Page:Buddhist Birth Stories, or, Jātaka Tales.djvu/418

 No. 35.

VAṬṬAKA JĀTAKA.

The Holy Quail.

"Wings I have that will not fly." — This the Master told when journeying through Magadha about the going out of a Jungle Fire.

For once, when the Master was journeying through Magadha, he begged his food in a certain village in that land; and after he had returned from his rounds and had finished his meal, he started forth again, attended by the disciples. Just then a great fire arose in the jungle. Many of the monks were in front, many of them behind. And the fire came spreading on towards them, one mass of smoke and flame. Some of the monks being unconverted were terrified with the fear of death; and called out —

"Let's make a counter-fire, so that the conflagration shall not spread beyond the space burnt out by that."

And taking out their fire-sticks they began to get a light.

But the others said, "Brethren, what is this you are doing? 'Tis like failing to see the moon when it has reached the topmost sky, or the sun as it rises with its thousand rays from the eastern quarter of the world; 'tis like people standing on the beachy shore and perceiving not the ocean, or standing close to Sineru and seeing not that mighty mountain, for you — when journeying along