"O have you seen Savitthaka, O Viraka, have you seen
My sweet-voiced mate whose neck is like the peacock in its sheen?"

When Viraka heard it, he replied, "Yes, I know where he is gone," and recited the second stanza:--

"He was not born to dive beneath the wave,
But what he could not do he needs must try;
So the poor bird has found a watery grave,
Entangled in the weeds, and left to die."

When the Lady-crow heard it, weeping, she returned to Benares.

_____________________________

After this discourse was ended, the Master identified the Birth: "Devadatta was then incarnate as Savitthaka, and I myself was Viraka."

Footnotes

^103:1 Sariputta and Moggallana visited the arch-heretic to try if they could win back his followers to the Master. The story of their visit, and how it succeeded, is told in the Vinaya, Cullavagga, vii. 4 foll. (translated in S. B. E., Vinaya Texts, iii. 256). See also vol. i. no. 11.

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