King of the Peacocks

The first provings of Eagle took place barely a decade ago but since then some three dozen birds have been proved, some of them very extensively. Provers 2, 3 and 11 were male and the rest female. The peacock feather used was purchased in one of the shops around the great Stupa at Bodhnath.

Shariputra was the King of Benares and I Buddha was the King of the Peacocks. The the King of the Peacocks said: Shame on you. But the more poison she gave him and the more fatal was that poison the King of the Peacocks became healthier and his plumage glossier and more resplendent.

She realised that the King of the Peacocks knew what she had done and she decided she must silence him lest he told the King. Everyday the King of Benares made offerings of fruit and flowers to the King of the Peacocks but one day he was called away and he asked the Queen to make these daily offerings to the King of the Peacocks, which she did. Then the King of the Peacocks was presented to the beautiful Queen.

The King of the Peacocks uttered a cry that the whole army heard with wonder and the King of Benares prostrated himself and made offerings to the King of the Peacocks. There he was met by the King of the Peacocks in a chariot decked with seven types of precious stone. The hunters and fowlers returned to Benares and told him what the King of the Peacocks had said.

The King of the Peacocks told them that he could not be taken by traps and nets. The King of the Peacocks took pity on them and appeared to them to ask why they lingered and did not return home when they were cold and hungry. So he sent for his best hunters and fowlers and told them to go to the southern slopes of Mount Kailash and to bring back the King of the Peacocks.

The Queen then asked that the King bring the King of the Peacocks to her. Though I have never seen him I have heard that he is the grandest and most splendid of all peacocks and that his body gleams and his beak is like a jewel. He replied that on the southern slopes of the sacred Mount Kailash lived the King of the Peacocks where he ruled over a flock of five hundred followers.

In Western alchemy the many colours of the Cauda Pavonis, the Peacock's Tail, represent the stage of the work in which the poisons released in the previous stage the black corruption of the Nigredo are absorbed and transformed leaving the pure whiteness of the Albedo which then becomes the material for the final stages of the work. The very nature of the peacock is such that it can actually consume poison, and thrives on it; hence it does not have to transform the poison, but eats it directly.