Page:Buddhist Birth Stories, or, Jātaka Tales.djvu/344

228 having killed that one goat, I have had my head cut off in five hundred births, less one. This is my five hundredth birth, the last of the series; and it was at the thought, 'To-day I shall be free from that great misery,' that I became glad at heart, and laughed in the manner you have heard. Then, again, I wept, thinking, 'I who just by having killed a goat incurred the misery of having five hundred times my head cut off, shall be released to-day from the misery; but this Brāhman, by killing me, will, like me, incur the misery of having his head cut off five hundred times;' and so I wept."

"Fear not, O goat! I will not kill you," said he.

"Brāhman! what are you saying? Whether you kill me or not, I cannot to-day escape from death."

"But don't be afraid! I will take you under my protection, and walk about close to you."

"Brāhman! of little worth is your protection; while the evil I have done is great and powerful!"

The Brāhman released the goat; and saying, "Let us allow no one to kill this goat," he took his disciples, and walked about with it. No sooner was the goat at liberty, than, stretching out its neck, it began to eat the leaves of a bush growing near the ridge of a rock. That very moment a thunderbolt fell on the top of the rock, and a piece of the rock split off, and hit the goat on his outstretched neck, and tore off his head. And people crowded round.

At that time the Bodisat had been born as the Genius of a tree growing on that spot. By his supernatural power he now seated himself cross-legged in the sky in the sight of the multitude; and thinking, "Would that these people, seeing thus the fruit of sin, would abstain