"Why didn't you tell me all this before?" said, the Bodhisatta. "Cheer up, I'll help you out of your troubles." So he took a block of the purest crystal and scooped out a cavity in it and made the mouse get inside. "Now stop there," said he, "and don't fail to fiercely threaten and revile all who come near."

So the mouse crept into the crystal cell and waited. Up came one of the cats and demanded his meat. "Away, vile grimalkin," said the mouse; "why should I supply you? go home and eat your kittens!" Infuriated at these words, and never suspecting the mouse to be inside the crystal, the cat sprang at the mouse to eat her up; and so furious was its spring that it broke the walls of its chest and its eyes started from its head. So that cat died and its carcase tumbled down out of sight. And the like fate in turn befell all four cats. And ever after the grateful mouse brought the Bodhisatta two or three coins instead of one as before, and by degrees she thus gave him the whole of the hoard. In unbroken friendship the two lived together, till their lives ended and they passed away to fare according to their deserts.

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The story told, the boaster, as Buddha, uttered this stanza:-- [480]

Give food to one cat, Number Two appears:
A third and fourth succeed in fruitful line;
--Witness the four that by the crystal died.

His lesson ended, the Master identified the Birth by saying, "These four Brethren were the four cats of those days, Kana's mother was the mouse, and I the stone-cutter."

[Note. See Vinaya IV. 79 for the Introductory Story.]

Footnotes

^294:1 The name Kana means 'one-eyed'.

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