Then the crow repeated the fifth stanza:

Let not my friend or bitterest foe
On visit to Benares go.
They plucked me bare and as a jest
Have tied a potsherd on my breast.

[227] The pigeon hearing this repeated the final stanza:

These evil habits to outgrow
Is hard with such a nature, crow.
Birds should be careful to avoid
The food they see by man enjoyed.

After thus reproving him, the pigeon no longer dwelt there, but spread his wings and flew elsewhere. But the crow died then and there.

The Master here ended his lesson and revealed the Truths and identified the Birth:--At the conclusion of the Truths the greedy Brother attained fruition of the Second Path:--"At that time the crow was the greedy Brother, the pigeon was myself."

Footnotes

^148:1 Compare No. 42, vol. i., No. 274, vol. ii.

^149:1 Cranes are conceived at the sound of thunder-clouds. Cf. Meghaduta 9.

BOOK VI.--CHANIPATA.