No. 514.

CHADDANTA-JATAKA.

"Large-eyed and peerless one," etc.--This was a story the Master, while sojourning at Jetavana, told of a female novice. A girl of good family at Savatthi, they say, recognizing the misery of the lay life, embraced asceticism, and one day went with other Sisters to hear the Law from the Bodhisatta, as he sat preaching from a magnificent throne, and observing his person to be endued with extreme beauty of form arising from the power of illimitable merit, she thought, "I wonder whether in a former existence those I once ministered to were this man's wives." Then at that very moment the recollection of former existences came back to her. "In the time of Chaddanta, the elephant, I was previously existing as this man's wife." And at the remembrance great joy and gladness sprang up in her heart. In her joyous excitement she laughed aloud as she thought, "Few wives are well disposed to their husbands; most of them are ill disposed. I wonder if I were well or ill disposed to this man." And calling back her remembrance, she perceived that she had harboured a slight grudge in her heart against Chaddanta, the mighty lord of elephants, who measured one hundred and twenty cubits, and had sent Sonuttara, a hunter, who with a poisoned arrow wounded and killed him. Then her sorrow awoke and her heart grew hot within her, and being unable to control her feelings, bursting into sobs she wept aloud. On Seeing this the Master broke into a smile, and on being asked by the assembly of the Brethren, "What, Sir, was the cause of your smiling?" he said, "Brethren, this young Sister wept, on recalling a sin she once committed against me." And so saying he told a story of the past.

[37] Once upon a time eight thousand royal elephants, by the exercise of supernatural powers moving through the air, dwelt near lake Chaddanta in the Himalayas. At this time the Bodhisatta came to life as the son of the chief elephant. He was a pure white, with red feet and face. By and bye, when grown up, he was eighty-eight cubits high, one hundred and twenty cubits long. He had a trunk like to a silver rope, fifty-eight cubits long, and tusks fifteen cubits in circumference, thirty cubits long, and emitting six-coloured rays. He was the chief of a herd of eight thousand elephants and paid honour to pacceka buddhas. His two head queens were Cullasubhadda and Mahasubhadda. The king elephant, with his herd numbering eight thousand, took up his abode in a Golden Cave. Now lake Chaddanta was fifty leagues long and fifty broad. In the middle of it, for a space extending twelve leagues, no sevala or panaka plant is found, and it consists of water in appearance like a magic jewel. Next to this, encircling this water, was a thicket of pure white lilies, a league in