of virtue compared with learning." And hereupon he spoke these five stanzas:

Virtue and learning I was fain to test;
Henceforth I doubt not virtue is the best.
Virtue excels vain gifts of form and birth,
Apart from virtue learning has no worth.
A prince or peasant, if to sin enslaved,
In neither world front misery is saved.
Men of high caste with those of base degree,
If virtuous here, in heaven will equal be.
[195] Not birth, nor lore, nor friendship aught avails,
Pure virtue only future bliss entails.

Thus did the Great Being sing the praises of virtue, and having gained the consent of the king, that very day he betook himself to the Himalaya region, and adopting the religious life of an ascetic he developed the Faculties and Attainments, and became destined to birth in the Brahma-world.

The Master here ended this lesson and identified the Birth: "At that time it was I myself that put virtue to the test and adopted the religious life of an ascetic."

Footnotes

^128:1 Compare nos. 86, vol. i., 290, vol. ii., 305, 330, vol. iii., and L. Feer, Journal Asiat., 1875.