Page:Buddhist Birth Stories, or, Jātaka Tales.djvu/321

Rh Lady his mother, were nearly ruined by Deva-datta, through his not being a Buddha, and having no forbearance or kindness; but the Supreme Buddha, being the King of Righteousness, and being perfect in kindness and forbearance and compassion, became the means of salvation to them both!"

Then the Master entered the hall with the dignity peculiar to a Buddha, and seating himself, asked them, "What are you sitting here talking about, O mendicants?"

"Lord," said they, "concerning your excellences!" And they told him the whole matter.

"Not now only, O mendicants!" said he, "has the Successor of the Buddhas been a source of salvation and a refuge to these two; formerly also he was the same."

Then the monks asked the Blessed One to explain how that was; and the Blessed One made manifest that which had been hidden by change of birth.

Long ago, when Brahma-datta was reigning in Benares, the Bodisat came to life as a deer. When he was born he was of a golden colour; his eyes were like round jewels, his horns were white as silver, his mouth was red as a cluster of kamala flowers, his hoofs were bright and hard as lacquer-work, his tail as fine as the tail of a Tibetan ox, and his body as large in size as a foal's.

He lived in the forest with an attendant herd of five hundred deer, under the name of the King of the Banyan Deer; and not far from him there dwelt another deer,