No. 535.

SUDHABHOJANA-JATAKA .

"No huckster I," etc. This was a story told by the Master, while dwelling at Jetavana, concerning a liberally minded Brother. He was said to be a man of gentle birth, living at Savatthi, who after hearing the Law preached by the Master was converted and adopted the religious life. Being perfected in the moral virtues and furnished with the dhuta precepts and with a heart full of love for his fellow priests he thrice every day zealously ministered to the service of the Buddha, the Law, and the Assembly, and showed himself exemplary in conduct

and devoted to charity. Fulfilling the obligations of kindly civility , whatever he received, so long as there were any recipients, he would give away till he was himself without food. And his liberality and charitable disposition were noised abroad in the Assembly of the Brethren. So one day the topic was started in the Hall of Truth, how that a certain Brother was so liberally minded and devoted to charity that if he received only sufficient drink to fill the hollow of the hand, free from all greed, he would give it to his fellow priests--his will being even as that of a Bodhisatta. The Master by his divine sense of hearing caught what they were saying, and issuing forth from his Perfumed Chamber drew nigh and asked what was the nature of their discussion. And when they answered, "It was so and so," he said, "This Brother of old, Brethren, was far from liberal, nay, so stingy that he would not give so much as a drop of oil on the tip of a blade of grass. So I converted and made him self-denying and by praising the fruits of charity I firmly established him in almsgiving; so that on receiving water just enough to fill the hollow of the hand he would say, "I will not drink a drop without giving some away," and he received a boon at my hands, and as a result of his almsgiving he became liberally minded and devoted to charity," and with these words he told a story of the past.