Page:Buddhist Birth Stories, or, Jātaka Tales.djvu/330

 No. 14.

VĀTA-MIGA JĀTAKA.

The Greedy Antelope.

"There is nothing worse than greed, they say" — This the Master told when he was living at Jetavana about the Elder named Tissa the younger, the keeper of the law concerning food.

For when the Master, we are told, was residing at the Bambu-grove, near Rājagaha, a young man of a very wealthy family of distinction, by name Prince Tissa, went one day to the Bambu-grove, and when he had heard the Teacher's discourse, he became desirous to devote himself to a religious life. And when, on his asking leave to enter the Order, his parents refused their consent, he compelled them to grant it, in the same manner as Raṭṭha-pāla had done, by refusing to eat for seven days. And he then took the vows under the Master.

The Master remained at the Bambu-grove about half a month after receiving him into the Order, and then went to Jetavana. There this young man of family passed his life, begging his daily food in Sāvatthi, and observing all the Thirteen Practices by which the passions are quelled. So under the name of "The Young Tissa who keeps the