Nor curds nor honey sweet is here,
But evermore remembering
What's stored within this rounded sphere,
Buy, prithee, buy my jar, O king.

[19] On hearing this the king, recognizing the misery caused by drink, was so pleased with Sakka that he sang his praises in two stanzas:

[20] No parents had I sage to teach, like thee,
But thou art kind and merciful, I see;
A seeker of the Highest Truth alway;
Therefore I will obey thy words to-day.

Lo! five choice villages I own are thine,
Twice fifty handmaids, seven hundred kine,
And these ten cars with steeds of purest blood,
For thou hast counselled me to mine own good.

Sakka on hearing this revealed his godhead and made himself known, and standing in the air he repeated two stanzas:

These hundred slaves, O king, may still be thine,
And eke the villages and herds of kine;
No chariots yoked to high-bred steeds I claim;
Sakka, chief god of Thirty Three, my name.

Enjoy thy ghee, rice, milk and sodden meat,
Still be content thy honey cakes to eat.
Thus, king, delighting in the Truths I've preached,
Pursue thy blameless path, till Heaven is reached.

Thus did Sakka admonish him and then returned to his abode in Heaven. And the king, abstaining from strong drink, ordered the drinking vessels to be broken. And undertaking to keep the precepts and dispensing alms, he became destined to Heaven. But the drinking of strong drink gradually developed in India.

The Master here ended his lesson and identified the Birth: "At that time Ananda was the king, and I myself was Sakka."

Footnotes

^6:1 This manifestation is abundantly illustrated in Buddhist art, especially in that of the Mahayana school.

^6:2 Dhammapada, p. 146.

^6:3 Of different kinds, Terminalia Chebula and Emblica officinalis.

^7:1 Another reading has, "Wine, O king, mead, O king."

^10:1 Pattakkhandha. Cf. note on Cullavagga, iv. 4. 7, Translation by Davids and Oldenberg, p. 13.

^10:2 See Wilson's Vishnu Purana (Hall's ed.), vol. v. pp. 147-149. Cf. Jataka, vol. IV. 81, vol. v. 267.