When he was gone, the commander-in-chief wiped off the blood from the body of the Bodhisatta, [42] putting bandages on the extremities of his hands, feet, ears and nose, and then having gently placed him on a seat, he saluted him and sitting on one side he said, "If, Reverend Sir, you would be angry with one who has sinned against you, be angry with the king, but with no one else." And making this request, he repeated the first stanza:--

Whoso cut off thy nose and ear, and lopped off foot and hand,
With him be wroth, heroic soul, but spare, we pray, this land.

The Bodhisatta on hearing this uttered the second stanza:--

Long live the king, whose cruel hand my body thus has marred,
Pure souls like mine such deeds as these with anger ne'er regard.

And just as the king was leaving the garden and at the very moment when be passed out of the range of the Bodhisatta's vision, the mighty earth that is two hundred and forty thousand leagues in thickness split in two, like unto a strong stout cloth garment, and a flame issuing forth from Avici seized upon the king, wrapping him up as it were with a royal robe of scarlet wool. Thus did the king sink into the earth just by the garden gate and was firmly fixed in the great Hell of Avici. And the Bodhisatta died on that same day. And the king's servants and the citizens came with perfumes and wreaths and incense in their hands and performed the Bodhisatta's obsequies. And some said that the Bodhisatta had gone straight back to the Himalayas. But in this they said the thing that was not.

[43] A saint of old, as men have told,
Great courage did display:
That saint so strong to suffer wrong
The Kasi king did slay.

Alas! the debt of vain regret
That king will have to pay;
When doomed to dwell in lowest Hell,
Long will he rue the day.

These two stanzas were inspired by Perfect Wisdom.

The Master, his lesson ended, revealed the Truths and identified the Birth:--At the conclusion of the Truths the choleric Brother attained fruition of the Second Path, while many others attained fruition of the First Path:--"At that time Devadatta was Kalabu king of Kasi, Sariputta was the Commander-in-Chief, and I myself was the Ascetic, the Preacher of Patience."

Footnotes

^26:1 See Jatakamala, No. 28: "The Story of Kshantivadin."

^28:1 Mahavagga, vi. 14. 5.