I can never think of Chinese dogs without remembering a story told by my cousin, Lord Napier of Magdala, of an incident which, he said, gave him more pain than anything that had ever happened to him in his life. When he was in China he chanced to admire a dog, which was immediately offered to him as a gift. He could not accept the offer, and next day he heard that the owner of the dog with all his family, five persons, had drowned himself in a well. Probably they imagined that he was offended by their offering him a mere dog.
In India, to return to that home of legend, the two most sublime Beast Stories are to be found in the Great Epic of the Hindu race, the Mahabharata. They are both stories of the faithfulness of man to beast, and they afford consolation for the sorry figure presented by the human actor in the martyred mungoose tale. The first of these stories is the legend of the Hawk and the Pigeon. A pigeon pursued by a hawk flies for protection to the precinct of sacrifice, where a very pious king is about to make his offering. It clings to the king’s breast, motionless with fright. Then up comes the hawk, which, perching on a near vantage-ground, begins to argue the case. All the princes of the earth declare the king to be a magnanimous chief; why, therefore, should he fly in the face of natural laws? Why keep its destined food from the hawk, which feels very hungry? The king answers that the pigeon came flying to him, overcome by fear and seeking to save its life. How can he possibly give it up? A trembling bird which enters his presence begging for its life? How ignoble it would be to abandon it! Surely it would be a mortal sin! In fact, that is exactly what the Law calls it!
The hawk retorts that all creatures must eat to live. You can sustain life on very little, but how are you going to live on nothing at all? If the hawk has nothing to eat, his vital breath will depart this very day “on the road where nothing more affrights.” If he dies, his wife and children will die too for want of their protector. Such an eventuality cannot be contemplated by the Law: a law which contradicts itself is a very bad law and cannot be in accordance with eternal truth. In theological difficulties one has to consider what seems just and reasonable and interpret the point in that sense.
“There is a great deal to be said for what you say, best of fowls,” replies the king, who is impressed by the hawk’s forensic skill and begins to think him a person not to be trifled with; “you are very well informed; in fact, I am inclined to think that you know everything. How can you suppose, then, that it would be a decent thing to give up a creature that seeks refuge? Of course, I understand that with you it is a question of a dinner, but something much more substantial than this pigeon can be prepared for you immediately; for instance, a wild boar, or a gazelle or a buffalo—anything that you like.”
The hawk answers that he never, by any chance, touches meat of that sort: why does the king talk to him about such unsuitable diet? By an immutable rule hawks feed on pigeons, and this pigeon is the very thing he wants and to which he has a perfect right. In a delicate metaphor he hints that the king had better leave off talking nonsense.
The king, who sees that arguments are no good, now declares that anything and everything he will give the hawk by way of compensation, but that as to the pigeon, he will not give it up, so it is no good going on discussing the matter.
The hawk says, in return, that if the king is so tenderly solicitous on the pigeon’s account, the best thing he can do is to cut out a piece of his own flesh and weigh it in the scales with the pigeon—when the balance is equal, then and then only will the hawk be satisfied. “As you ask that as a favour,” says the king, “you shall have what you wish”—a consent which seems to contain a polite hint that the hawk might have been a little less arrogant, for in the hawk’s demand there was no mention of favours.
The king himself cuts out the piece of his flesh (no one else would have dared do it). But, alas! when it is weighed with the pigeon, the pigeon weighs the most! The king went on cutting pieces of his flesh and throwing them into the scales, but the pigeon was still the heaviest. At last, all lacerated as he was, he threw himself into the scales. Then, with a blast of revelation, the esoteric sense of the story is made plain. There is something grand in the sudden antithesis.
The hawk said: “I am Indra, O prince, thou that knowest the Law! And this pigeon is Agni! Since thou hast torn thy flesh from thy limbs, O thou Prince of Men, thy glory shall shine throughout all worlds. As long as there be men on earth they will remember thee, O king. As long as the eternal realms endure thy fame shall not grow dim.”
So the gods returned to heaven, to which the pious Wusinara likewise ascended with his renovated body, luminously bright. He needs not to complete his sacrifice—himself has he offered up.