Page:Buddhist Birth Stories, or, Jātaka Tales.djvu/190

74 continents and the two thousand islands that surround them; and walking, as it were, in the vault of heaven, surrounded by an innumerable retinue." Then, so saying, he placed guards two miles apart in the four directions to prevent men of those four kinds coming to the sight of his son.

That day also, of eighty thousand clansmen assembled in the festival hall, each one dedicated a son, saying, "Whether this child becomes a Buddha or a king, we give each a son; so that if he shall become a Buddha, he shall live attended and honoured by Kshatriya monks, and if he shall become a king, he shall live attended and honoured by Kshatriya nobles." And the rāja appointed nurses of great beauty, and free from every fault, for the Bodisat. So the Bodisat grew up in great splendour and surrounded by an innumerable retinue.

Now one day the king held the so-called Ploughing Festival. On that day they ornament the town like a palace of the gods. All the slaves and servants, in new garments and crowned with sweet-smelling garlands, assemble in the king's house. For the king's work a thousand ploughs are yoked. On this occasion one hundred and eight minus one were, with their oxen-reins and cross-bars, ornamented with silver. But the plough for the king to use was ornamented with red gold; and so also the horns and reins and goads of the oxen.

The king, leaving his house with a great retinue, took his son and went to the spot. There there was a Jambu-tree thick with leaves and giving a dense shade. Under it the rāja had the child's couch laid out; and over the couch a canopy spread inlaid with stars of gold, and round it a curtain hung. Then leaving a guard there, the rāja, clad in splendour and attended by his ministers, went away to plough.