Page:Buddhist Birth Stories, or, Jātaka Tales.djvu/304

188 Then he gave to the barber a grant of a village whose revenue amounted to a hundred thousand. And he sent for his eldest son, and said to him, "My son! grey hairs have appeared on my head. I am become an old man. I have done with all human hopes; now I will seek heavenly things. It is time for me to abandon the world. Do you assume the sovereignty. I will embrace the religious life, and, dwelling in the garden called Makhā Deva's Mango-park, I will train myself in the characteristics of those who are subdued in heart."

His ministers, when he formed this intention, came to him and said, "What is the reason, O king! of your giving up the world?"

Then the king, taking the grey hair in his hand, uttered this verse —

These grey hairs that have come upon my head Are angel messengers appearing to me, Laying stern hands upon the evening of my life! 'Tis time I should devote myself to holy thought!

Having thus spoken, he laid down his sovranty that very day, and became a hermit; and living in the Mango-grove of Makhā Deva, of which he had spoken, he spent eighty-four thousand years in practising perfect goodwill towards all beings, and in constant devotion to meditation. And after he died he was born again in the Brahma heaven; and when his allotted time there was exhausted, he became in Mithilā a king called Nimi, and reunited his scattered family. And after that he became a