This event became known among the Brotherhood. One day, they were all talking about it in the Hall of Truth; "Friend, I hear that the king of Kosala conquered Ajatasattu through the instructions of Dhanuggahatissa." The Master

came in; "What do you sit here talking about now, Brothers?" asked he. They told him. He said, "This is not the first time that Dhanuggahatissa was clever in discussing war": and he told them an old-world tale.

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[405] Once upon a time, when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta came to life as a tree-spirit. At that time there were some carpenters settled in a village near Benares. One of them, on going into the forest to get wood, found a young boar fallen in a pit, which he took home and kept. He grew big, with curved tusks, and was a well-mannered creature. Because the carpenter kept him, he went by the name of Carpenter's Boar. When the carpenter was chopping up a tree, the boar used to turn the tree over with his snout, and with his teeth fetch hatchet and adze, chisel and mallet, and pull along the measuring line by the end. The carpenter was afraid somebody might eat him up; so he took him and let him go in the forest. The Boar ran into the forest, looking for a safe and pleasant place to live in; and at last he espied a great cave up in a mountain side, with plenty of bulbs, and roots, and fruits, a pleasant living-place. Some hundreds of other boars saw him and approached him.

Said he to them, "You are just what I am looking for, and here I have found you. This seems a nice place; and here I mean to live now with you."

"A nice place it certainly is," said they, "but dangerous."

"Ah," said he, "as soon as I saw you, I wondered how it was that those who dwell in so plentiful a place could be so meagre in flesh and blood. What is it you are afraid of?"

"There is a tiger comes in the morning, and every one he sees he seizes and carries off."

"Does this always happen, or only now and then?"

"Always."

"How many tigers are there?"

"Only one."

"What--one alone too many for all of you!"

"Yes, Sir."

"I'll catch him, if you only do what I tell you. Where does this tiger live?"

"On that hill yonder."

So at night he drilled the Boars and prepared them for war; explaining to them the science. [406] "War is of three kinds--the lotus army, the wheel army, and the waggon army:" and he arranged them after the lotus pattern. He knew the place of vantage; so, says he, "Here we must set our battle." The mothers and their suckling brood he placed