No. 459.

PANIYA-JATAKA.

"The water-draught," etc. This story the Master told, whilst dwelling in Jetavana, about the subduing of evil passions.

At one time, we learn, five hundred citizens of Savatthi, being householders and friends of the Tathagata, had heard the Law and had renounced the world, and been ordained as priests. Living in the house of the Golden Pavement, at midnight they indulged in thoughts of sin. (All the details are to be understood as in a previous story .) At the command of the Blessed One, the Brotherhood was assembled by the Venerable Ananda. The Master sat in the appointed seat, and without asking them, "Do you indulge in thoughts of sin?" he addressed them comprehensively and in general terms: "Brethren, there is no such thing as a petty sin. A Brother must check all sins as they each arise. Wise men of old, before the Buddha came, subdued their sins and attained to the knowledge of a Pacceka-Buddha." With these words, he told there a story of the past.

[114] Once upon a time, when Brahmadatta was king in Benares, there were two friends in a certain village in the kingdom of Kasi. These had gone afield, taking with them vessels for drinking, which they laid out of the way as they broke the clods, and when they were thirsty, went and drank water out of them. One of them, on going for a drink, husbanded the water in his own pot, and drank out of the pot of the other. In the evening, when he came out from the woodland, and had bathed, he stood thinking. "Have I done any sin to-day," thought he, "either by the door of the body, or any other?" Then he remembered how he drank the stolen water, and grief came upon him, and he cried, "If this thirst grows upon me, it will bring me to some evil birth! I will subdue my sin." So with this stolen draught of water for cause , he gradually acquired supernatural insight, and attained the knowledge of a Pacceka-Buddha; and there he stood, reflecting upon the knowledge which he had attained.

Now the other man, having bathed, got up, saying, "Come, friend, let us go home." Said the other, "Go home thou, home is nothing to me, I am a Pacceka-Buddha." "Pooh! are Pacceka-Buddhas like you?" "What are they like, then?" "Hair two fingers long, yellow robes they wear, in Nandamula cave they live high up in Himalaya." The other stroked his head: in that very moment the marks of a layman disappeared,