Still I make that road my own
Walking in the path of right,
Where the good, fair queen, have gone:
Saints are pleasant to my sight.

[413] After saying this, he looked at the queen's beauty and said, "Fair lady, I have told fully my good deeds done in former time, but amongst all these ladies there is none like you in beauty or charming grace: by what deed did you attain this beauty?" And he spoke a stanza:--

Lady, like a nymph of heaven,
You the crowd of maids outshine:
For what gracious deed was given
Meed of beauty so divine?

Then she told the virtuous deed done in her former birth, and spoke the last two stanzas:--

I was once a handmaid's slave
At Ambattha's royal court,
To modesty my heart I gave,
To virtue and to good report.

In a begging Brother's bowl
Once an alms of rice I put;
Charity had filled my soul:
Such the deed, and lo! the fruit.

She too, it is said, spoke with accurate knowledge and remembrance of past births.

[414] So both fully declared their past deeds, and from that day they had six halls of charity built, at the four gates, in the centre of the city and at the palace-door, and stirring up all India they gave great gifts, kept the moral duties and the holy days, and at the end of their lives became destined for heaven.

At the end of the lesson, the Master identified the birth: "At that time the queen was the mother of Rahula, and the king was myself."

Footnotes

^244:1 Compare Jatakamala No. 3, Kathasaritsagara No. xxvii. 79.