The Bodhisatta agreed, and the youth went and told the king all about it, and brought him back with him. The king saluted the Bodhisatta and sitting on one side asked him if it were true that he knew the origin of these noises. "Yes, Your Majesty," he said. "Then tell me, Reverend Sir." "Sire," he answered, "these men in a former existence were guilty of gross misconduct with the carefully guarded wives of their neighbours near Benares, and therefore were re-born in Four Iron Cauldrons. Where after being tortured for thirty thousand years in a thick corrosive liquid heated to boiling point, they would at one time sink till they struck the bottom of the cauldron, and at another time rise to the top like a foam bubble , but after those years they found the mouth of the cauldron, and looking over the edge they all four desired to give utterance to four complete stanzas, but failed to do so. And after getting out just one syllable each, they sank again in the iron cauldrons. [47] Now the one of them that sank after uttering the syllable "du" was anxious to speak as follows:--

Due share of wealth we gave not; an evil life we led:
We found no sure salvation in joys that now are fled.

And when he failed to utter it, the Bodhisatta of his own knowledge repeated the complete stanza. And similarly with the rest. The one that uttered merely the syllable "sa" wanted to repeat the following stanza:--

Sad fate of those that suffer! ah! when shall come release?
Still after countless aeons, Hell's tortures never cease.

And again in the case of the one that uttered the syllable "na," this was the stanza he wished to repeat:--

Nay endless are the sufferings to which we're doomed by fate;
The ills we wrought upon the earth 'tis ours to expiate.

And the one that uttered the syllable "so" was anxious to repeat the following:--

Soon shall I passing forth from hence, attain to human birth,
And richly dowered with virtue rise to many a deed of worth.

[48] The Bodhisatta, after reciting these verses one by one, said, "The dweller in Hell, Sire, when he wanted to utter a complete stanza, through the greatness of his sin, was unable to do it. And when he thus experienced the result of his wrong-doing he cried aloud. But fear not; no danger shall come nigh you, in consequence of hearing this cry." Thus did he reassure the king. And the king proclaimed by beat of his golden drum that the vast host of victims was to be released, and the sacrificial pit destroyed. And the Bodhisatta, after thus providing for the safety of the numerous victims, stayed there a few days, and then returning to the same place, without any break in his ecstasy, was born in the world of Brahma.