At that very instant Mara the Wicked rose up in a state of great excitement, saying, "It is seven days since the Pacceka Buddha had food given him; if he gets none to-day, he will perish. I will destroy him and stop the Treasurer too from giving." And that very instant he went and called into being within the mansion a pit of red-hot embers, eighty cubits deep, filled with Acacia-charcoal, all ablaze and aflame like the great hell of Avici. When he had created this pit, Mara himself took his stand in mid-air.

When the man who was on his way to fetch the bowl became aware of this, he was terrified and started back. "What makes you start back, my man?" asked the Bodhisatta. "My lord," was the answer, "there's a great pit of red-hot embers blazing and flaming in the middle of the house." And as man after man got to the spot, they all were panic-stricken, and ran away as fast as their legs would carry them.

Thought the Bodhisatta to himself, "Mara, the Enthraller, must have been exerting himself to-day to stop me from alms-giving. I have yet to learn, however, that I am to be shaken by a hundred, or by a thousand, Maras. We will see this day whose strength is the stronger, whose might is the mightier, mine or Mara's." So taking in his own hand the bowl which stood ready, he passed out from the house, and, standing on the brink of the fiery pit, looked up to the heavens. Seeing Mara, he said, "Who are you?" "I am Mara," was the answer.

"Did you call into being this pit of red-hot embers?" "Yes, I did." [233] "Why?" "To stop you from alms-giving and to destroy the life of that Pacceka Buddha." "I will not permit you either to stop me from my alms-giving or to destroy the life of the Pacceka Buddha. I am going to see to-day whether your strength or mine is the greater." And still standing on the brink of that fiery pit, he cried, "Reverend Pacceka Buddha, even though I be in act to fall headlong into this pit of red-hot embers, I will not turn back. Only vouchsafe to take the food I bring." And so saying he repeated this stanza:--

Far rather will I headlong plunge amain
Full in this gulf of hell, than stoop to shame!
Vouchsafe, sir, at my hands to take this alms!

With these words the Bodhisatta, grasping the bowl of food, strode on with undaunted resolution right on to the surface of the pit of fire. But

even as he did so, there rose up to the surface through all the eighty cubits of the pit's depth a large and peerless lotus-flower, which received the feet of the Bodhisatta! And from it there came a measure of pollen which fell on the head of the Great Being, so that his whole body was as it were sprinkled from head to foot with dust of gold! Standing right in the heart of the lotus, he poured the dainty food into the bowl of the Pacceka Buddha.