The Art of Hospitality

Children! today I am going to tell you a story about the guests. 

All our ancient puranas emphasizing about the hospitality to the guests.  "Atithi Devo bhava”, This verse's meaning:  the guests are equal to God.

How we think about mother, father, and guru, yes!  they are equal to God. As that the guests are also equal to God.

I am going to tell you how a pair of pigeons treated a guest. Ha! pigeons? yes pigeons.!!

Once there were two pigeons living in a jungle on top of a hill. Those pigeons built a nest on a branch of a tree and lived with their young chicks. Every day they will search for prey and feed their young ones. Alike that many days passed.

There were a group of hunter families lived in a village at the foot hill. Every day they will hunting animals and birds for food to their family. That is their routine tradition.

One day a hunter hunted an immense of birds so for that reason he spent long time in the forest. It became night and started to raining.  Because of the dark weather he missed his route to go home.

So, he stayed there itself. He has climbed on a tree, and he kept his hunted net on a branch of tree and then he inclined on another branch and took rest. During he take rest he thought "It is good happened to stay here, I am feeling very tired, so can take complete rest to night, if possible, tomorrow morning can go hunting for animal”.

On that day the male pigeon returned to its nest but the female pigeon not return to its nest. The male pigeon was waiting for long time expecting the female bird. But it was not returned, so, the male pigeon was searching all over the tree, to find the female bird. But the female nowhere to find. However, a feeble voice came from somewhere. The male bird thought that, where is that voice from? after for some time the male bird followed the feeble voice, at last, it finds that voice is from that hunter’s net.

Finally, it has found the female bird. Very surprisingly the male bird said, that OH! "Darling are you being here? I was searching you all over the tree, good, by god's grace at last I found you, wait don’t worry, when I was searching you, I noticed that hunter is sleeping. 

Wait quietly I cut the net and relieve you from the net. After hearing the male’s word, the female bird said “Are you forget? don’t do that, we are living beings, now he is our guest so, it is our duty to feed him.  so, I be his food, you take care of children and other things”. After hearing the female's word, the male pigeon said that “Yes darling you are right I forgot my sense of righteous way; Ok!  Don't worry my dear, certainly we do treat our guest in happy manor. So, listen my words carefully, our children are grown up ones, so, they have ability to take care of themselves, we both offer up ourselves, then he will eat our bodies.  The female bird agreed.  By that time the rain is stopped. The female bird said to the male bird that, "ok darling now the rain is stopped so bring some dry sticks and light them up" then cut the net as you told before. And the male bird did as the female bird told.  Then both together jumped in that fire and they sacrificed their lives to give hospitality to their guest. The hunter heard this entire conversation and wondered about pigeons’ selfless action, at that time he saw a pushpaka-vimanam coming down from the sky to take these two birds’ souls to Kailash.

Seeing this awesome sight, the hunter very humbly asked the birds "O Mahatma “how I get rid of all my sins? and for that what kind of penance I should do? please tell me the way.

The birds answered that " O! revered man!  no need to do any penance, just you take a dip continuously in Goutami, and Ganga rivers for fifteen days. Your all kind of sins will be vanished.”

The hunter heard the birds and he did according to their advice. from that day the hunter stopped killing the living beings. The place where the pigeons immolated, it became a holy tirtham known as kapota-tirtham. (The word kapota means pigeon.) Kabotha tirtham is under Godavari river

See how the birds have given the feast to their guest? so we learnt from this story that, if any relatives, friends, or even though unknown people we should do our service as our best, and should not insult them.

This story based on Thirukkural 90th poem.

மோப்பக் குழையும் அனிச்சம் முகந்திரிந்து நோக்கக் குழையும் விருந்து. The meaning: There is a flower called Anicham, if you smell that flower, it will dry up by itself. Alike the chief of the house should welcome the guests with smiling face. Otherwise, they will be feeling sad and think that why we came to this house.