“Bhishma said, ’Jajali had become engaged in penances of the severest austerities.  He used to perform ablutions morning and evening.  Carefully tending his fires, he was devoted to the study of the Vedas.  Well-conversant with the duties laid down for forest recluses, Jajali (in consequence of his practices) seemed to blaze with effulgence.[1139] He continued to live in the woods, engaged all the while in penances.  But he never regarded himself as one that had acquired any merit by his acts.  In the season of the rains he slept under the open sky.  In autumn he sat in water.  In summer he exposed himself to the sun and the wind.  Still he never regarded himself as one that had acquired any merit through such acts.  He used to sleep on diverse kinds of painful beds and also on the bare earth.  Once on a time, that ascetic, while standing under the sky in the rainy season, received on his head repeated downpours from the clouds.  He had to pass through the woods repeatedly.  What with exposure to the rains and what with the filth they caught, the locks of that sinless Rishi became entangled and intertwined with one another.  On one occasion, that great ascetic, abstaining entirely from food and living upon air only, stood in the forest like a post of wood.  Unmoved at heart, he stood there, without once stirring an inch.  While he stood there like a wooden post, perfectly immovable, O Bharata, a pair of Kulinga birds, O king, built their nest on his head.  Filled with compassion, the great Rishi suffered that feathery couple in building their nest among his matted locks with shreds of grass.  And as the ascetic stood there like a post of wood, the two birds lived with confidence on his head happily.  The rains passed away and autumn came.  The couple, urged by desire, approached each other according to the law of the Creator, and in complete confidence laid their eggs, O king, on the head of that Rishi.  Of rigid vows and possessed of energy, the ascetic knew it.  Knowing what the birds had done, Jajali moved not.  Firmly resolved to acquire merit, no act that involved the slightest injury to others could recommend itself to him.  The feathery couple going away and moving every day from and to his head, happily and confidently lived there, O puissant king!  When in the progress of time the eggs became mature and young ones came out, they began to grow up in that nest, for Jajali moved not in the least.  Firm in the observance of his vows, the righteous-souled Rishi continued to hold and protect those eggs by standing on that very spot perfectly motionless and rapt in Yoga meditation.  In course of time the young ones grew and became equipped with wings.  The Muni knew that the young Kulingas had attained to that stage of development.  That foremost of intelligent men, steady in the observance of vows, one day beheld those young ones and became filled with pleasure.  The parent-birds, seeing their young ones equipped with wings, became very happy