The Parrot.
Last among sacred birds comes the parrot. Of course, according to Professor De Gubernatis and his school, he represents the sun.145 The bird appears constantly in the folk-tales as gifted with the power of speaking and possessed of wisdom. The wife of the sage Kasyapa was, according to the Vishnu Purâna, the mother of all the parrots. In the folk-tales we have the parrot who knows the four Vedas who is like the falcon in the Squire’s tale of Chaucer.146 In others he warns the hero of fortune, befriends the heroine, and is the companion of Râja Rasâlu.147 The talking parrot constantly warns the deceived husband. The bird seems to have been a sort of marriage totem among the Drâvidian races, for images of it made of the wood of the cotton tree or of clay are hung up in the marriage shed among the Kols and lower castes in the North-Western Provinces.