No. 53.

PUNNAPATI-JATAKA.

"What? Leave untasted."--This story was told by the Master while at Jetavana, about some drugged liquor.

Once on a time the tipplers of Savatthi met to take counsel, saying, "We've not got the price of a drink left; how are we to get it?"

"Cheer up!" said one ruffian; "I've a little plan."

"What may that be?" cried the others.

"It's Anatha-pindika's custom," said the fellow, "to wear his rings and richest attire, when going to wait upon the king. Let us doctor some liquor with a stupefying drug and fit up a drinking-booth, in which we will all be sitting when Anatha-pindika passes by. 'Come and join us, Lord High Treasurer,' we'll cry, and ply him with our liquor till he loses his senses. Then let us relieve him of his rings and clothes, and get the price of a drink."

His plan mightily pleased the other rogues, and was duly carried out. As Anatha-pindika was returning, they went out to meet him and invited him [269] to come along with them; for they had got some rare liquor, and he must taste it before he went.

"What'?" thought he, "shall a believer, who has found Salvation, touch strong drink? Howbeit, though I have no craving for it, yet will I expose these rogues." So into their booth he went, where their proceedings soon shewed him that their liquor was drugged; and he resolved to make the rascals take to their heels. So he roundly charged them with doctoring their liquor with a view to drugging strangers first and robbing then afterwards. "You sit in the booth you have opened, and you praise up the liquor," said he; "but as for drinking it, not one of you ventures on that. If it is really undrugged, drink away at it yourselves." This summary exposure made the gang take to their heels, and Anatha-pindika went off home. Thinking he might as well tell the incident to the Buddha, he went to Jetavana and related the story.

"This time, layman," said the Master, "it is you whom these rogues have tried to trick; so too in the past they tried to trick the good and wise of those days." So saying, at his hearer's request, he told this story of the past.

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