A man met him at the entering in of the village, and told him of it. Sorrow for his wife and children overcame him: down on the spot he dropped his pole with the game, and his bow, threw off his garments, and naked he went homewards, wailing with hands outstretched. Then the bamboo uprights broke, and fell upon his head, and crushed it. The earth yawned, flame rose from hell. As he was being swallowed up in the earth, he thought upon his master's warning: [202] "Then this was the teaching that the Brahmin Parasariya gave me!" and lamenting he uttered these stanzas:

"I call to mind my teacher's words: so this was what he meant!
Be careful you should nothing do of which you might repent.

"Whatever a man does, the same he in himself will find;
The good man, good; and evil he that evil has designed;
And so our deeds are all like seeds, and bring forth fruit in kind."

_____________________________

Lamenting thus, he went down into the earth, and came to life in the depths of hell.

When the Master had ended this discourse, by which he showed how in other days, as then, Devadatta had been harsh, cruel, and merciless, he identified the Birth in these words: "In those days Devadatta was the hunter, Sariputta was the famous teacher, Ananda was Jollikin, the noble Lady Gotami was the mother, and I was the monkey Jolly."

Footnotes

^140:1 Questions of Milinda, iv. 4. 24 (trans. in S. B. E., xxxv. 287).

^140:2 For the stone-throwing see Cullavagga vii. 3. 9; Hardy, Manual, p. 320.

^140:3 A fierce elephant, let loose at Devadatta's request to kill the Buddha. See Cullavagga vii. 3. 11 f. (Vinaya Texts, S. B. E., iii. 247 f.); Milinda, iv. 4. 44 (where he is called Dhanapalaka, as supra vol. i. 57); Hardy, Manual, p. 320.

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