Page:Buddhist Birth Stories, or, Jātaka Tales.djvu/262

146 he uttered the following verse belonging to this lesson on Holding to the Truth; and thus uniting the two stories, he said —

1. Some speak that which none can question; Mere logicians speak not so. The wise man knows that this is so, And takes for true what is the truth!

Thus the Blessed One taught those disciples the lesson regarding truth. "Life according to the Truth confers the three happy conditions of existence here below, and the six joys of the Brahmalokas in the heaven of delight, and finally leads to the attainment of Arahatship; but life according to the Untrue leads to rebirth in the four hells and among the five lowest grades of man." He also proclaimed the Four Truths in sixteen ways. And at the end of the discourse on the Truths all those five hundred disciples were established in the Fruit of Conversion.

The Teacher having finished the discourse, and told the double narrative, established the connexion, and summed up the Jātaka by concluding, "The foolish young merchant of that time was Devadatta, his men were Devadatta's followers. The wise young merchant's men were the attendants of the Buddha, and the wise young merchant was I myself."

END OF THE STORY ON HOLDING TO THE TRUTH.