No. 156.

ALINACITTA-JATAKA.

"Prince Winheart once upon a time," etc.--This story the Master told at Jetavana, about a fainthearted Brother. The circumstances will be set forth in the Samvara Birth in the eleventh Book . When the Master asked this Brother if he really were fainthearted, as was said, he replied, [18] "Yes, Blessed One." To which the Master said, "What, Brother! in former days did you not gain supremacy over the kingdom of Benares, twelve leagues either way, and give it to a baby boy, like a lump of flesh and nothing more, and all this just by perseverance! And now that you have embraced this great salvation, are you to lose heart and faint?" And he told a story of olden days.

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Once upon a time, when Brahmadatta was king of Benares, there was a village of carpenters not far from the city, in which five hundred carpenters lived. They would go up the river in a vessel, and enter the forest, where they would shape beams and planks for housebuilding, and put together the framework of one-storey or two-storey houses, numbering all the pieces from the mainpost onwards; these then they brought down to the river bank, and put them all aboard; then rowing down stream again, they would build houses to order as it was required of them; after which, when they received their wage, they went back again for more materials for the building, and in this way they made their livelihood.

Once it befel that in a place where they were at work in shaping timbers, a certain Elephant trod upon a splinter of acacia wood, which pierced his foot, and caused it to swell up and fester, and he was in great pain. In his agony, he caught the sound of these carpenters cutting wood. "There are some carpenters will cure me," thought he; and limping on three feet, he presented himself before them, and lay down close by. The carpenters, noticing his swollen foot, went up and looked; there was the splinter sticking in it. With a sharp tool they made incision about the splinter, and tying a string to it, pulled it right out. Then they lanced the gathering, and washed it with warm water, and doctored it properly; and in a very short time the wound was healed.

Grateful for this cure, the Elephant thought: "My life has been saved by the help of these carpenters; now I must make myself useful to them." So ever after that, [19] he used to pull up trees for them, or when they were chopping he would roll up the logs; or bring them their adzes and any tools they might want, holding everything in his trunk like grim death. And the carpenters, when it was time to feed him, used to bring him each a portion of food, so that he had five hundred portions in all.