Page:Buddhist Birth Stories, or, Jātaka Tales.djvu/402

286 forth into mighty cries. And Sakka asked his charioteer, Mātali —

"What noise is this, friend Mātali? How pathetic is that cry!"

"O Lord! as the Silk Cotton Tree Forest falls, torn up by the swiftness of your car, the young of the Winged Creatures, quaking with the fear of death, are shrieking all at once together!"

Then answered the Great Being, "O my good Mātali! let not these creatures suffer on our account. Let us not, for the sake of supremacy, put the living to pain. Rather will I, for their sake, give my life as a sacrifice to the Titans. Stop the car!"

And so saying, he uttered the stanza —

"Let the Nestlings in the Silk Cotton Wood Escape, O Mātali, our chariot pole. Most gladly let me offer up my life: Let not these birds, then, be bereft of offspring!"

Then Mātali, the charioteer, on hearing what he said, stopped the car, and returned towards heaven by another way. But as soon as they saw him stopping, the Titans thought, "Assuredly the Archangels of other world-systems must be coming; he must have stopped his car because he has received reinforcements!" And terrified with the fear of death, they took to flight, and returned to the Abode of the Titans.

And Sakka re-entered his heavenly city, and stood in the midst thereof, surrounded by the hosts of angels from both the heavens. And that moment the Palace of Glory burst through the earth and rose up a thousand leagues