you with the necessaries of life has died from the wound of a poisoned arrow. Come and see where his dead body is exposed." And the five hundred pacceka buddhas passing through the air alighted in the sacred enclosure. At that moment two young elephants, lifting up the body of the king elephant with their tusks, and so causing it to do homage to the pacceka buddhas, raised it aloft on a pyre and burned it. The pacceka buddhas all through the night rehearsed scripture texts in the cemetery. The eight thousand elephants, after extinguishing the flames, first bathed and then, with Subhadda at their head, returned to their place of abode.

The Master, to make this matter clear, said:

They wept and wailed, as it is said,
Each heaping dust upon his head,
Then slow returning home were seen,
Behind their ever gracious queen.

And Sonuttara within seven days reached Benares with his tusks.

The Master, to make the matter clear, said:

The hunter straight to Kasi hies
Bearing his bright and matchless prize
--The noble creature's tusks, I mean,
Cheering all hearts with golden sheen--
And to that royal dame he said,
"Here are his tusks: the beast is dead."

[55] Now in offering them to the queen, he said, "Lady, the elephant, against whom you conceived a grudge in your heart for a trifling offence, has been slain by me." "Do you tell me that he is dead?" she cried. And he gave her the tusks, saying, "Be assured that he is dead: here are his tusks." She received the tusks adorned with six different coloured rays on her jewelled fan, and, placing them on her lap, gazed at the tusks of one who in a former existence had been her dear lord and she thought, "This fellow has come with the tusks he cut from the auspicious elephant that he slew with a poisoned shaft." And at the remembrance of the Great Being she was filled with so great sorrow that she could not endure it, but her heart then and there was broken and that very day she died.

The Master, to make the story clear, said:

His tusks no sooner did she see
--Her own dear lord of old was he
Than straight her heart through grief did break
And she, poor fool, died for his sake.

When he, almighty and all wise,
Broke into smiles before their eyes,
Straightway these holy Brethren thought,
"Sure Buddhas never smile for nought."

"She whom you used to see," he said,
"A yellow-robed ascetic maid,
Was erst a queen and I," he cried,
Was that king elephant who died."

"The wretch who took those tusks so white,
Unmatched on earth, so shining bright,
[56] And brought them to Benares town
Is now as Devadatta known."