He turned his face to the eastwards, and coming down in a certain street, with intent that his footsteps might be visible, he begged alms near the eastern gate; then, having collected a quantity of mixt victuals, he sat him down in a certain hall and began to eat. But the deities of the city came up, finding it intolerable that this king should so speak as to annoy their sage. So the eldest goblin among them seized hold of Mandavya by the neck, and twisted it, and the others seized the other brahmins and twisted their necks. But through pity for the Bodhisatta, they did not kill Mandavya: "he is his son," they said, and only tormented him. Mandavya's head was twisted so that it looked backwards over his shoulders; hands and feet were stiff and stark; his eyes were turned up, as though he were a dead man: there he lay stark. The other brahmins turned round and round, drabbling spittle at the mouth. People went and told Dittha-mangalika, "Something has happened to your son, my lady!" She made all haste thither, and seeing him cried, "Oh, what is this!" and recited a stanza:

"Over the shoulder twisted stands his head;
See how he stretches out a helpless arm!
White are his eyes as though he were quite dead:
O who is it has wrought my son this harm?"

[384] Then the bystanders repeated a stanza, telling her about it:

"A hermit came, in filthy garments drest,
A creature vile and goblin-like to see,
With robe of refuse-rags across his breast:
The man who treated thus thy son, is he."

On hearing this, she thought: "No other has the power, the wise Matanga without doubt it must be! But one who is stedfast, and full of goodwill to all creatures, will never go away and leave all these folk to torment. Now in what direction can he have gone?" which question she put in the following stanza:

"In what direction went the wise one hence?
O noble youths, pray answer me this thing!
Come let us make atonement for the offence,
Our son to life again that we may bring."

The young men answered her in this manner:

"That wise one, up into the air rose he,
Like moon in mid-career the fifteenth day:
The sage, truth-consecrated, fair to see,
Towards the east moreover bent his way."