No. 107.

SALITTAKA-JATAKA.

[418] "Prize skill."--This story was told by the Master while at Jetavana, about a Brother who threw and hit a swan. We are told that this Brother, who came of a good family in Savatthi, had acquired great skill in hitting things with stones; and that hearing the Truth preached one day he gave his heart to it and, giving up the world, was admitted to full Brotherhood. But neither in study nor practice did he excel as a Brother. One day, with a youthful Brother, he went to the river Aciravati , and was standing on the hank after bathing, when he saw two white swans flying by. Said he to the younger Brother, "I'll hit the hinder swan in the eye and bring it down." "Bring it down indeed!" said the other; "you can't hit it." "Just you wait a moment. I'll hit it on the eye this side through the eye on the other." "Oh, nonsense." "Very well; you wait and see." Then he took a three-cornered stone in his hand and flung it after the swan. 'Whiz' went the stone through the air and the swan, suspecting danger, stopped to listen. At once the Brother seized a smooth round stone and as the resting swan was looking in another direction hit it full in the eye, so that the stone went in at one eye and came out at the other. And with a loud scream the swan fell to the ground at their feet. "That is a highly improper action," said the other Brother, and brought him before the Master, with an account of what had happened. After rebuking the Brother, the Master said, "The same skill was his, Brethren, in past times as now." And he told this story of the past.

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Once on a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta was one of the King's courtiers. And the royal chaplain of those days was so talkative and longwinded that, when he once started, no

one else could get a word in. So the King cast about for someone to cut the chaplain short, and looked high and low for such an one. Now at that time there was a cripple in Benares who was a wonderful marksman with stones, and the boys used to put him on a little cart and [419] draw him to the gates of Benares, where there is a large branching banyan-tree covered with leaves. There they would gather round and give him half-pence, saying 'Make an elephant,' or 'Make a horse.' And the cripple would throw stone after stone till he had cut the foliage into the shapes asked for. And the ground was covered with fallen leaves.