[INDOLOGY] Maxim

[Patrick Olivelle]

Dear All:

Can anyone enlighten me about the significance of the comparison of a man abandoning his own dharma and taking up that of someone else to the two eyes of a partridge?

svadharmaṃ yaḥ samutsṛjya paradharmarucir bhavet |
cakoranayane cauraḥ sa śūdraś candrasaṃnibhe || 

cited by Aparārka (p. 17) and ascribed to the Skanda Purāṇa.

Is this a reference to the eyes of the partridge drinking the moonbeams, thus stealing it? Or is there more to it?

Thanks.

Patrick