Four months the vessel had been voyaging in far distant regions; and now as though endued with supernatural power, it returned in one single day to the seaport town of Bharukaccha, and even upon the dry land it went, till it rested before the mariner's door, having sprung over a space of eleven hundred cubits. The Great Being divided amongst the merchants all the gold and silver, jewels, coral, and diamonds, saying, [143] "This treasure is enough for you: voyage on the sea no more." Then he discoursed to them; and after giving gifts and doing good his life long, he went to swell the hosts of heaven.

The Master, having ended this discourse, said, "Then, Brethren, the Tathagata was most wise in former days, as he is now," and identified the Birth: "At that time the Buddha's company were the company (of merchants), and I myself was the wise Supparaka."

Footnotes

^86:1 Hardy, Manual of Buddhism, p. 13.

^88:1 There is an account of the mythological seas which follow in Hardy, Manual of Buddhism, pp. 12 ff.

^88:2 Sic.

^89:1 Sic.

^89:2 Poa Cynosuroides.

^89:3 The scholiast explains that the sea was red, like the reeds called "scorpion-reed" or "crab-reed," which are red in colour: the word translated "bamboo" (velu) he says may also mean "coral." He adds that the haul was coral, which is also the word used at the end of the story (pavalo). The word so translated here is veluriyam, which Childers renders "a kind of precious stone, perhaps lapis lazuli".

^89:4 See Hardy, Manual, p. 13. It was a kind of hollow like a saucer.

^90:1 Avici.

BOOK XII.--DVADASA-NIPATA.