"There wounds and bonds and trickery, cheating and shabby turns,
Raiding, and deeds of violence: such is the lore he learns.

"Here self-control, sobriety, kindness, the right and true,
Shelter and drink for strangers: these were round me as I grew."

Next he declared the Law to the king in the following stanzas:

"To whomsoever, good or bad, a man shall honour pay,
Vicious or virtuous, that man holds him beneath his sway.

"Like as the comrade one admires, like as the chosen friend,
Such will become the man who keeps beside him, in the end.

"Friendship makes like, and touch by touch infects, you'll find it true:
Poison the arrow, and ere long the quiver's poisoned too.

"The wise eschews bad company, for fear of staining touch:
Wrap rotten fish in grass, you'll find the grass stinks just as much.
And they who keep fool's company themselves will soon be such.

[436] "Sweet frankincense wrap in a leaf, the leaf will smell as sweet.
So they themselves will soon grow wise, that sit at wise men's feet.

"By this similitude the wise should his own profit know,
Let him eschew bad company and with the righteous go:
Heaven waits the righteous, but the bad are doomed to hell below."

The king was pleased with this exposition. Then the sages returned also. The king greeted the sages, saying, "Be gracious, sirs, come and take up your abode in my grounds," and prevailed on them to accept the invitation. When he got home again, he proclaimed immunity for all parrots. The sages came thither too and visited him. And the king gave them his park to live in, and took care of them so long as he lived. When he went to swell the hosts of heaven, his son had the royal umbrella raised over him, and he also took care of the sages, and so it went on from father to son through seven generations of kings all bounteous in alms. And the Great Being dwelt in the woods, until he passed away according to his deeds.

When this lesson was ended, the Master said, "Thus, Brethren, you see that Devadatta kept bad company before, as he now does." Then he identified the Birth: "At that time, Devadatta was Sattigumba, [437] his followers were the robbers, Ananda was the king, the Buddha's followers were the sages, and I myself was Parrot Pupphaka."

Footnotes

^267:1 Nyctalops.

^267:2 Comp. no. 513 (Jayaddisa) in vol. v.

^267:3 Hardy, Manual, p. 320.

^269:1 "He means the robber chief's wife, who went about clad in a garment of branches. "My mother is naked": why do you despise the robber's trade?"--Scholiast. The Juangs or Patuas in Orissa, or "leaf-wearers," wear only a bunch of leaves tied before and behind.

^270:1 Sic.