alms munificently to beggars and wayfaring men; then taking with him his six brothers, his sister, a servant man and handmaiden, and one companion, [306] he made the great retirement and retired into the region of Himalaya. There in a delightsome spot near a lotus-lake they built them an hermitage, and lived a holy life eating of the fruits and roots of the forest. When they went into the forest, they went one by one, and if ever one of them saw a fruit or a leaf he would call the rest: there telling all they had seen and heard, they picked up what there was--it seemed like a village market. But the teacher, the ascetic Maha-Kancana, thought to himself: "We have cast aside a fortune of eighty crores and taken up the religious life, and to go about greedily seeking for wild fruits is not seemly. From henceforth I will bring the wild fruits by myself." Returning then to the hermitage, in the evening he gathered all together and told them his thought. "You remain here," said he, "and practise the life of the recluse, I will fetch fruit for you." Thereat Upa-Kancana and all the rest broke in, "We have become religious under your wing, it is you should stay behind and practise the life of the recluse. Let our sister remain here also, and the maid be with her: we eight will take turns to fetch the fruit, but you three shall be free from taking a turn." He agreed. Thenceforward these eight took a turn to bring in fruit one at a time: the others each received his share of the find, and carried it off to his dwelling-place and remained in his own leaf-hut. Thus they could not be together without cause or reason. He whose turn it was would bring in the provender (there was one enclosure), and laying it on a flat stone would make eleven portions of it; then making the gong sound he would take his own portion and depart to his place of dwelling; the others coming up at the gong-sound, without hustling, but with all due ceremony and order, would take each his allotted portion of the find, then returning to his own place there would eat it, and resume his meditation and religious austerity. After a time they gathered lotus fibres and ate them, and there they abode, mortifying themselves with scorching heat and other kind of torments, their senses all dead, striving to induce the ecstatic trance.