Beside a great lake there once lived a wondrous bird called Bharunda. He was unlike any other creature in the world, for he had two heads on two long necks — but only one body and one stomach shared between them. When one head grew sleepy, the other kept watch; when one looked left, the other looked right. Together the two heads had kept the one body safe for many years, and as long as they agreed, no bird on the lake was stronger or luckier.
One day, wandering along the shore, the first head spied a golden fruit washed up by the waves — a rare, heavenly fruit whose fragrance filled the air. The first head tasted it and cried out in delight, “Of all the sweet things I have ever eaten, this is the sweetest! Truly this is a fruit of the gods.” Hearing this, the second head begged, “Brother, let me taste it too. Give me at least a small piece.”
But the first head laughed and refused. “Why should I? We share one stomach, so the nourishment reaches you anyway. And it was my eye that found it. Whatever remains, I shall give to my dear wife.” And it ate up the whole fruit alone. The second head said nothing, but the insult sank deep into its heart, and from that day it waited silently for a chance to pay the first head back.
The chance came soon. On the same shore the second head found a dark, shrivelled fruit — a poison fruit. It lifted the thing high and declared coldly, “Now see, cruel one! You feasted alone; I too shall eat alone.” The first head shrieked, “Do not eat it, brother! We share one body — if you eat poison, we both perish!” But rage had made the second head deaf. It swallowed the poison fruit — and the one body that carried both heads sank down by the water, and both quarrelling brothers were lost together. The birds of the lake long remembered them, saying: those who share one fate must never let anger divide them.