The Bodhisatta at the time was a young gentleman living in Benares. Something or other took him to this park, and he saw what the monkeys were doing.

"Who bids you do that?" asked he.

"Our chief," they replied.

"If that is the wisdom of the chief, what must the rest of you be like!" said he; and to explain the matter, he uttered the first stanza:

"Best of all the troop is this:
What intelligence is his!
If he was chosen as the best,
What sort of creatures are the rest!"

Hearing this remark, the monkeys rejoined with the second stanza:

"Brahmin, you know not what you say
Blaming us in such a way!
If the root we do not know,
How can we tell the trees that grow?"

To which the Bodhisatta replied by the third, as follows:

"Monkeys, I have no blame for you,
Nor those who range the woodland through.
The monarch is a fool, to say
'Please tend my trees while I'm away.'"

_____________________________

[347] When this discourse was ended, the Master identified the Birth: "The lad who destroyed the park was the monkey chief, and I was the wise man."

Footnotes

^237:1 This is the same story as No. 46 (vol. i. of the translation, p. 118): it is briefer, and the verses are not the same. See Folk-Lore Journal, iii. 251; Cunningham, Bharhut, v.v. 5.

[j269]