So he took a weapon, and clothing himself in a yellow robe, he put on the guise of a Pacceka-Buddha , with a covering band about his head. Taking his stand in the path of the elephants, he slew one of them with his weapon, and sold the tusks of it in Benares; and in this manner he made a living. After this he began always to slay the very last elephant in the Bodhisatta's troop. Day by day the elephants grew fewer and fewer. Then they went and asked the Bodhisatta how it was that their numbers dwindled. He perceived the reason. "Some man," thought he, "stands in the place where the elephants go, having made himself like a Pacceka-Buddha in appearance. Now can it be he that slays the elephants? I will find him out." So one day he sent the others on before him [198] and he followed after. The man saw the Bodhisatta, and made a rush at him with his weapon. The Bodhisatta turned and stood. "I will beat him to the earth, and kill him!" thought he: and stretched out his trunk,--when he saw the yellow robes which the man wore. "I ought to pay respect to those sacred robes!" said he. So drawing back his trunk, he cried--"O man! Is not that dress, the flag of sainthood, unsuitable to you? Why do you wear it?" and he repeated these lines:

"If any man, yet full of sin, should dare
To don the yellow robe, in whom no care
For temperance is found, or love of truth,
He is not worthy such a robe to wear.

He who has speed out sin, who everywhere
Is firm in virtue, and whose chiefest care
Is to control his passions, and be true,
He well deserves the yellow robe to wear."

[199] With these words, the Bodhisatta rebuked the man, and bade him never come there again, else he should die for it. Thus he drove him away.

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After this discourse was ended, the Master identified the Birth:--"Devadatta was the man who killed the elephants, and the head of the herd was I."

Footnotes

^139:1 One who has attained the knowledge needful for attaining Nirvana, but does not preach it to men.

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