No one should claim to grant a boon and then
His promised word, false man, take back again:
Amongst these boons, my friend, all fearless choose;
I'll grant it thee, though life itself I lose.

Then the Great Being thought, "He has spoken like a brave fellow and will do what I tell him; I will accept his offer. But if I should choose as the very first boon that he should abstain from eating human flesh, he will be very sick at heart. I will first choose three other boons, and after that I will choose this," and he said:

Who with a saint lives face to face ever with saint agrees,
So too a sage is ever sure a brother sage to please:
Thus safe and sound a hundred years I pray to see thee live:
This is the first of all the boons I fain would have thee give.

[496] The man-eater, on hearing this, thought, "This man, even though I have driven him from his sovereignty, now wishes long life for me, the noted robber that lusteth after human flesh and would do him a mischief. Ah! he is my well-wisher." And he was glad at heart, not knowing that this boon had been chosen to cheat him to his good, and in granting the boon he uttered this stanza:

Who with a saint lives face to face ever with saint agrees,
So too a sage is ever sure a brother sage to please:
Thou fain wouldst see me safe and sound for years twice fifty live:
Lo! at thy prayer this first of boons to thee I gladly give.

Then the Bodhisatta said:

These warrior chiefs held captive in thy hand,
By sprinkling hailed as kings in many a land,
These mighty lords of earth thou must not eat:
For this as second boon I next entreat.

Thus did he in choosing a second boon gain the boon of life for over a hundred kshatriyas, and the man-eater in granting the boon to him said:

These warrior chiefs held captive in my hand,
By sprinkling hailed as kings in many a land,
These mighty lords, I'll not eat them, I swear:
This second boon too grant I to thy prayer.

[497] Well, did these kings hear what they were talking about? They did not hear it all. For when the man-eater lighted a fire, for fear of any injury to the tree from the smoke and flame, he stepped back a space from it, and the Great Being conversed with him, seated in the interval between the fire and the tree, and consequently these kings did not hear all that they said, but heard only partially, and they comforted one another, saying, "Fear not: now will Sutasoma convert the man-eater," and at this moment the Great Being spoke this stanza:

Thou captive holdst a hundred kings and more,
All strung up by their hands and weeping sore,
Restore then each to his own realm again:
This the third boon I would from thee obtain.