What has led to thy undoing? What the sin that thou dost rue?
Why from thine own back dost ever eat the flesh each day anew?

[10] The Spirit recognized him and said, "You do not recognize me, but I was once your chaplain. This happiness that I enjoy in the night is due to you, as the result of my keeping half the fast-day; while the

suffering I experience by day is the result of the evil that I wrought. For I was set by you on the seat of judgment, and I took bribes and gave false decisions, and was a backbiter, and in consequence of the evil that I wrought by day, I now undergo this suffering," and he uttered a couple of stanzas:

Once in holy lore delighting I in sinful toils was cast,
Working evil for my neighbour, through the lengthening years I passed.

He that shall, backbiting others, love on their good name to prey,
Flesh from his own back will ever rend and eat, as I to-day.

And so saying, he asked the ascetic why he had come here. The ascetic told all his story at length. "And now, holy sir," the Spirit said, "will you stay here or go away?" "I will not stay, I will return to my hermitage." The Spirit said, "Very well, holy sir, I will constantly supply you with a ripe mango," and by an exercise of his magic power he transported him to his hermitage, and, bidding him dwell there contentedly, he exacted a promise from him and went his way. Thenceforth the Spirit constantly supplied him with the mango fruit. The ascetic, in the enjoyment of the fruit, performed the preparatory rites to induce mystic meditation and was destined to the Brahma-world.

[11] The Master, having finished his lesson to the lay folk, revealed the Truths and identified the Birth:--At the conclusion of the Truths, some attained to the First Path, some to the Second, and others to the Third Path:--"At that time the goddess was Uppalavanna, the ascetic was myself."

Footnotes

^1:1 On the observance of poya (uposatha) days cf. Hardy's Eastern Monachism, p. 237: "fasting" includes doing no wrong to one's neighbour.

^2:1 Cf. vol. i. p. 240. 5 (Pali).

^2:2 Cf. Mahavagga, i. 15. 2.