Page:Buddhist Birth Stories, or, Jātaka Tales.djvu/360

244 Bodisat. But the Bodisat preached the law to the king in the ten verses on righteousness, from the story of the Three Birds, beginning —

Walk righteously, O great king! ....

And confirming the king in the Five Commandments, and exhorting him thenceforward to be unweary (in well doing), he returned to the king his sceptre.

And the king listened to his exhortation, and granted security to all living creatures; and commanded a constant supply of food, like the royal food, for all the dogs from the Bodisat downwards. And he remained firm in the teaching of the Bodisat, and did works of charity and other good deeds his life long, and after death was reborn in the world of the gods.

Now the Exhortation of the Dog flourished for tens of thousands of years. But the Bodisat lived to a good old age and passed away according to his deeds.

When the Teacher had concluded this discourse, in illustration of his saying ("Not now only, O mendicants, did the Tathāgata act for the benefit of his relatives, formerly also he did so"), he made the connexion, and summed up the Jātaka by saying, "He who was then the king was Ānanda, the others were the Buddha's attendants, but the Dog was I myself."

END OF THE STORY OF THE DOG.