Page:Buddhist Birth Stories, or, Jātaka Tales.djvu/292

176 For the story goes that he first valued the horses at a measure of rice just to please the king; and then, when he had taken the dealer's bribe, valued that measure of rice at the whole of Benares. Now at that time the circumference of the rampart of Benares was twelve leagues, and the land in its suburbs was three hundred leagues in extent. Yet the foolish fellow estimated that so-great city of Benares, together with all its suburbs, at a measure of rice!

Hearing this the ministers clapped their hands, laughing, and saying, "We used to think the broad earth, and the king's realm, were alike beyond price; but this great and famous royal city is worth, by his account, just a measure of rice! O the depth of the wisdom of the valuer! How can he have stayed so long in office? Truly he is just suited to our king!" Thus they laughed him to scorn.

Then the Bodisat uttered this stanza:

What is a measure of rice worth? All Benares and its environs! And what are five hundred horses worth? That same measure of rice!

Then the king was ashamed, and drove out that fool, and appointed the Bodisat to the office of Valuer. And in course of time the Bodisat passed away according to his deeds.

1 These lines are not in the printed text. But see the Corrigenda; and Léon Feer, in the Journal Asiatique for 1876, p. 520.