[97] When she had thus explained to the ascetic the cause of her thus pining away, he summoned the king and said, "Dear Sotthisena, when you were crushed by the disease of leprosy and hid yourself in the forest, she went with you and ministered to your wants, and by the power of truth healed your sickness, and now after she has been the means of your being established on the throne, you do not even know the place of her sitting and uprising; this is very wrong of you. An act of treachery to a friend like this is a sin," and reproving his son, he repeated this stanza:

A loving wife is ever hard to find,
As is a man that to his wife is kind:
Thy wife was virtuous and loving too;
Do thou, O king, to Sambula be true.

[98] After he had thus reproved his son, he got up and went away. The king, when his father was gone, called for Sambula and said, "My dear, forgive the wrong I have done you this long time. Henceforth I confer on you all power," and he repeated the final stanza:

Shouldst thou, with wealth in great abundance blest,
Still pine away, by jealousy opprest,
I and these maidens, creatures of thy hand,
Will be obedient to thy command.

Thenceforth the pair lived happily together and after a life of charity and good works they departed to fare according to their deeds. The ascetic, after entering upon ecstatic meditation, passed to the heaven of Brahma.

The Master here ended his lesson and saying, "Not now only, but formerly too, Mallika was a devoted wife," he identified the Birth: "At that time Sambula Was Mallika, Sotthisena was the king of Kosala, and the ascetic father was myself."

Footnotes

^48:1 Vol. iii. No. 415, p. 245, English version.

^53:1 Reading katadutiya.