Page:Buddhist Birth Stories, or, Jātaka Tales.djvu/396

280 rank; and increasing in sons and daughters, he became a great giver of gifts, and kept the Five Commandments.

In that village there were as many as thirty families; and one day the men of those families stopped in the middle of the village to transact some village business. The Bodisat removed with his feet the lumps of soil on the place where he stood, and made the spot convenient to stand on; but another came up and stood there. Then he smoothed out another spot, and took his stand there; but another man came and stood upon it. Still the Bodisat tried again and again with the same result, until he had made convenient standing-room for all the thirty.

The next time he had an open-roofed shed put up there; and then pulled that down, and built a hall, and had benches spread in it, and a water-pot placed there. On another occasion those thirty men were reconciled by the Bodisat, who confirmed them in the Five Commandments; and thenceforward he continued with them in works of piety.

Whilst they were so living they used to rise up early, go out with bill-hooks and crowbars in their hands, tear up with the crowbars the stones in the four high roads and village paths, and roll them away, take away the trees which would be in the way of vehicles, make the rough places plain, form causeways, dig ponds, build public halls, give gifts, and keep the Commandments — thus, in many ways, all the dwellers in the village listened to the exhortations of the Bodisat, and kept the Commandments.

Now the village headman said to himself, "I used to have great gain from fines, and taxes, and pot-money, when these fellows drank strong drink, or took life, or broke the other Commandments. But now Magha the