No. 155.

GAGGA-JATAKA .

[15] "Gagga, live an hundred years," etc.--This story the Master told when he was staying in the monastery made by King Pasenadi in front of Jetavana; it was about a sneeze which he gave.

One day, we are told, as the Master sat discoursing with four persons round him, he sneezed. "Long life to the Blessed One, long life t' the Buddha!" the Brothers all cried aloud, and made a great to-do.

The noise interrupted the discourse. Then the Master said to the Brethren: "Why, Brothers, if one cry 'Long life!' on hearing a sneeze, does a man live or die any the more for that?" They answered, "No, no, Sir." He went on, "You should not cry 'Long life' for a sneeze, Brethren. Whosoever does so is guilty of sin."

It is said that at that time, when the Brethren sneezed, people used to call out, "Long life to you, Sir!" But the Brethren had their scruples, and made no answer. Everybody was annoyed, and asked, "Pray, why is it that the priests about Buddha the Sakya prince make no answer, when they sneeze, and somebody or other wishes them long life?"

All this was told to the Blessed One. He said: "Brethren, common folk are superstitious. When you sneeze, and they say, 'Long life to you, Sir!' I permit you to answer, 'The same to you'." Then the Brethren asked him--"Sir, when did people begin to answer 'Long life' by 'The same to you'?" Said the Master, "That was long, long ago;" and he told them a tale of the olden time.

_____________________________

Once upon a time, when Brahmadatta was king of Benares, the Bodhisatta came into the world as a brahmin's son of the kingdom of Kasi; and his father was a lawyer by calling. When the lad was sixteen years old or so, his father gave a fine jewel into his charge, and they both

travelled through town after town, village after village, until they came to Benares. There the man had a meal cooked in the gatekeeper's house; and as he could find nowhere to put up, he asked where there was lodging to be had for wayfarers who came too late? The people told him that there was a building outside the city, but that it was haunted; but however he might lodge there if he liked. Says the lad to his father, "Have no fear of any goblin, father! I will subdue him, and bring him to your feet." [16] So he persuaded his father, and they went to the place together,

The father lay down upon a bench, and his son sat beside him, chafing his feet.