(continuation)

[195] This is no common snake of mine, she'll make you lower your boastful tone;

A daughter of the Nāga king, and a half-sister of my own, –

Accimukhī, her mouth shoots flames; her poison 's of the deadliest known."

Then he called to her in the middle of the crowd, "O Accimukhī, come out of my matted locks and stand on my hand"; and he put out his hand; and when she heard his voice she uttered a cry like a frog three times, while she was lying in his hair, and then came out and sat on his shoulder, and springing up dropped three drops of poison on the palm of his hand and then entered again into his matted locks. Sudassana stood holding the poison and exclaimed three times, "This country will be destroyed, this country will be wholly destroyed"; the sound filled all Benares with its extent of twelve leagues. The king asked what should destroy it. "O king, I see no place where I can drop this poison." "This earth is big enough, drop it there." "That is not possible," he answered, and he repeated a stanza:

"If I should drop it on the ground, listen, O king, to me, –

The grass and creeping plants and herbs would parched and blasted be."

"Well then, throw it into the sky." "That also is not possible," he said, and he repeated a stanza:

"If I should do thy hest, O king, and throw it in the sky,

No rain nor snow will fall from heaven till seven long years roll by."

"Then throw it into the water." "That is not possible," he said, and he repeated a stanza:

[196] "If in the water it were dropped, – listen, O king, to me, –

Fishes and tortoises would die and all that lives i’ the sea."

Then the king exclaimed, "I am utterly at a loss, – do you tell us some way to prevent the land being destroyed." "O king, cause three holes to be dug here in succession." The king did so. Sudassana filled the middle hole with drugs, the second with cowdung, the third with heavenly medicines; then he let fall the drops of poison into the middle hole. A flame, which filled the hole with smoke, burst out; this spread and caught the hole with the cowdung, and then bursting out again it caught the hole filled with the heavenly plants and consumed them all, and then itself became extinguished. Ālambāyana was standing near that hole, and the heat of the poison smote him, – the colour of his skin at once vanished and he became a white leper. Filled with terror, he exclaimed three times, "I will set the snake-king free." On hearing him the Bodhisatta came out of the jewelled basket, and assuming a form radiant with all kinds of ornaments, he stood with all the glory of Indra. Sudassana also and Accimukhī stood by. Then Sudassana said to the king, "Dost thou not know whose children these are?" "I know not." "Thou dost not know us, but thou knowest that the king of Kāsi gave his daughter Samuddajā to Dhataraṭṭha." "I know it well, for she was my youngest sister." "We are her sons, and you are our uncle." Then the king embraced them and kissed their heads and wept, and brought them up into the palace, and paid them great honour. While he was shewing all kindness to Bhūridatta he asked him how Ālambāna had caught him, when he possessed such a terrible poison. Sudassana related the whole story and then said, "O great monarch, a king ought to rule his kingdom in this way," and he taught his uncle the Law. Then he said, "O uncle, our mother is pining for want of seeing Bhūridatta, we cannot stay longer away from her." "It is right, you shall go; but I too want to see my sister; how can I see her?" "O uncle, where is our grandfather, the king of Kāsi?" [197] "He could not bear to live without my sister, so he left his kingdom and became an ascetic, and is now dwelling in such and such a forest." "Uncle, my mother is longing to see you and my grandfather; we will take her and go to our grandfather's hermitage, and then you too will see him." So they fixed a day and departed from the palace; and the king, after parting with his sister's sons, returned weeping; and they sank into the earth and went to the Nāga-world. [25]

VII.

When the Great Being thus came among them, the city became filled with one universal lamentation. He himself was tired out with his month's residence in the basket and took to a sick-bed; and there was no limit to the number of Nāgas who came to visit him, and he tired himself out, talking to them. In the meantime Kāṇāriṭṭha, who had gone to the world of the gods [26] and did not find the Great Being there, was the first to come back; so they made him the doorkeeper of the Great Being's sick residence, for they said that he was passionate and could keep away the crowd of Nāgas. Subhaga also, after searching all Himavat and after that the great ocean and the other rivers, came in the course of his wanderings to search the Yamunā. But when the outcast Brahmin saw that Ālambāna had become a leper, he thought to himself, "He has become a leper because he worried Bhūridatta; now I too, through lust of the jewel, betrayed him, although he had been my benefactor, to Ālambāna, and this crime will come upon me. Before it comes, I will go to the Yamunā and will wash away the guilt in the sacred bathing-place." So he went down into the water, saying that he would wash away the sin of his treachery. At that moment Subhaga came to the spot, and, hearing his words, said to himself, "This evil wretch for the sake of a gem-charm betrayed my brother, who had given him such a means of enriching himself, to Ālambāna; I. will not spare his life." So, twisting his tail round his feet and dragging him into the water, he held him down; then when he was breathless he let him remain quiet a while, [198] and when the other lifted his head up he dragged him in again and held him down; this he repeated several times, until at last the outcast Brahmin lifted his head and said:

"I'm bathing at this sacred spot here in Payāga's holy flood;

My limbs are wet with sacred drops, – what cruel demon seeks my blood?"

Subhaga answered him in the following stanza:

"He who, men say, in ancient days to this proud Kāsi wrathful came,

And wrapped it round with his strong coils, that serpent-king of glorious fame,

His son am I, who hold thee now: Subhaga, Brahmin, is my name."

The Brahmin thought, "Bhūridatta's brother will not spare my life, – but what if I were to move him to tender-heartedness by reciting the praises of his father and mother, and then beg my life?" So he recited this stanza:

"Scion of Kāsi's [27] royal race divine,

Thy mother born from that illustrious line,

Thou wouldst not leave the meanest Brahmin's slave

To perish drowned beneath the ruthless wave."

[199] Subhaga thought, "This wicked Brahmin thinks to deceive me and persuade me to let him go, but I will not give him his life"; so he answered, reminding him of his old deeds:

"A thirsty deer approached to drink – from your tree-porch your shaft flew down:

In fear and pain your victim fled, spurred by an impulse not its own;

Deep in the wood you saw it fall and bore it on your carrying-pole

To where a banyan's shoots grew thick, clustering around the parent bole;

The parrots sported in the boughs, the kokil's song melodious rose,

Green spread the grassy sward below, – evening invited to repose;

But there your cruel eye perceived my brother, who the boughs among

In summer pomp of colour drest sported with his attendant throng.

He in his joyance harmed you not, but you in malice did him slay,

An innocent victim, – lo that crime comes back on your own head to-day,

I will not spare your life an hour, – my utmost vengeance you shall pay."

Then the Brahmin thought, "He will not give me my life, but I must try my best to escape"; so he uttered the following stanza:

"Study, the offering of prayers, libations in the sacred fire,

These three things make a Brahmin's life inviolate to mortal's ire."

[200] Subhaga, when he heard this, began to hesitate and he thought to himself, "I will carry him to the Nāga-world and ask my brothers about this"; so he repeated two stanzas:

"Beneath the Yamunā's sacred stream, stretching to far Himālaya's feet,

Lies deep the Nāga capital where Dhataraṭṭha holds his seat;

There all my hero brethren dwell, to them will I refer thy plea,

And as their judgment shall decide, so shall thy final sentence be."

He then seized him by the neck, and, shaking him with loud abuse and revilings, carried him to the gate of the Great Being's palace. [28]

VIII.

Kāṇāriṭṭha who had become the doorkeeper was sitting there, and when he saw that the other was being dragged along so roughly he went to meet them, and said, "Subhaga, do not hurt him; all Brahmins are the sons of the great spirit Brahman; if he learned that we were hurting his son he would be angry and would destroy all our Nāga-world. In the world Brahmins rank as the highest and possess great dignity; thou dost not know what their dignity is, but I do." For they say that Kāṇāriṭṭha in the birth immediately preceding this had been born as a sacrificing Brahmin, and therefore he spoke so positively. Moreover being skilled in sacrificial lore from his former experiences, he said to Subhaga and the Nāga assembly, "Come, I will describe to you the character of sacrificial Brahmins," and he went on as follows:

"The Veda and the sacrifice, things of high worth and dignity,

Belong to Brahmins as their right, however worthless they may be;

Great honour is their privilege and he who flouts them in his scorn,

Loses his wealth and breaks the law, and lives guilt-burdened and forlorn."

[201] Then Kāṇāriṭṭha asked Subhaga if he knew who had made the world; and when he confessed his ignorance, he told this stanza to shew that it was created by Brahman the grandfather of the Brahmins:

"Brahmins he made for study; for command

He made the Khattiyas; Vessas plough the land;

Suddas he servants made to obey the rest;

Thus from the first went forth the Lord's behest."

Then he said, "These Brahmins have great powers, and he who conciliates them and gives them gifts is not fated to enter any new birth, but goes at once to the world of the gods "; and he repeated these stanzas:

"Kuvera, Soma, Varuṇa, of old,

Dhātā, Vidhātā, and the Sun and Moon,

Offered their sacrifices manifold,

And to their Brahmin priests gave every boon.

The giant Ajjun too who wrought such woe,

Round whose huge bulk a thousand arms once grew,

Each several pair with its own threatening bow,

Heaped on the sacred flame the offerings due."

[202] Then he went on describing the glory of the Brahmins and how the best gifts are to be given to them.

"That ancient king who feasted them so well

Became at last a god, old stories tell.

King Mujalinda long the fire adored,

Glutting its thirst with all the ghee he poured;

And at the last the earned reward it brought,

He found the pathway to the heaven he sought."

He also repeated these stanzas to illustrate this lesson:

[203] "Dujīpa lived a thousand years in all,

Chariots and hosts unnumbered at his call;

But an ascetic's life was his at last,

And from his hermitage to heaven he past.

Sāgara all the earth in triumph crost,

And raised a golden sacrificial post;

None worshipped fire more zealously than he,

And he too rose to be a deity.

The milk and curds which Aṅga, Kāsi's lord,

In his long offerings so profusely poured,

Swelled Gaṅgā to an ocean by their flood,

Until at last in Sakka's courts he stood.

Great Sakka's general on the heavenly plain,

By soma-offerings did the honour gain;

[204] He who now marshals the immortal powers

Rose from a mortal sin-stained lot like ours.

Brahma the great Creator, he who made

The mountains landmarks in his altar yard,

Whose hest the Ganges in its path obeyed,

By sacrifice attained his great reward."

Then he said to him, "Brother, know you how this sea became salt and undrinkable?" "I know not, Ariṭṭha." "You only know how to injure Brahmins, – listen to me." Then he repeated a stanza:

"A hermit student, versed in prayer and spell,

Once stood upon the shore, as I've heard tell;

[205] He touched the sea, – it forthwith swallowed him,

And since that day has been undrinkable."

"These Brahmins are all like this"; and he uttered another stanza:

"When Sakka first attained his royal throne,

His special favour upon Brahmins shone;

East, west, north, south, they made their ritual known,

And found at last a Veda of their own."

Thus Ariṭṭha described the Brahmins and their sacrifices and Vedas.

When they heard his words, many Nāgas came to visit the Bodhisatta's sick-bed, and they said to one another, "He is telling a legend of the past," and they seemed to be in danger of accepting false doctrine. Now the Bodhisatta heard it all as he lay in his bed, and the Nāgas told him about it; then the Bodhisatta reflected, "Ariṭṭha is telling a false legend, – I will interrupt his discourse, and put true views into the assembly." So he rose and bathed, and put on all his ornaments, and sat down in the pulpit and gathered all the Nāga multitude together. Then he sent for Ariṭṭha and said to him, "Ariṭṭha, you have spoken falsely when you describe the Brahmins and the Vedas, for the sacrifice of victims by all these ceremonies of the Vedas is not held to be desirable and it does not lead to heaven, – see what unreality there is in your words"; so he repeated these gāthās describing the various kinds of sacrifice:

[206] "These Veda studies are the wise man's toils,

The lure which tempts the victims whom he spoils;

A mirage formed to catch the careless eye,

But which the prudent passes safely by.

The Vedas have no hidden power to save

The traitor or the coward or the knave;

The fire, though tended well for long years past,

Leaves his base master without hope at last.

Though all earth's trees in one vast heap were piled

To satisfy the fire's insatiate child,

Still would it crave for more, insatiate still, –

How could a Nāga hope that maw to fill?

Milk ever changes, – thus where milk has been

Butter and curds in natural course are seen;

And the same thirst for change pervades the fire,

Once stirred to life it mounts still higher and higher.

Fire bursts not forth in wood that 's dry or new,

Fire needs an effort ere it leaps to view;

If dry fresh timber of itself could burn,

Spontaneous would each forest blaze in turn.

If he wins merit who to feed the flame

Piles wood and straw, the merit is the same

When cooks light fires or blacksmiths at their trade

Or those who burn the corpses of the dead.

[207] But none, however zealously he prays

Or heaps the fuel round to feed the blaze,

Gains any merit by his mummeries, –

The fire for all its crest of smoke soon dies.

Were Fire the honoured being that you think,

Would it thus dwell with refuse and with stink,

Feeding on carrion with a foul delight,

Where men in horror hasten from the sight?

Some worship as a god the crested flame,

Barbarians give to water that high name;

But both alike have wandered from their road:

Neither is worthy to be called a god.

To worship fire, the common drudge of all,

Senseless and blind and deaf to every call,

And then one's self to live a life of sin, –

How could one dream that this a heaven could win?

These Brahmins all a livelihood require,

And so they tell us Brahma worships fire;

Why should the increate who all things planned

Worship himself the creature of his hand?

Doctrines and rules of their own, absurd and vain,

Our sires imagined wealth and power to gain;

"Brahmins he made for study, for command

He made the Khattiyas; Vessas plough the land;

Suddas he servants made to obey the rest;

Thus from the first went forth his high behest." [29]

[208] We see these rules enforced before our eyes,

None but the Brahmins offer sacrifice,

None but the Khattiya exercises sway,

The Vessas plough, the Suddas must obey.

These greedy liars propagate deceit,

And fools believe the fictions they repeat;

He who has eyes can see the sickening sight;

Why does not Brahma set his creatures right?

If his wide power no limits can restrain,

Why is his hand so rarely spread to bless?

Why are his creatures all condemned to pain?

Why does he not to all give happiness?

Why do fraud, lies, and ignorance prevail?

Why triumphs falsehood, – truth and justice fail?

I count your Brahma one th’ injust among,

Who made a world in which to shelter wrong.

Those men are counted pure who only kill

Frogs, worms, bees, snakes or insects as they will, –

These are your savage customs which I hate, –

Such as Kamboja [30] hordes might emulate.

[210] If he who kills is counted innocent

And if the victim safe to heaven is sent,

[211] Let Brahmins Brahmins kill – so all were well –

And those who listen to the words they tell.

We see no cattle asking to be slain

That they a new and better life may gain, –

Rather they go unwilling to their death

And in vain struggles yield their latest breath.

To veil the post, the victim and the blow

The Brahmins let their choicest rhetoric flow;

"The post shall as a cow of plenty be

Securing all thy heart's desires to thee";

But if the wood thus round the victim spread

Had been as full of treasure as they said,

As full of silver, gold and gems for us,

With heaven's unknown delights as overplus,

They would have offered for themselves alone

And kept the rich reversion as their own.

These cruel cheats, as ignorant as vile,

Weave their long frauds the simple to beguile,

"Offer thy wealth, cut nails and beard and hair,

And thou shalt have thy bosom's fondest prayer."

The offerer, simple to their hearts' content,

Comes with his purse, they gather round him fast,

Like crows around an owl, on mischief bent,

[212] And leave him bankrupt and stripped bare at last,

The solid coin which he erewhile possessed,

Exchanged for promises which none can test.

Like grasping strangers [31] sent by those who reign

The cultivators' earnings to distrain,

These rob where’er they prowl with evil eye, –

No law condemns them, yet they ought to die.

The priests a shoot of Butea must hold

As part o’ the rite sacred from days of old;

Indra's right arm ’tis called; but were it so,

Would Indra triumph o’er his demon foe?

Indra's own arm can give him better aid,

’Twas no vain sham which made hell's hosts afraid.

"Each mountain-range which now some kingdom guards

Was once a heap in ancient altar-yards,

And pious worshippers with patient hands

Piled up the mound at some great lord's commands."

So Brahmins say, – fie on the idle boast,

Mountains are heaved aloft at other cost;

And the brick mound, search as you may, contains

No veins of iron for tile miner's pains.

[213] A holy seer well known in ancient days,

On the seashore was praying, legend says;

There was he drowned and since this fate befell

The ocean's waves have been undrinkable.

Rivers have drowned their learned men at will

By hundreds and have kept their waters still;

Their streams flow on and never taste the worse,

Why should the sea alone incur the curse?

And the salt-streams which run upon the land

Spring from no curse but own the digger's hand.

At first there were no women and no men;

’Twas mind first brought mankind to light, – and then,

Though they all started equal in the race,

[32] Their various failures made them soon change place;

It was no lack of merit in the past,

But present faults which made them first or last.

A clever low-caste lad would use his wit,

And read the hymns nor find his head-piece split;

The Brahmins made the Vedas to their cost

When others gained the knowledge which they lost.

Thus sentences are made and learned by rote

In metric forms not easily forgot, –

The obscurity but tempts the foolish mind,

They swallow all they're told with impulse blind.

Brahmins are not like violent beasts of prey,

No tigers, lions of the woods are they;

They are to cows and oxen near akin,

Differing outside they are as dull within.

[214] If the victorious king would cease to fight

And live in peace with his friends and follow right,

Conquering those passions which his bosom rend,

What happy lives would all his subjects spend!

The Brahmin's Veda, Khattiya's policy,

Both arbitrary and delusive be,

They blindly grope their way along a road

By some huge inundation overflowed.

In Brahmin's Veda, Khattiya's policy,

One secret meaning we alike can see;

For after all, loss, gain and glory, and shame

Touch the four castes alike, to all the same.

As householders to gain a livelihood

Count all pursuits legitimate and good,

So Brahmins now in our degenerate day

Will gain a livelihood in any way.

The householder is led by love of gain,

Blindly he follows, dragged in pleasure's train,

Trying all trades, deceitful and a fool,

Fallen alas! how far from wisdom's rule."

[217] The Great Being, having thus confuted their arguments, established his own doctrine, and when they heard his exposition the assembly of Nāgas was filled with joy. The Great Being delivered the outcast Brahmin from the Nāga-world and did not wound him with a single contemptuous speech. Sāgara-brahmadatta also did not let the appointed day pass, but went with his complete army to his father's dwelling-place. The Great Being also, having proclaimed by beat of drum that he would visit his maternal uncle and grandfather, crossed over from the Yamunā and went first to that hermitage with great pomp and magnificence, and his remaining brothers and his father and mother came afterwards. At that moment Sāgara-brahmadatta, not recognising the Great Being, as he approached with his great retinue, asked his father: [33]

"Whose drums are these?. whose tabours, conchs, and what those instruments, whose voice

Swells with deep concert through the air and makes the monarch's heart rejoice?

Who is this youth who marches there, with quiver and with bow arrayed,

Wearing a golden coronet that shines like lightning round his head?

Who is it that approaches there, whose youthful countenance shines bright,

Like an acacia brand which glows in a smith's forge with steady light?

[218] Whose bright umbrella, golden-hued, o’erpowers the sun in noonday's pride,

While deftly hangs a fly-flapper ready for action by his side?

See peacocks' tails on golden sticks wave by his face with colours blent, [34]

While his bright ear-rings deck his brow as lightning wreaths the firmament.

What hero owns that long large eye, that tuft of wool between the brows,

Those teeth as white as buds or shells, their line so faultless and so even,

Those lac-dyed hands, those bimba lips, – he shines forth like the sun in heaven;

Like some tall sāl-tree full of bloom, upon a mountain peak alone,

Indra in his triumphant dress with every demon foe o’erthrown.

Who is it bursts upon our view, drawing from out its sheath his brand,

Its jewelled handle and rich work radiant with splendour in his hand,

Who now takes off his golden shoes, richly inwrought with varied thread,

And, bending with obeisance low, pours honour on the Sage's head?"

[219] Being thus asked by his son Sāgara-brahmadatta, the ascetic, possessed of transcendent knowledge and supernatural power, replied, "O my son, these are the sons of King Dhataraṭṭha, the Nāga sons of thy sister"; and he repeated this gāthā:

"These are all Dhataraṭṭha's sons glorious in power and great in fame, –

They all revere Samuddajā and her as common mother claim."

While they were thus talking, the host of Nāgas came up and saluted the ascetic's feet and then sat down on one side. Samuddajā also saluted her father, and then after weeping returned with the Nāgas to the Nāga-world. Sāgara-brahmadatta stayed there for a few days and then went to Benares, and Samuddajā died in the Nāga-world. The Bodhisatta, having kept the precepts all his life and performed all the duties of the fast-day, at the end of his life went with the host of Nāgas to fill the seats of heaven.

After the lesson the Teacher exclaimed, "Thus pious disciples, wise men of former times before the Buddha was born, gave up the glory of the Nāga state and rigorously fulfilled the duties of the fast-day"; and he then identified the birth: "At that time the family of the great King were my father and mother, Devadatta was the outcast Brahmin, Ānanda was Somadatta, Uppalavaṇṇā was Accimukhī, Sāripputta was Sudassana, Moggallāna was Subhaga, Sunakkhatta was Kāṇāriṭṭha, and I myself was Bhūridatta."