the spirit does not agree to it without you: do not place any obstacle in the way of my offering," and he let the Great Being go. Like the moon escaped from the jaws of Rahu and with the strength of a young elephant he speedily reached the city. And his soldiers thought, "King Sutasoma is wise and a sweet preacher of the Law. If he can have a word or two with him he will convert the man-eater and will return, like a furious elephant escaping from the lion's mouth." And thinking, "The people will chide us and say, "After giving up your king to the man-eater are ye come back to us?" they remained encamped outside the city walls, and when they saw him coming from afar off they went out to meet him and saluting him with a friendly greeting they asked, "Were you not, sire, heartily sick of the man-eater?" "The man-eater," he said, "did something far harder than anything my parents ever did. For being such a fierce and violent creature, after listening to my preaching of the Law, he let me go." Then they decked out the king and mounting him on an elephant escorted him into the city. On seeing him the inhabitants rejoiced, and owing to his zeal for the Law, he did not visit his parents but thinking, "I will see them by and bye," he entered his palace and took his seat upon his throne. Then he summoned the brahmin and gave orders for him to be shaved, and when his hair and beard had been trimmed and he was washed and anointed and decked out with brave apparel, they brought him to the king. And when the brahmin was presented, Sutasoma himself afterwards took a bath and ordered his own food to be given to the brahmin, and when he had eaten he himself partook of the food. Then he seated the brahmin on a costly throne and to mark his reverence for him he made offerings of scented garlands and the like to him, and seating himself on a low seat he prayed him, saying, "Master, we would hear the verses which you have brought to us."

To throw light upon this the Master said:

Released from fierce man-eater's hand he flies
To brahmin friend and "Fain would we," he cries,
[483] "Hear stanzas worth a hundred pieces each,
Us for our good if thou wouldst deign to teach."

The brahmin, when the Bodhisatta made his request, after shampooing his hands with perfumes, pulling a beautiful book out of a bag took it in both hands and said: "Well, sire, listen to my four stanzas, each worth a hundred pieces of money; they were taught me by Kassapa Buddha, and are destructive of passion, pride and similar vices, and procure for man the removal of desire, the cessation of the faculties, even the eternal mighty Nirvana, to the decay of lust, the cutting of the circle of transmigration

and the rooting out of attachment," and with these words, looking at his book, he repeated these stanzas: