No. 392.

BHISAPUPPHA-JATAKA.

"You were never," etc.--The Master told this tale while dwelling in Jetavana, concerning a certain Brother. The story is that the Brother had left Jetavana and dwelt in the Kosala kingdom near a certain wood: one day he went down into a lotus-pool [308], and seeing a lotus in flower he stood to leeward and smelt

it. Then the goddess who dwelt in that part of the forest frightened him saying, "Sir, you are a thief of odours, this is a kind of theft." He went back in a fright to Jetavana, and saluted the Master and sat down. "Where have you been staying, Brother?" "In such and such a wood, and the goddess frightened me in such and such a way." The Master said, "You are not the first who have been frightened by a goddess when smelling a flower; sages of old have been frightened in like manner," and at the Brother's request he told an old tale.

Once upon a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta was born in a brahmin family of a village in Kasi: when he grew up he learned the arts at Takkasila, and afterwards became an ascetic and lived near a lotus-pool. One day he went down into the pool and stood smelling a lotus in full flower. A goddess who was in a hollow in a trunk of a tree alarming him spoke the first stanza:--

You were never given that flower you smell, though it's only a single bloom;
'Tis a species of larceny, reverend sir, you are stealing its perfume.

Then the Bodhisatta spoke the second stanza:--

I neither take nor break the flower: from afar I smell the bloom.
I cannot tell on what pretence you say I steal perfume.

At the same moment a man was digging in the pool for lotus-fibres and breaking the lotus-plants. The Bodhisatta seeing him said, "You call a man thief if he smells the flower from afar: [309] why do you not speak to that other man?" So in talk with her he spoke the third stanza:--

A man who digs the lotus-roots and breaks the stalks I see:
Why don't you call the conduct of that man disorderly?

The goddess, explaining why she did not speak to him, spoke the fourth and fifth stanzas:--

Disgusting like a nurse's dress are men disorderly:
I have no speech with men like him, but I deign to speak to thee.

When a man is free from evil stains and seeks for purity,
A sin like a hair-tip shows on him like a dark cloud in the sky.

So alarmed by her the Bodhisatta in emotion spoke the sixth stanza:--

Surely, fairy, you know me well, to pity me you deign:
If you see me do the like offence, pray speak to me again.

Then the goddess spoke to him the seventh stanza:--

I am not here to serve you, no hireling folk are we:
Find, Brother, for yourself the path to reach felicity.