No. 474.

AMBA-JATAKA.

[200] "Young student, when," etc. This story the Master told while dwelling in Jetavana, about Devadatta. Devadatta repudiated his teacher, saying, "I will be Buddha myself, and Gotama the ascetic is no teacher or monitor of mine!" So, aroused from his mystic meditation, he made a breach in the Order. Then step by step he proceeded to Savatthi, and outside Jetavana, the earth yawned, and he went down into the hell Avici.

Then they were all talking of it in the Hall of Truth:--"Brother, Devadatta deserted his Teacher, and came to dire destruction, being born to another life in the deep hell Avici!" The Master, entering, asked what they spoke of, and they told him. Said he,--"Not now only, but in former days, as now, Devadatta deserted his teacher, and came to dire destruction." So saying, he told a story of the past.

Once upon a time, when Brahmadatta was King of Benares, his chaplain's family was destroyed by malarial fever . One son only broke through the wall and escaped. He came to Takkasila, and under a world-renowned teacher learnt all the arts and accomplishments. Then he bade his teacher farewell, and departed, with the intent to travel in different regions; and on his travels he arrived at a frontier village. Near to this was a great village of low-caste Candalas. Then the Bodhisatta abode in this village, a learned sage. A charm he knew which could make fruit to be gathered out of due season. Early of a morning he would take his carrying pole, forth from that village he would go, until he reached a mango tree which grew in the forest; and standing seven foot off, he would recite that charm, [201] and throw a handful of water so as to strike on that tree. In a twinkling down fall the sere

leaves, sprout forth the new, flowers blow and flowers fall, the mango fruits swell out: but one moment--they are ripe, they are sweet and luscious, they grow like fruit divine, they drop from the tree! The Great Being chooses and eats such as he will, then fills the baskets hung from his pole, goes home and sells the fruit, and so finds a living for wife and child.