A jackal once assumed the lion's pride,
And elephant as equal foe defied.
Prone on the earth, while groans his bosom rent,
He learned the rash encounter to repent.

Who thus should challenge one of peerless fame,
Nor mark the vigour of his well-knit frame,
Shares the sad fate that on the jackal came.

But who the measure of his own power knows,
And nice discretion in his language shows,
True to his duty lives and triumphs o'er his foes.

[115] Thus did the Bodhisatta in these stanzas declare the duties proper to be done in this world.

The Master, having ended his lesson, identified the Birth: "At that time Devadatta was the jackal, and I myself was the lion."

Footnotes

^74:1 See No. 204, Vol. ii.