[135] Seeing that the boy's mind was made up, she took him to the gate of the palace, and bade their coming be announced to the king. Being summoned in, she entered and bowing before his majesty said, "This is your son, sire."

The king knew well enough that this was the truth, but shame before all his court made him reply, "He is no son of mine." "But here is your signet-ring, sire; you will recognise that." "Nor is this my signet-ring." Then said the woman, "Sire, I have now no witness to prove my words, except to appeal to truth. Wherefore, if you be the father of my child, I pray that he may stay in mid-air; but if not, may he fall to earth and be killed." So saying, she seized the Bodhisatta by the foot and threw him up into the air.

Seated cross-legged in mid-air, the Bodhisatta in sweet tones repeated this stanza to his father, declaring the truth:--

Your son am I, great monarch; rear me, Sire!
The king rears others, but much more his child.

Hearing the Bodhisatta thus teach the truth to him from mid-air, the king stretched out his hands and cried, "Come to me, my boy! None, none but me shall rear and nurture you!" A thousand hands were stretched out to receive the Bodhisatta; [136] but it was into the arms of the king and of no other that he descended, seating himself in the king's lap. The king made him viceroy, and made his mother queen-consort. At the death of the king his father, he came to the throne by the title of King Katthavahana--the faggot-bearer--, and after ruling his realm righteously, passed away to fare according to his deserts.

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His lesson to the king of Kosala ended, and his two stories told, the Master made the connexion linking them both together, and identified the Birth by saying:--"Mahamaya was the mother of those days, King Suddhodana was the father, and I myself King Katthavahana."

[Note. Cf. Dhammapada, p. 218, Jataka No. 465, and Rogers' Buddhaghosha's Parables, p. 146. See also an endeavour, in the Ceylon R.AS. Journal, 1884, to trace this Jataka back to the story of Dushyanta and Cakuntala in the Mahabharata and to Kalidasa's drama of the Lost Ring.]

Footnotes

^27:1 No. 465.

^28:1 The word muhuttikaya means, literally, "momentary," or perhaps may be translated "with whom he consorted but a little while." Professor Kunte (Ceylon R. A. S. Journal, 1884, p. 128) sees in the word a reference to the Muhurta (mohotura) form of marriage, which "obtains among the Mahrathas other than the Brahmanas," and which he compares with the familiar Gandharva form, i.e. (legal) union by mutual consent, on the spur of the moment, without any preliminary formalities.

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