No. 499.

SIVI-JATAKA.

"If there be any human," etc.--This story the Master told while dwelling at Jetavana, about the gift incomparable. The circumstances have been fully told in Book VIII. under the Sovira Birth . But here the king, on the seventh day, gave all the requisites and asked for thanks; but the Master went away without thanking him. After breakfast the king went to the monastery, and said, "Why did you return no thanks, Sir?" The Master said, "The people were unpurified, your majesty." He went on to declare the Law, reciting the stanza that begins "To heaven the avaricious shall not go ." The king, pleased at heart, did reverence to the Tathagata by presenting an outer robe of the Sivi country, worth a thousand pieces of money; then he returned to the city.

Next day they were talking of it in the Hall of Truth: "Sirs, the king of Kosala gave the gift incomparable: and, not content with that, when the Dasabala had discoursed to him, the king gave him a Sivi garment worth a thousand pieces! How insatiate the king is in giving, sure enough!" The Master came in, and asked what they talked of as they sat there: they told him. He said, "Brothers, things external are acceptable, true: but wise men of old, who gave gifts till all India rang again with the fame of it, each day distributing as much as six hundred thousand pieces, were unsatisfied with external gifts; and, remembering the proverb, Give what you prize and love will arise, they even pulled out their eyes and gave to those that asked." With these words, he told a story of the past.

Once upon a time, when the mighty King Sivi reigned in the city of Aritthapura in the kingdom of Sivi, the Great Being was born as his son. They called his name Prince Sivi. When he grew up, he went

to Takkasila and studied there; [402] then returning, he proved his knowledge to his father the king, and by him was made viceroy. At his father's death he became king himself, and, forsaking the ways of evil, he kept the Ten Royal Virtues and ruled in righteousness. He caused six alms-halls to be builded, at the four gates, in the midst of the city, and at his own door. He was munificent in distributing each day six hundred thousand pieces of money. On the eighth, fourteenth, and fifteenth days he never missed visiting the alms-halls to see the distribution made.