hollow of his hand, and gobbled him up like a radish-bulb. Vasudeva, perceiving that he was dead, went on all night long with his sister and the chaplain, and at sunrise arrived at a frontier village. He lay down in the shelter of a bush, and sent his sister and the chaplain into the village, with orders to cook some food and bring it to him. A huntsman (his name was Jara, or Old Age) noticed the bush shaking. "A pig, sure enough," thought he; he threw a spear, and pierced his feet. "Who has wounded me?" cried out Vasudeva. The huntsman, finding that he had wounded a man, set off running in terror. [89] The king, recovering his wits, got up, and called the huntsman--"Uncle, come here, don't be afraid!" When he came--"Who are you?" asked Vasudeva. "My name is Jara, my lord." "Ah," thought the king, "whom Old Age wounds will die, so the ancients used to say. Without doubt I must die to-day." Then he said, Fear not, Uncle; come, bind up my wound." The mouth of the wound bound up, the king let him go. Great pains came upon him; he could not eat the food that the others brought. Then addressing himself to the others, Vasudeva said: "This day I am to die. You are delicate creatures, and will never be able to learn anything else for a living; so learn this science from me." So saying, he taught them a science, and let them go; and then died immediately.

Thus excepting the lady Anjana, they perished every one, it is said.

When the Master had ended this discourse, he said, "Lay Brother, thus people have got free from grief for a son by attending to the words of wise men of old; do not you think about it." Then he declared the Truths (at the conclusion of the Truths the Lay Brother was established in the fruit of the First Path), and identified the Birth: "At that time, Ananda was Rohineyya, Sariputta was Vasudeva, the followers of the Buddha were the other persons, and I myself was Ghatapandita."

Footnotes

^50:1 The prophecy, and the tower, and the result, will remind the reader of Danae.

^50:2 No. 449, above.

^51:1 Krishna, Bala-rama (Krishna's brother), Moon, Sun, Fire, Varuna the heaven-god, the tree Terminalia Arjuna, the Rain-cloud (? pajjunno, Skr. , while is a name of Kama), Ghee-sage (? or ghata-p., an ascetic), Sprout. The story seems to contain a kernel of nature-myth.

^52:1 A kind of weapon.

^52:2 i.e. the king and his brother.

^53:1 The Sage already mentioned in No. 444 (see p. 18, above).

^53:2 i.e. beseech him.

^54:1 Lit. "his heart and his right eye" (Sch.): Cf. Sanskr. vayu-grasta "mad."

^54:2 These lines have occurred already in No. 449.

^55:1 What we call the Man in the Moon is in India called the Hare in the Moon, cf. Jataka, No. 316.

^55:2 These lines occur above, p. 39.