"Even a broken bowstring can be mended and made whole:
Forgive your wife, and cherish not this anger in your soul."

[115] Hearing this, Ruhaka uttered the second:--

"While there is bark and workmen too
'Tis easy to buy bowstrings new.
Another wife I will procure;
I've had enough of this one, sure."

So saying, he sent her away, and took him another brahmin woman to wife.

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The Master, after finishing this discourse, declared the Truths and identified the Birth:--at the conclusion of the Truths the tempted Brother was established in the fruit of the First Path:--"On that occasion the former wife was the same, Ruhaka was the tempted brother, and I was the king of Benares."

Footnotes

^79:1 No. 423.

^79:2 Compare Pancatantra iv. 6 (Benfey, ii. p. 307).

^80:1 Reading mudusu, 'fresh (bark),' from the fibre of which bowstrings were sometimes made.

[j192]

No. 192. SIRI-KALAKANNI-JATAKA .

"Even though women may be fair," etc.--This story will be given in the Maha-ummagga-Jataka .

Footnotes

^80:2 Cf. Thibetan Tales, xxi. pp. 291-5, "How a Woman Requites Love."

^80:3 No. 538 in Westergaard.

[j193]

No. 193 .

CULLA-PADUMA-JATAKA.

"'Tis I--no other," etc.--This story the Master told while dwelling at Jetavana about a backsliding brother. The circumstances will be explained in the Ummadanti Birth . When this brother was asked by the Master whether he were really a backslider, he replied that he was. "Who," said the Master, "has caused you to backslide?" He replied that he had seen a woman dressed up in finery, and overcome by passion he had backslidden. Then the Master said, "Brother, womankind are all ungrateful and treacherous; wise men of old were even so stupid as to give the blood from their own right knee for them to drink, and made them presents all their life long, and yet did not win their hearts." And he told an old-world tale.

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[116] Once upon a time, when king Brahmadatta reigned over, Benares, the Bodhisatta was born as his chief queen's son. On his name-day, they called him Prince Paduma, the Lotus Prince. After him came six younger brothers. One after another these seven came of age and married and settled down, living as the king's companions.

One day the king looked out into the palace courts, and as he looked he saw these men with a great following on their way to wait upon himself. He conceived the suspicion that they meant to slay him, and seize his kingdom. So he sent for then, and after this fashion bespake them.

"My sons, you may not dwell in this town. So go elsewhere, and when I die you shall return and take the kingdom which belongs to our family."