No. 28.

NANDIVISALA-JATAKA.

"Speak only words of kindness."--This story was told by the Master while at Jetavana, about the bitter words spoken by the Six . For, in those days the six, when they disagreed with respectable Brethren, used to taunt, revile and jeer them, and load them with the ten kinds of abuse. This the Brethren reported to the Blessed One, who sent for the Six and asked whether this charge was true. On their admitting its truth, he rebuked them, saying, "Brethren, hard words gall even animals: in bygone days an animal made a man who had used harsh language to him lose a thousand pieces." And, so saying, he told this story of the past.

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Once on a time at Takkasila in the land of Gandhara there was a king reigning there, and the Bodhisatta came to life as a bull. When he was quite a tiny calf, he was presented by his owners to a brahmin who came in--they being known to give away presents of oxen to such-like holy men. The brahmin called it Nandi-Visala (Great-Joy), and treated it like his own child, feeding the young creature on rice-gruel and rice. When the Bodhisatta grew up, he thought thus to himself, "I have been brought up by this brahmin with great pains, and all India cannot show the bull which can draw what I can. How if I were to repay the brahmin the cost of my nurture by making proof of my strength?" Accordingly, one day he said to the brahmin, "Go, brahmin, to some merchant rich in herds, and wager him a thousand pieces that your bull can draw a hundred loaded carts."

The brahmin went his way to a merchant and got into a discussion with him as to whose oxen in. the town were the strong. "Oh, so-and-so's, or so-and-so's," said the merchant. "But," added he, "there are no oxen in the town which can compare with mine for real strength." Said the brahmin, "I have a bull who can pull a hundred loaded carts." "Where's such a bull to be found?" laughed the merchant. "I've got him at home," said the brahmin. "Make it a wager." "Certainly," said the brahmin, and staked [192] a thousand pieces. Then he loaded a hundred carts with sand, gravel, and stones, and leashed the lot together, one behind the other, by cords from the axle-tree of the one in front to the trace-bar of its successor. This done, he bathed Nandi-Visala, gave him a measure of perfumed rice to eat, hung a garland round his neck, and harnessed him all

alone to the leading cart. The brahmin in person took his seat upon the pole, and flourished his goad in the air, shouting, "Now then, you rascal! pull them along, you rascal!"

"I'm not the rascal he calls me," thought the Bodhisatta to himself; and so he planted his four feet like so many posts, and budged not an inch.