No. 202.

KELI-SILA-JATAKA.

[142] "Geese, herons, elephants," etc.--This story the Master told while dwelling at Jetavana, about Lakuntaka the venerable and good.

Now this venerable Lakuntaka, we learn, was well known in the faith of the Buddha, a famous man, speaking sweet words, a honeyed preacher, of keen discernment, with his passions perfectly subdued, but in stature the smallest of all the eighty Elders, no bigger than a novice, like a dwarf kept for amusement.

One day, he had been to the gate of Jetavana to salute the Buddha, when thirty brothers from the country arrived at the gate on their way to salute him too. When they saw the Elder, they imagined him to be some novice; they pulled the corner of his robe, they caught his hands, held his head, tweaked his nose, got him by the ears and shook him, and handled him very rudely; then

after putting aside their bowl and robe, they visited the Master and saluted him. Next they asked him, "Sir, we understand that you have an Elder who goes by the name of Lakuntaka the Good, a honeyed preacher. Where is he?" "Do you want to see him?" the Master asked. "Yes, Sir." "He is the man you saw by the gate, and twitched his robe and pulled him about with great rudeness before you came here." "Why, Sir," asked they, "how is it that a man devoted to prayer, full of high aspirations, a true disciple--how is it he is so insignificant?" "Because of his own sins," answered the Master; and at their request he told them an old-world tale.

_____________________________

Once upon a time, when king Brahmadatta reigned in Benares, the Bodhisatta became Sakka, king of the gods. Brahmadatta could not endure to look upon anything old or decrepit, whether elephant, horse, ox, or what not. He was full of pranks, and whenever he saw any such, he would chase them away; old carts he had broken up; any old women that he saw he sent for, and beat upon the belly, then stood them up again and gave them a scare; he made old men roll about and play on the ground like tumblers. If he saw none, but only heard that there was a greybeard in such and such a town, [143] he sent for him thence and took his sport with him.

At this the people for very shame sent their parents outside the boundaries of the kingdom. No more did men tend or care for their mother and father. The king's friends were as wanton as he. As men died, they filled up the four worlds of unhappiness; the company of the gods grew less and less.