"I care not blessings to receive given by another's hand,
My goods are mine and mine alone when on my deeds I stand.

"I'll go and do much good to men, give alms throughout the land,
Will follow virtue, exercise control and self-command:
He that so acts is happy, and fears no remorse at hand."

On hearing this, Sakka then gave orders to Matali: "Go now, convey King Sadhina to Mithila, and set him down in his own park." He did so. The king walked to and fro in his park; the park-keeper espied

him, and, after asking him who he was, went to King Narada with the news. When he learnt of the king's arrival, he sent on the keeper with these words: "You go on before, and prepare two seats, one for him and one for me." He did so. Then the king asked him, "For whom do you prepare these two seats?" He replied, "One for you, and one for our king. Then the king said, "What other being shall sit down in my presence?" He sat upon one seat, and put his feet on the other. King Narada came up, and having saluted his feet, sat down on one side: now it is said he was the seventh in direct descent from the king, and at that time the age of man was fivescore years. So long was the time which the Great Being had spent, by the might of his goodness. He took Narada by the hands, and, going up and down in the pleasaunce, recited three stanzas:

"Here are the lands, the conduit round through which the waters go,
The green grass clothing it about, the rivulets that flow,

[359] "The lovely lakes, that listen when the ruddy geese give call,
Where lotus white and lotus blue and trees like coral grow,
--But those who loved this place with me, O say, where are they all?"

"These are the acres, this the place,
The pleasaunce and the fields are here:
But seeing no familiar face,
To me it seems a desert drear."

Hereupon Narada said to him: "My lord, since you departed to the world of the gods seven hundred years have gone by; I am the seventh in line from you, your attendants have all gone down into the jaws of death. But this is your own rightful realm, and I beg you receive it." The king answered, "My dear Narada, I came not here to be king, but to do good I came hither, and good I will do." He then said as follows:

"Celestial mansions I have seen, shining in every place,
The Thirty-three archangels, and their monarch, face to face.

"Joys more than human I have felt, a heavenly home was mine,
With all that heart could wish, among the Thirty-three divine.

"This I have seen, and to do deeds of virtue I came down:
And I will live a holy life: I want no royal crown.

[360] "The Path that never leads to woe, the Path the Buddhas show,
Upon that Path I enter now by which the holy go."