[353] Then the Serpent King, who saw them draw near to the root that they might fell the tree, thought to himself: "I gave these fellows water to drink when they were thirsty, then I gave them food divine, then beds to lie on and maidens to attend them, then treasures to fill five hundred waggons, and now they say, Let us cut down the tree from the root! Greedy they are beyond bounds, and except the chief of the caravan they shall all die." Then he mustered an army: "So many armed in mail stand forth, so many archers, so many with sword and shield."

To explain this the Master repeated a stanza:

"Then five and twenty mail-clad snakes stood forth and took the field,
Three hundred bowmen, and six thousand armed with sword and shield."

[354] The following stanza is said by the Serpent King:

"Strike down the men, and bind them fast, spare not the life of one,
Burn them to cinders save the chief, and then your task is done."

And so did the serpents. Then they loaded the rugs from the northern branch and all the rest of it upon the five hundred waggons, and conveyed the waggons and the chief of the caravan to Benares, and put up the goods in his house, and taking leave of him returned to their own place of abode.

When the Master had seen this, he repeated two stanzas of admonition:

"So let the wise his own good see, and let him never go
A slave to greed, that he disarm the purpose of his foe.

"So let him, seeing this evil thing, pain rooted in desire,
Shake off desire and fetters, and to holy life aspire."

Having ended this discourse, he said, "Thus, Brethren, in days of yore merchants possessed with greed came to dire destruction, therefore you must not give place to greed." Then having declared the Truths (now at the conclusion of the Truths those merchants became established in the fruit of the First Path)--he identified the Birth: "At that time Sariputta was the King of the Serpents, and I was the caravan chief."

Footnotes

^222:1 Reading nissaya, as Fausboll suggests.