No. 373.

MUSIKA-JATAKA.

"People cry "Where is she gone," etc.--This story the Master, whilst residing in the Bamboo Grove, told about Ajatasattu. The incident that led to the story has been already fully told in the Thusa Birth. Here too the Master observed the king at the same moment playing with his boy and also listening to the Law. And knowing as he did that danger to the king will arise through his son, he said, "Sire, kings of old suspected what was open to suspicion, and kept their heirs in confinement, saying, "Let them bear rule, after our bodies have been burned on the funeral pyre." And with this he told a story of the past.

Once upon a time in the reign of Brahmadatta, king of Benares, the Bodhisatta was born in a brahmin family, and became a world-famed teacher. The son of the king of Benares, prince Yava, by name, after applying himself diligently to acquire all the liberal arts from him, being now anxious to depart, bade him good-bye. The teacher, knowing by his power of divination that danger would befall the prince through his son, considered how he might remove this danger from him, and began to look about him for an apt illustration.

[216] Now he had at this time a horse, and a sore place appeared on its foot. And in order to give proper attention to the sore the horse was kept to the stable. Now close by was a well. And a mouse used to venture out of its hole and nibble the sore place on the horse's foot. The horse could not stop it, and one day being unable to bear the pain, when the mouse came to bite him, he struck it dead with his hoof and kicked it into the well. The grooms not seeing the mouse said, "On other days the mouse came and bit the sore place, but now it is not to be seen. What has become of it?" The Bodhisatta witnessed the whole thing and said, "Others from not knowing ask, "Where is the mouse?"' But I alone know that the mouse has been killed by the horse, and dropped into the well." And making this very fact an illustration, he composed the first stanza and gave it to the young prince.

Looking about for another illustration, he saw that same horse, when the boil was healed, go out and make his way to a barley field to get some barley to eat, and thrust his head through a hole in the fence, and taking this as an illustration he composed a second stanza and gave it to the

prince. But the third stanza he composed by his own mother-wit and gave this also to him. And be said, "My friend, when you are established in the kingdom, as you go in the evening to the bathing tank, walk as far as the front of the staircase, repeating the first stanza, and as you enter the palace in which you dwell, walk to the foot of the stairs, repeating the second stanza, and as you go thence to the top of the stairs, repeat the third stanza." And with these words he dismissed him.