Page:Buddhist Birth Stories, or, Jātaka Tales.djvu/120

4 Then follows a stanza of Buddhavamsa enumerating some of these cries,

It goes on to say,

Now one day the wise Sumedha, having retired to the splendid upper apartment of his house, seated himself cross-legged, and fell a thinking. "Oh! wise man, grievous is rebirth in a new existence, and the dissolution of the body in each successive place where we are reborn. I am subject to birth, to decay, to disease, to death, — it is right, being such, that I should strive to attain the great deathless Nirvāna, which is tranquil, and free from birth, and decay, and sickness, and grief and joy; surely there must be a road that leads to Nirvāna and releases man from existence." Accordingly it is said,