Now the sham ascetic was watching the road, and expecting the Tiger to come every minute. And what should he see coming but the Boars! "They have killed the Tiger, methinks, and now they are come to kill me!" Away he ran, and climbed up a wild fig-tree. "He has climbed a tree?" said the Boars to their leader. "What tree?" "A fig-tree." "All right, we shall have him directly." He made the young Boars grub away the earth from its roots, and the sows bring each as much water as their mouths would hold, till there the tree stood upright bare down to the roots. Then he sent the others out of the way, and, going down on his knees, struck at the roots with his tusk: clean through the root he cut, as with an axe, down came the tree, but the man never got as far as the ground: he was torn to pieces and eaten on the way. Observing this marvel, the tree-spirit recited a stanza:-

"United friends, like forest trees--it is a pleasant sight:
The Boars united, at one charge the Tiger killed outright."

And the Master recited another stanza, how that both of them were destroyed:--

"The brahmin and the tiger both thus did the Boars destroy,
And roared a loud and echoing roar in their exceeding joy."

[350] Again the Boar asked, "And have you another foe?" "No, my lord," they replied. Then they proposed to sprinkle him for their King. Water was fetched. Espying the shell which the sham ascetic used for his drinking, which was a precious conch with the spiral turned right-wise , they filled it with water, and consecrated Carpenter's Boar there on the root of the fig-tree, there the water of consecration was poured upon him. A young sow they made his consort. Hence arose the custom which still prevails, that in consecrating a king they seat him upon a chair of fig-wood, and sprinkle him from a conch with spirals that run to the right.

This also the Master explained by reciting the last stanza:--

"The Boars beneath the wild fig-tree the holy water poured,
Upon the Carpenter, and cried, Thou art our King and Lord!"

When he had ended this discourse, the Master said, "No, Brethren, this is not the first time that Dhanuggaha-tissa has shown himself clever in strategy, but he was the same before." With these words, he identified the Birth: "At that time Devadatta was the sham ascetic, Dhanuggaha-tissa Carpenter's Boar, and I myself was the tree-sprite."

Footnotes

^216:1 Compare No. 283 (trans. Vol. ii. 275).

^216:2 See Vol. ii. pp. 164, 275.

^216:3 Pasenadi was Maha-Kosala's son, Aj. killed his father Bimbisara.

^216:4 See ii. 275, note 2.

^217:1 One line occurs on p. 71, line 21, of the text (last couplet on p. 45, above).

^217:2 Sic.

^218:1 Note that this disagrees with the Introduction.