Cobras go uneaten?

In the Saṃskṛta play Nāgānanda, attributed to Harṣa, the hero Jīmūtavāhana sacrifices himself to save a cobra who is the designated meal of the great eagle, Garuḍa, for that day. Overwhelmed by Jīmūtavāhana's sublime magnanimity, Garuḍa grants his plea to give up eating cobras, which are part of his natural staple diet.

My story relates Jīmūtavāhana's misguided interference in the food chain to his earlier thoughtless use of his magical wishing-tree (kalpa-vṛkṣa) to rain gold all over the world for the benefit of poor people. Just as the sudden devaluation of gold currency would be disastrous for poor people in the real world, adding economic inflation to their existing deprivations, convincing Garuḍa to stop eating cobras would shift the burden of his hunger and their expansion onto other species. Proverbially, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Cover Credit: @PriyaArshiSarun