"Each to do right for sake of heaven tries:
So lives the father, and so lives the mother,
So son and daughter, sister so and brother:
Therefore no one of us when youthful dies.

"For sake of heaven our servants too apply
Their lives to goodness, men and maidens all,
[54] Retainers, servitors, each meanest thrall:
Therefore the young among us do not die."

And lastly, by these two stanzas he declared the goodness of those who walk in righteousness:

"Righteousness saves him that thereto is bent;
Righteousness practised well brings happiness;
Them that do righteously this boon doth bless--
The righteous comes not into punishment.

[55]"Righteousness saves the righteous, as a shade
Saves in the time of rain: the lad still lives.
Goodness to Dhammapala safety gives;
Some other's bones are these you have conveyed."

On hearing this, the teacher replied: "A happy journey is this journey of mine, fruitful, not without fruit!" Then full of happiness, he begged pardon of Dhammapala's father, and added, "I came hither, and brought with me these wild goat's bones, on purpose to try you. Your son is safe and well. I pray you, impart to me your rule of preserving life." Then the other wrote it upon a leaf; and after tarrying in that place some few days, he returned to Takkasila, and having instructed Dhammapala in all branches of skill and learning, he dismissed him with a great troop of followers.

When the Master had thus discoursed to the Great King Suddhodana, he declared the Truths, and identified the Birth: (now at the conclusion of the truths the King became established in the fruit of the Third Path:)--"At that time, mother and father were the Maharaja's kin, the teacher was Sariputta, the retinue was the Buddha's retinue, and I myself was the younger Dhammapala."

Footnotes

^32:1 Compare Mahavastu, No. 19. The Dhammapala in Avadana Cataka, p. 122, is different.

^32:2 The six years of austerities practised by the Buddha, before he found the peace of Buddhahood.

^34:1 This stanza occurs in vol. iii. p. 300 (Pali).