[paragraph continues] You have but one queen, yet a royal prince should have sixteen thousand at the least. Choose a company of women, my lord: some worthy wife will bring you a son." "Dear friends, what is this you say? I passed my word I would take no other but one, and on those terms I got her. I cannot lie, no host of women for me." So he refused their request, and they departed. But Sumedha heard what was said. "The king refuses to choose him concubines for his truth's sake," thought she; "well, I will find him some one." Playing the part of mother and wife to the king, she chose at her own will a thousand maidens of the warrior caste, a thousand of the courtiers, a thousand daughters of householders, a thousand of all kinds of dancing girls, four thousand in all, and delivered them to him. And all these dwelt in the palace for ten thousand years, and never a son or daughter they brought between them. In this way she three times brought four thousand maidens but they had neither son nor daughter. Thus she brought him sixteen thousand wives in all. Forty thousand years went by, that is to say, fifty thousand in all, counting the ten thousand he had lived with her alone. Then the townsfolk again gathered together with reproaches. "What is it now?" the king asked. [318] "My lord, command your women to pray for a son." The king was not unwilling, and commanded so to pray. Thenceforward praying for a son, they worship all manner of deities and offer all kinds of vows; yet no son appeared. Then the king commanded Sumedha to pray for a son. She consented. On the fast of the fifteenth day of the month, she took upon her the eightfold sabbath vows , and sat meditating upon the virtues in a magnificent room upon a pleasant couch. The others were in the park, vowing to do sacrifice with goats or kine. By the glory of Sumedha's virtue Sakka's dwelling place began to tremble. Sakka pondered, and understood that Sumedha prayed for a son; well, she should have one. "But I cannot give her this or that son indifferently; I will search for one which shall be suitable." Then he saw a young god called Nalakara, the Basket-weaver. He was a being endowed with merit, who in a former life lived in Benares, when this befel him. At seed-time as he was on his way to the fields he perceived a Pacceka Buddha. He sent on his hinds, bidding them sow the seed, but himself turned back, and led the Pacceka Buddha home, and gave him to eat, and then conducted him again to the Ganges bank. He and his son together made a hut, trunks of fig-trees for the foundation and reeds interwoven for the walls; a door he put to it, and made a path for walking. There for three months he made the Pacceka Buddha dwell; and after the rains were over, the two of them, father and son, put on him the three robes and let him go. In the same manner they entertained seven Pacceka Buddhas in that hut, and