Page:Buddhist Birth Stories, or, Jātaka Tales.djvu/38

xxvi and his charioteer alighted from their chariot. And they took out the horses, and removed their chariot, and made way for the king of Benāres!

But the king of Benāres exhorted Mallika the king, saying, "Thus and thus is it right to do." And returning to Benāres, he practised charity, and did other good deeds, and so when his life was ended he passed away to heaven.

And Mallika the king took his exhortation to heart; and having in vain searched the country through for a fault-finder, he too returned to his own city, and practised charity and other good deeds; and so at the end of his life he went to heaven.

The mixture in this Jātaka of earnestness with dry humour is very instructive. The exaggeration in the earlier part of the story; the hint that law depends in reality on false cases; the suggestion that to decide cases justly would by itself put an end, not only to 'the block in the law courts,' but even to all lawsuits; the way in which it is brought about that two mighty kings should meet, unattended, in a narrow lane; the cleverness of the first charioteer in getting out of his difficulties; the brand-new method of settling the delicate question of precedence — a method which, logically carried out, would destroy the necessity of such questions being raised at all; — all this is the amusing side of the