One day, a young man named Adi, nicknamed the calculator because he studied mathematics, decided to leave Bukhara and go in search of great knowledge. His teacher advised him to go south and said:
— Find out the meaning of the peacock and the snake.
Young Adi reflected on these words on the road. His path lay to Iraq through Khorasan. When he reached the end of the road, he actually saw a snake and a peacock. Adi spoke to them.
“We compare our merits,” they said.
“Continue, please,” said Adi, “this is exactly what interests me extremely.”
“I think that I am much more important than a snake,” the peacock began. — I personify inspiration, aspiration to heaven, heavenly beauty, in other words, knowledge of lofty things. My purpose is to remind a person of his own qualities hidden within him.
“I,” hissed the snake, “personify the same thing.” Like a person, I am tied to the earth. In this way I remind the person of himself. I am as flexible as he is, because I crawl on the ground, wriggling. People often forget about this. According to legend, I am the guardian of underground treasures.
- But you are disgusting! - exclaimed the peacock. - You are cunning, secretive, poisonous.
“You list my human traits,” answered the snake, “while I want to point out my purpose, which I just described.” But look at yourself. You are vain, disgustingly fat and have a nasty voice, your legs are too big, and your feathers are too long.
Here Adi intervened in the conversation:
— Watching your argument, I realized that neither of you is completely right. Yet you can clearly see, if you put aside your personal prejudices, that together you are an instructive example for humanity.
And Adi explained to them what their purpose was, and they listened to him silently.
- A person is tied to the earth, like a snake. He has the ability to fly up like a bird. But, having something of a greedy snake in him, he remains selfish even in this high aspiration and becomes like a peacock inflated with pride. In the peacock we see great human capabilities that were never able to develop correctly. The sparkling scales of a snake speak of possible beauty, and in the peacock this possibility is manifested in the flashy variegation of the tail.
As soon as Adi said this, he heard a voice inside himself that said to him:
- And that's not all. The two creatures you see in front of you are endowed with life. This basically represents their properties. They argue with each other because each of them is attached to his own way of life, believing that by his existence he realizes something true. However, the snake guards the treasure, but cannot use it. The peacock, reflecting beauty, reminds of treasures, but this does not help him change at all. Although they themselves are unable to derive any benefit from what they have, their example serves as an edification to those who can see and hear.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru