No. 203 .

KHANDHA-VATTA-JATAKA.

"Virupakkha snakes I love," etc.--This story the Master told whilst living at Jetavana, about a certain brother.

As he sat, we are told, at the door of his living room, chopping sticks, a snake crept out of a rotten log, and bit his toe; he died on the spot. All the monastery learnt how he had come by his sudden death. In the Hall of Truth

they began talking about it; saying how Brother So-and-so was sitting at his door, chopping wood, when a snake bit him, and he died immediately of the bite.

[145] The Master came in, and wanted to know what they were discussing as they sat there together. They told him. Said he, "Brethren, if our brother had practised kindness towards the four royal races of serpents, that snake would not have bitten him: wise anchorites in by-gone days, before the Buddha was born, by using kindness to these four royal races, were released from the fear that sprang from these serpents." Then he told them an old-world tale.

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Once upon a time, during the reign of Brahmadatta king of Benares, the Bodhisatta came into the world as a young brahmin of Kasi. When he came of age, he quelled his passions and took upon him the life of an ascetic; he developed the Supernatural Faculties and the Attainments; he built an hermitage by the bend of the Ganges near the foot of Himalaya, and there he dwelt, surrounded by a band of ascetics, lost in the rapture of meditation.

At that time there were many kinds of snakes upon the Ganges bank, which did mischief to the hermits, and many of them perished by snake-bite. The ascetics told the matter to the Bodhisatta. He summoned all the ascetics to meet him, and thus addressed them: "If you showed goodwill to the four royal races of snakes, no serpents would bite you. Therefore from this time forward do you show goodwill to the four royal races." Then he added this verse:--

"Virupakkha snakes I love,
Erapatha snakes I love,
Chabbyaputta snakes I love,
Kanhagotamas I love."

After thus naming the four royal families of the snakes, he added: "If you can cultivate goodwill towards these, no snake creature will bite you or do you harm." Then he repeated the second verse:--[146]

"Creatures all beneath the sun,
Two feet, four feet, more, or none--
How I love you, every one!"

Having declared the nature of the love within him, he uttered another verse by way of prayer:

"Creatures all, two feet or four,
You with none, and you with more,
Do not hurt me, I implore!"

Then again, in general terms, he repeated one verse more:--

"All ye creatures that have birth,
Breathe, and move upon the earth,
Happy be ye, one and all,
Never into mischief fall ."