Now the young brahmin told all this to the Bodhisatta, who, commending him for reporting the matter, studied how much longer his mother was destined to live. Finding that her destiny was to die that very day, he said, "Come, young brahmin; I will put her to the test." So he cut down a fig-tree and hewed out of it a wooden figure about his own size, which he wrapped up, head and all, in a robe and laid upon his own bed,--with a string tied to it. "Now go with an axe to my mother," said he; "and give her this string as a clue to guide her steps."

So away went the youth to the old woman, and said, "Madam, the master is lying down indoors on his bed; I have tied this string as a clue to guide you; take this axe and kill him, if you can." "But you won't forsake me, will you?" said she. "Why should I?" was his reply. So she took the axe, and, rising up with trembling limbs, groped her way along by the string, till she thought she felt her son. Then she bared the head of the figure, and--thinking to kill her son at a single blow--

brought down the axe right on the figure's throat,--only to learn by the thud that it was wood! "What are you doing, mother?" said the Bodhisatta. With a shriek that she was betrayed, the old woman fell dead to the ground. For, says tradition, it was fated that she should die at that very moment and under her own roof.

Seeing that she was dead, her son burnt her body, and, when the flames of the pile were quenched, graced her ashes with wild-flowers. Then with the young brahmin he sat at the door of the hut and said, "My son, there is no such separate passage as the 'Dolour Text.' [288] It is women who are depravity incarnate. And when your mother sent you back to me to learn the Dolour Texts, her object was that you should learn how wicked women are. You have now witnessed with your own eyes my mother's wickedness, and therefrom you will see how lustful and vile women are." And with this lesson, he bade the youth depart.

Bidding farewell to his master, the young brahmin went home to his parents. Said his mother to him, "Have you now learnt the Dolour Texts?"

"Yes, mother."

"And what," she asked, "is your final choice? will you leave the world to worship the Lord of Fire, or will you choose a family life?" "Nay," answered the young brahmin; "with my own eyes have I seen the wickedness of womankind; I will have nothing to do with family life. I will renounce the world." And his convictions found vent in this stanza:--

In lust unbridled, like devouring fire,
Are women,--frantic in their rage.
The sex renouncing, fain would I retire
To find peace in a hermitage.