Now at that time the Great Being had been born as a Deer, and having abandoned the herd, was dwelling near a bend of the river all by himself, in a clump of sal trees mixt with fair-flowering mangoes: the skin of his body was of the colour of a gold plate well burnished, forefeet and hindfeet seemed as it were covered with lac, his tail like the tail of a wild ox, the horns of him were as spirals of silver, eyes had he like bright polished gems, when he turned his mouth in any direction it seemed like a ball of red cloth. About midnight he heard this sad outcry, and thought, "I hear the voice of a man. While I live let him not die! I will save his life for him." Arising from off his resting place in the bush, he went down to the river bank, and called out in a comfortable voice, "Ho man! have no fear, I will save you alive." Then he cleft the current, and swam to him, and placed him upon his back, and bore him to the bank and to his own dwelling-place; where for two or three days he fed him with wild fruits After this he said to the man, "O man, I will now convey you out of this wood, and set you in the road to Benares, and you shall go in peace. But I pray you, be not led away by greed of gain to tell the king or some great man, that in such a place is a golden deer to be found." The man promised to observe his words; and the Great Being, having received his promise, took him upon his back and carried him to the road to Benares, and went his way.

On the day when he reached Benares, the Queen Consort, whose name was Khema, saw at morning in a dream how a deer of golden colour preached the Law to her; [257] and she thought, "If there were no such creature as this, I should not have seen him in my dream. Surely there must be such a one; I will announce it to the king."

Then she went to the king, and said, "Great king! I am anxious to hear the discourse of a golden deer. If I may, I shall live, but if not there is no living for me." The king comforted her, saying, "If such a creature exists in the world of men, you shall have it." Then he sent for the brahmins, and put the question--"Are there such things as gold-coloured deer?" "Yes, there are, my lord." The king laid upon the back of an elephant richly caparisoned a purse of a thousand pieces of money enclosed within a casket of gold: whoso should bring word of a golden deer, the king was willing to give him the purse with a thousand pieces,

the casket of gold, and that elephant withal or a better. He caused a stanza to be engraved upon a tablet of gold, and delivered this to one of his court, bidding him cry the stanza in his name among all the townsfolk. Then he recited that stanza which comes first in this Birth:

"Who brings me tidings of that deer, choicest of all the breed?
Fair women and a village choice who wins him for his meed?"