ‘Here is some water.’ (But Uṣasti declined it, saying,) ‘That will amount to my drinking unclean water’.
The elephant-driver asked, ‘Aren’t the pulses also unclean?’ Uṣasti replied: ‘I would die if I did not have these grains to eat. As regards drinking water, (it is not that important). I can get it when I like’.
After eating some of the food, he (Uṣasti) brought back what was left for his wife. The wife, however, had meanwhile obtained good alms. She accepted the food (from her husband) and put it aside (for future use).
While leaving bed the next morning, Uṣasti said to his wife: ‘Oh, if only I could get something to eat, I could then earn some money. The king over there is going to perform a sacrifice, and very likely he would have entrusted to me all the work of a ṛtvik (a priest at a sacrifice)’.
The wife said to him, ‘O dear husband, here are those pulses you gave me.’ Having eaten the pulses, Uṣasti left for the place where the sacrifice was being held (other priests having already started it).
There at the sacrifice, he found those (the udgātṛs) who were singing the (Sāma) hymns and took a seat among them. Turning to the one who was singing the prastāva, he asked:
‘O Prastotā, if you recite the prastāva without knowing anything about the god to whom this hymn relates, your head will fall’.
Next Uṣasti said the same thing to the person singing the udgītha: ‘O Udgātā, if you do not know anything about the god related to the udgītha and yet you sing the udgītha, your head will fall’.
He again said the same thing to the person singing the pratihāra: ‘O Pratihartā, if you sing the pratihāra without knowing anything about the deity relating to it, your head will fall.’ At this, they stopped their respective hymns and remained silent.
