all provided by the royal family. At the seven years' end they began to grumble, and king Suruci asked why. "O king," they said, "while we have been revelling at this feast seven years have gone by. When will the feast come to an end?" He answered, "My good friends, all this while my son has never once laughed. So soon as he shall laugh, we will disperse again." Then the crowd went beating the drum and gathered the tumblers and jugglers together. Thousands of tumblers were gathered, and they divided themselves into seven bands and danced; but they could not make the prince laugh. Of course he that had seen the dancing of dancers divine could not care for such dancers as these. Then came two clever jugglers, Bhandu-kanna and Pandu-kanna, Crop-ear and Yellow-ear, and say they, "We will make the prince laugh." Bhandu-kanna made a great mango tree, which he called Sanspareil, grow before the palace door: then he threw up a ball of string, and made it catch on a branch of the tree, and then up he climbed into the Mango Sanspareil. Now the Mango Sanspareil they say is Vessavana's mango . And the slaves of Vessavana took him, as usual, chopt him up limb-meal and threw down the bits. The other jugglers joined the pieces together, and poured water upon them. The man donned upper and under garments of flowers, and rose up and began dancing again. Even the sight of this did not make the prince laugh. Then Pandu-kanna had some fire-wood piled in the court-yard and went into the fire with his troop. When the fire was burnt out, the people sprinkled the pile with water. Pandu-kanna with his troop rose up dancing with upper and under garments of flowers. When the people found they could not make him laugh, they grew angry. Sakka, perceiving this, sent down a divine dancer, bidding him make prince Maha-panada laugh. Then he came and remained poised in the air above the royal courtyard, [325] and performed what is called the Half-body dance: one hand, one foot, one eye, one tooth, go a-dancing, throbbing, flickering to and fro, all the rest stone still. Maha-panada, when he saw this, gave a little smile. But the crowd roared and roared with laughter, could not cease laughing, laughed themselves out of their wits, lost control of their limbs, rolled over and over in the royal courtyard. That was the end of the festival. The rest of it--

Great Panada, mighty king,
With his palace all of gold,

must be explained in the Maha-panada Birth .

King Maha-panada did good and gave alms, and at his life's end went to the world of gods .

When the Master had ended this discourse, he said, "Thus, brethren, Visakha has received a boon of me before," and then he identified the Birth: "At that time, Bhaddaji was Maha-panada, Visakha the Lady Sumedha, Ananda was Vissakamma, and I myself was Sakka."

Footnotes