"In giving thus, not glory is my goal,
Not sons, not wealth, or kingdoms to control:
This is the good old way of holy men;
Of giving gifts enamoured is my soul."

To the Great Being's words the courtiers answered nothing; so the Great Being addressed Sivaka the surgeon in a stanza:

"A friend and comrade, Sivaka, art thou:
Do as I bid thee--thou hast skill enow--
Take out my eyes, for this is my desire,
And in the beggar's hands bestow them now."

But Sivaka said, "Bethink you, my lord! to give one's eyes is no light thing."--"Sivaka, I have considered; [407] don't delay, nor talk too much in my presence." Then he thought, "It is not fitting that a skilful surgeon like me should pierce a king's eyes with the lancet," so he pounded a number of simples, rubbed a blue lotus with the powder, and brushed it over the right eye: round rolled the eye, and there was great pain. "Reflect, my king, I can make it all right."--"Go on, friend, no delay, please." Again he rubbed in the powder, and brushed it over the eye: the eye started from the socket, the pain was worse than before. "Reflect, my king, I can still restore it."--"Be quick with the job!" A third time he smeared a sharper powder, and applied it: by the drug's power round went the eye, out it came from the socket, and hung dangling at the end of the tendon. "Reflect, my king, I can yet restore it again."--"Be quick." The pain was extreme, blood was trickling, the king's

garments were stained with the blood. The king's women and the courtiers fell at his feet, crying, "My lord, do not sacrifice your eyes!" loudly they wept and wailed. The king endured the pain, and said, "My friend, be quick." "Very well, my lord," said the physician; and with his left hand grasping the eyeball took a knife in his right, and severing the tendon, laid the eye in the Great Being's hand . He, gazing with his left eye at the right and enduring the pain, said, "Brahmin, come here." When the brahmin came near, he went on--"The eye of omniscience is dearer than this eye a hundred fold, aye a thousand fold: there you have my reason for this action," and he gave it to the brahmin, who raised it and placed it in his own eye socket. There it remained fixt by his power like a blue lotus in bloom. When the Great Being with his left eye saw that eye in his head, he cried--"Ah, how good is this my gift of an eye!" [408] and thrilled straightway with the joy that had arisen within him, he gave the other eye also. Sakka placed this also in the place of his own eye, and departed from the king's palace, and then from the city, with the gaze of the multitude upon him, and went away to the world of gods.