[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Reference works](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference) › [Puranic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.mani-1975) › c5.1307 # Puranic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature c5.1307 Purāṇic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Purāṇic Literature c5.1307 - **Language:** English ### [c5.1307](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.mani-1975.c5.1307) Duśśāsana, an idiot, betting a huge sum of money with the junior mahouts of the elephant and unheeding the warnings of several people once mounted the elephant. Children agitated the animal and Duśśāsana fell down from its back. The angry animal stamped the fool to death, and its rage having not yet subsided it threw around his bones. Duśśāsana, who ended his life thus was reborn as an elephant and was King Jayadeva of Ceylon for a long time. A great friend of King Khaḍgabāhu, Jayadeva presented the elephant to him. At the sight of his brothers and other relations memory about its previous birth dawned on the elephant. And, it lived in great grief. After some days the King presented the animal to a poet pleased at his samasyāpūraṇa (filling the three lines of a stanza in tune with the fourth line given). The poet sold the elephant to the King of Mālava as it got ill with fever. In spite of the best treatment administered to it the elephant seemed to be nearing its end. Without either eating or drinking or sleeping the animal stood motionless shedding tears day and night. One day, the Mālava King visited the elephant when, to the surprise of all assembled there, the elephant spoke to the King thus: "Oh, King: if a brahmin recites the 17th Chapter of the Bhagavadgītā I will be completely cured of my illness." - [Previous: c5.1306](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.mani-1975.c5.1306) - [Next: c5.1308](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.mani-1975.c5.1308) - [Up: c5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.mani-1975.c5) ## Cites (1) - [Bhagavadgītā](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darsana.all.gita.17) — Vyāsa, Sanskrit --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.mani-1975.c5.1307](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.mani-1975.c5.1307) · Pramāṇa