No. 419.

SULASA-JATAKA.

[435] "Here is a golden necklace," etc.--The Master told this tale while dwelling in Jetavana, concerning a female servant of Anathapindika. The story is that one feast-day, when she was going with a number of fellow-servants to a pleasure-garden, she asked her mistress Pannalakkhanadevi for an ornament to wear.

[paragraph continues] Her mistress gave her an ornament of her own, worth a hundred thousand pieces. She put it on and went along with the other servants to the pleasure-garden. A certain thief coveted the ornament, and with the design of killing her and taking it he began talking to her, and in the garden he gave her fish, flesh and strong drink. "He does it, I suppose, because he desires me," she thought, and at evening when the others lay down to rest after their sports, she rose and went to him. He said, "Mistress, this place is not private; let us go a little farther." She thought, "Anything private can be done in this place: no doubt he must be anxious to kill me and take what I am wearing: I'll teach him a lesson:" so she said, "Master, I am dry owing to the strong drink: get me some water," and taking him to a well asked him to draw some water, shewing him the rope and bucket. The thief let down the bucket. Then as he was stooping to draw up the water, the girl, who was very strong, pushed him hard with both hands and threw him into the well. "You won't die that way," she said, and threw a large brick upon his head. He died on the spot. When she came back to the town and gave her mistress the ornament, she said, "I have very nearly been killed to-day for that ornament," and told the whole story. The mistress told Anathapindika, and he told the Tathagata. The Master said, "Householder, this is not the first time that servant girl has been endowed with wits rising to the occasion; she was so before also: it is not the first time she killed that man; she did it once before," and at Anathapindika's request, he told the tale of old.