"And I too will become a hermit," exclaimed the robber. So both became hermits together, and dwelt in the hermitage in the forest, where they won the Higher Knowledges and the Attainments, and qualified themselves when life ended to enter the Realm of Brahma.

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After telling these two stories, the Master chewed the connexion, by reciting, as Buddha, this stanza:--

Wrathful are women, slanderers, ingrates,
The sowers of dissension and fell strife!
Then, Brother, tread the path of holiness,
And Bliss therein thou shalt not fail to find.

[299] His lesson ended, the Master preached the Truths, at the close whereof the passion-tost Brother won the Fruit of the First Path. Also, the Master identified the Birth by saying, "Ananda was the robber-chief of those days, and I myself the Date-Sage."

Footnotes

^156:1 There is a play here upon the word takka, which cannot well be rendered in English. The word takka-pandito, which I have rendered 'Date Sage,' would--by itself--mean 'Logic Sage,' whilst his living was got takkam vikkinitva 'by selling dates.' There is the further difficulty that the latter phrase may equally well mean by selling buttermilk.'

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