"O warrior, lord of biped kind, declare the thing that's true:
If you the truth declare, your eye shall be restored to you."

On hearing this, the Great Being replied, "If you wish to give me an eye, Sakka, do not try any other means, but let my eye be restored as a consequence of my gift." Sakka said, "Though they call me Sakka, king of the gods, your majesty, yet I cannot give an eye to any one else; but by the fruit of the gift by thee given, and by nothing else, your eye shall be restored to you." Then the other repeated a stanza, maintaining that his gift was well given:

[410] "Whatever sort, whatever kind of suitor shall draw near,
Whoever comes to ask of me, he to my heart is dear:
If these my solemn words be true, now let my eye appear!"

Even as he uttered the words, one of his eyes grew up in the socket. Then he repeated a couple of stanzas to restore the other:

"A brahmin came to visit me, one of my eyes to crave:
Unto that brahmin mendicant the pair of them I gave.

"A greater joy and more delight that action did afford.
If these my solemn words be true, be the other eye restored!"

On the instant appeared his second eye. But these eyes of his were neither natural nor divine. An eye given by Sakka as the brahmin, cannot be natural, we know; on the other hand, a divine eye cannot be produced in anything that is injured. [411] But these eyes are called the

eyes of Truth Absolute and Perfect. At the time when they came into existence, the whole royal retinue by Sakka's power was assembled; and Sakka standing in the midst of the throng, uttered praise in a couple of stanzas:

"O fostering King of Sivi land, these holy hymns of thine
Have gained for thee as bounty free this pair of eyes divine.

"Through rock and wall, o'er hill and dale, whatever bar may be,
A hundred leagues on every side those eyes of thine shall see."