he instructed the Naga king in the Law. Now the son was anxious to see his father and being ignorant as to where he had gone, he set on foot an inquiry, and on finding out that he was dwelling in such and such a place he repaired thither with a large retinue to see him. Having halted a short distance off, accompanied by a few courtiers he set out in the direction of the hermitage. At this moment Samkhapala with a large following sat listening to the Law, but on seeing the king approaching he rose up and with a salutation to the sage he took his departure. The king saluted his father and after the usual courtesies had been exchanged he inquired, saying, "Reverend sir, what king is this that has been to see you?" "Dear son, he is Samkhapala, the Naga king." The son by reason of the great magnificence of the Naga conceived a longing for the Naga world. Staying there a few days he furnished his father with a constant supply of food, and then returned to his own city. There he had an alms-hall erected at the four city gates, and by his alms-giving he made a stir throughout all India, and in aspiring to the Naga world he ever kept the moral law and observed the duty of holy days, and at the end of his life he was re-born in the Naga world as king Samkhapala. [163] In course of time he grew sick of this magnificence and from that day desiring to be born as a man he kept the holy days, but dwelling as he did in the Naga world his observance of them was not a success and he deteriorated in morals. From that day he left the Naga world and not far from the river Kannapenna, coiled round an ant-hill between the high road and a narrow path, he there resolved to keep the holy day and took upon himself the moral law. And saying "Let those that want my skin or want my skin and flesh, let them, I say, take it all," and thus sacrificing himself by way of charity he lay on the top of the ant-hill and, stopping there on the fourteenth and fifteenth of the half-month, on the first day of each fortnight he returned to the Naga world. So one day when he lay there, having taken upon himself the obligation of the moral law, a party of sixteen men who lived in a neighbouring village, being minded to eat flesh, roamed about in the forest with weapons in their hands and when they returned without finding anything, they saw him lying on the ant-hill and thinking, "To-day we have not caught so much as a young lizard, we will kill and eat this snake-king," but fearing that on account of his great size, even if they caught him, he would escape from them, they thought they would pierce him with stakes just as he lay there coiled up, and after thus disabling him, effect his capture. So taking stakes in their hands they drew nigh to him. And the Bodhisatta caused his body to become as big as a trough-shaped canoe, and looked very beautiful, like a jasmine wreath deposited on the ground, with eyes like the fruit of the gunja shrub and-a head like a jayasumana