"Yes, indeed, Sir, I will keep them," here exclaimed the glad young man, and back he went with his teachers again. And as he was keeping his three rules, he thought within himself, "I had the whole of Morality told me by my instructors; but because they were not the Buddha, they could not make me grasp even this much. Whereas [277] the All-Enlightened One, by reason of his Buddhahood, and of his being the Lord of Truth, has expressed so much Morality in only three rules concerning the Avenues, and has made me understand it clearly. Verily, a very present help has the Master been to me." And

he won Insight and in a few days attained Arahatship. When this came to the ears of the Brethren, they spoke of it when met together in the Hall of Truth, telling how the Brother, who was going back to the world because he could not ho to fulfil Morality, had been furnished by the Master with three rules embodying the whole of Morality, and had been made to grasp those three rules, and so had been enabled by the Master to win Arahatship. How marvellous, they cried, was the Buddha.

Entering the Hall at this point, and learning on enquiry the subject of their talk, the Master said, "Brethren, even a heavy burthen becomes light, if taken piecemeal; and thus the wise and good of past times, on finding a huge mass of gold too heavy to lift, first broke it up and then were enabled to bear their treasure away piece by piece." So saying, he told this story of the past.

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Once on a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta came to life as a farmer in a village, and was ploughing one day in a field where once stood a village. Now, in bygone days, a wealthy merchant had died leaving buried in this field a huge bar of gold, as thick round as a man's thigh, and four whole cubits in length. And full on this bar struck the Bodhisatta's plough, and there stuck fast. Taking it to be a spreading root of a tree, he dug it, out; but discovering its real nature, he set to work to clean the dirt off the gold. The day's work done, at sunset he laid aside his plough and gear, and essayed to shoulder his treasure-trove and walk off with it. But, as he could not so much as lift it, he sat down before it and fell a-thinking what uses he would put it to. "I'll have so much to live on, so much to bury as a treasure, so much to trade with, and so much for charity and good works," thought he to himself, and accordingly cut the gold into four. Division made his burthen easy to carry; and he bore home the lumps of gold. After a life of charity and other good works, he passed away to fare thereafter according to his deserts.

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His lesson ended, the Master, as Buddha, recited this stanza:-- [278]