| The
king saw the justice of the demand of the hunter, and told him that be would not renounce
his Dharma, but at the same time he would not allow the hunter to starve and therefore, as
a compromise he would give flesh from his own body, equal in weight to that of the bird.
Thereupon Sibi placed the bird on one scale and with his own bands tore off portions of
his body, and placed them in the other scale. Since this incident occurred because the
Lords wanted to test Sibi's sincerity, any amount of flesh from the body of Sibi would not
balance the weight of the bird. There upon King
Sibi procured a long knife, and cut his body into two pieces and had one half placed on
the scale. The three Lords, Brahma, Rudra and Vishnu assumed their real shapes and
appeared before Sibi and restored his yajna and also his life. Lord Sibi desired the place
of Kailasa for himself, and for the escort who had followed him and endured with him the
hardship of the tapascharya, and also desired that all their bodies should be transformed
into lingas to remain for ever In the holy and sacred "Cherum Chorla" Kshetra. |
