Puranic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature c4.765

c4.765

5) How the Arayanna (Haṃsa) got the white colour. Once king Marutta was conducting the Māheśvara Satra (a yāga) and Devas like Indra came down to receive their share of the Havis (oblations in the sacrificial fire). And, this was the time when Rāvaṇa with his attendants was on his triumph tour. Hearing that the Devas were at the Āśrama of Marutta, Rāvaṇa also went there, and Indra and the other Devas, trembling with fear, assumed different disguises and hid themselves away. Indra assumed the guise of the peacock, Yama of the crow, Kubera of the chameleon and Varuṇa of the Arayanna. Thus beguiled Rāvaṇa went his own way. The Devas, thus who escaped blessed the family of those birds whose forms they assumed. Indra shaped the blue feathers of the peacock with mixed colours and eyes like his own. Moreover, he blessed them that they would never be affected with any disease, and that they would dance with their feathers spread when rain set in. Yamadharma blessed the crows that they would get the offerings made on earth by men to their departed ancestors. And Bhagavān Varuṇa told the Rāja-Haṃsas: “I escaped the clutches of Rāvaṇa by assuming your shape and form. Therefore, be thee, who are now black and white, in future as purely white as milk”. Kuberā blessed the Chameleon with capacity to change colour as and how it pleased, and also for its cheeks to appear golden in colour to the onlookers. After thus blessing the birds the Devas disappeared. (Uttara Rāmāyaṇa).