Thus speaking, he terrified the man with the fear of hell. The other attained to the perfect state of a Pacceka Bodhisatta; for he lived with his knowledge on the point of ripening, like a ripe lotus bud looking for the touch of the sun's rays. As the hunter hearkened to his discourse, standing where he was, he understood all in a moment the constituent parts of existing things, grasped their three properties , and penetrated to the knowledge of a Pacceka Buddha. This comprehension of his, and the setting free of the Great Being from the snare, came both in one instant. The Pacceka Buddha, having annihilated his lusts and desires, standing on the uttermost verge of existence , uttered his aspiration in this stanza:

[341]"Like as the serpent casts his withered skin,
A tree her sere leaves when the green begin:
So I renounce my hunter's craft this day,
My hunter's craft for ever cast away."

Having uttered this sublime aspiration, he thought, "I have just now been set free from the bonds of sin; but at home I have many a bird held fast in bondage, and how am I to set them free?" So he asked the Great Being: "King Peacock, there are many birds I left in bondage at home, how can I set them free?" Now the Bodhisattas, who are omniscient, have a better knowledge and comprehension of ways and means than a Pacceka Buddha; therefore he answered, "As you have broken the power of lust, and penetrated the knowledge of a Pacceka Buddha, on that ground make an Act of Truth, and in all India there shall be no creature left in bonds." Then the other, entering by the door which the Bodhisatta thus opened for him, repeated this stanza, making an Act of Truth:

"All those my feathered fowl that I did bind,
Hundreds and hundreds, in my house confined,
Unto them all I give their life to-day,
And freedom: let them homewards fly away."

[342] Then by his Act of Truth, though late, they were all set free from confinement, and twittering joyously went home to their own places. At the same moment throughout all India all creatures bound were set free, and not one was left in bondage, not so much as a cat. The Pacceka Buddha uplifted his hand, and rubbed his forehead: immediately the family mark disappeared, and the mark of the religious appeared in its place. He then, like an Elder of sixty years, fully dressed, carrying the eight necessary things . made a reverential obeisance to the royal Peacock,

and walking around him right-wise, rose up in the air, and went away to the cavern on the peak of Mount Nanda. The peacock also, rising up from the snare, took his food and departed to the place in which he lived.

The last stanza was repeated by the Master, telling how for seven years the hunter went about snare in hand, and was then set free from pain by the peacock king: