No. 488.

BHISA-JATAKA.

"May horse and kine," etc. This story the Master told whilst dwelling in Jetavana, about a backsliding Brother. The circumstances will appear under the Kusa Birth . [305] Here again the Master asked--"Is it true, Brother, that you have backslidden?" "Yes, Sir, it is true." "For what cause?" "For sin's sake, Sir." "Brother why do you backslide, after embracing such a faith as this which leads to salvation; and all for sin's sake? In days of yore, before the Buddha arose, wise men who took to the religious life, even they who were outside the pale, made an oath, and renounced a suggested idea connected with temptations or desires!" So saying, he told a story of the past.

Once upon a time, when Brahmadatta was king in Benares, the Bodhisatta was born as the son of a great brahmin magnifico who owned a fortune of eighty crores of money. The name they gave him was my lord Maha-Kancana, the Greater Lord of Gold. At the time when he could but just go upon his feet, another son was born to the brahmin, and they called him my lord Upa-Kancana, the Lesser Lord of Gold. Thus in succession seven sons came, and youngest of all came a daughter, whom they named Kancana-devi, the Lady of Gold.

Maha-Kancana, when he grew up, studied at Takkasila all the arts and sciences, and returned home. Then his parents desired to establish him in a household of his own. "We will fetch you," said they, "a girl from a family to be a fit match for you, and then you shall have your own household." But he said, "Mother and father, I want no household. To me the three kinds of existence are terrible as fires, beset with chains like a prison-house, loathsome as a dunghill. Never have I known of the deed of kind, not so much as in a dream. You have other sons, bid them be heads of families and leave me alone." Though they begged him again and again, sent his friends to him and besought him by their lips, yet he would none of it. Then his friends asked him, "What do you wish, my good friend, that you care nothing for the enjoying of love and desire?" He told them how he had renounced all the world. When the parents understood this, they made the like proposal to the other sons, but none of them would hear of it; nor yet again did the Lady Kancana. By and bye the parents died. The wise Maha-Kancana did the obsequies for his parents; with the treasure of eighty crores he distributed