And that doe brought forth a fawn fair as the opening bud of the lotus, who used to play about with the Branch deer. Seeing this his mother said to him, "My child, don't go about with him, only go about with the herd of the Banyan deer." And by way of exhortation, she repeated this stanza:

Keep only with the Banyan deer, and shun
The Branch deer's herd; more welcome far
Is death, my child, in Banyan's company,
Than e'en the amplest term of life with Branch.

Thenceforth, the deer, now in the enjoyment of immunity, used to eat men's crops, and the men, remembering the immunity granted to them, did not dare to hit the deer or drive them away. So they assembled in the king's courtyard and laid the matter before the king. Said he, "When the Banyan deer won my favour, [153] I promised him a boon. I will forego my kingdom rather than my promise. Begone! Not a man in my kingdom may harm the deer."

But when this came to the ears of the Banyan deer, he called his herd together and said, "Henceforth you shall not eat the crops of others." And having thus forbidden them, he sent a message to the men, saying, "From this day forward, let no husbandman fence his field, but merely indicate it with leaves tied up round it." And so, we hear, began a plan of tying up leaves to indicate the fields; and never was a deer known to trespass on a field so marked. For thus they had been instructed by the Bodhisatta.

Thus did the Bodhisatta exhort the deer of his herd, and thus did he act all his life long, and at the close of a long life passed away with them to fare according to his deserts. The king too abode by the Bodhisatta's teachings, and after a life spent in good works passed away to fare according to his deserts.

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At the close of this lesson, when the Master had repeated that, as now, so in bygone days also he had been the salvation of the pair, he preached the Four Truths. He then shewed the connexion, linking together the two stories he had told, and identified the Birth by saying,--"Devadatta was the Branch Deer of

those days, and his followers were that deer's herd; the nun was the doe, and Prince Kassapa was her offspring; Ananda was the king; and I myself was King Banyan Deer."

[Note. This Jataka is referred to in Milindapanho (page 289 of Rhys Davids' translation), and is figured in Plates XXV. (1) and XLIII. (2) of Cunningham's Stupa of Bharhut several illegible words in the copytext--JBH See also Julien's Huen Thsang, ii. 361. For the stanza and the Introductory Story see Dhammapada, pp. 327-330.]

Footnotes

^37:1 Or, perhaps, "was beautiful."

^37:2 A long string of repulsive stanzas as to the anatomy of the body is here omitted.

^38:1 The 23rd Sutta of the Majjhima Nikaya.