Page:Buddhist Birth Stories, or, Jātaka Tales.djvu/424

308 "Well, brother, have you spent Lent in comfort? Have you brought your meditation to its conclusion?"

He told him what had happened, and said, "As I had no suitable lodging, I did not fully complete the meditation."

"Formerly, O monk," said the Teacher, "even animals were aware what was suitable for them, and what was not. Why did not you know it?"

And he told a tale.

Long ago, when Brahma-datta was reigning in Benāres, the Bodisat came to life again as a bird, and lived a forest life, attended by a flock of birds, near a lofty tree, with branches forking out on every side.

Now one day dust began to fall as the branches of the tree rubbed one against another. Then smoke began to rise. The Bodisat thought, on seeing this, —

"If these two branches go on rubbing like that they will send out sparks of fire, and the fire will fall down and seize on the withered leaves; and the tree itself will soon after be consumed. We can't stop here; we ought to get away at once to some other place." And he addressed the flock in this verse:

"The earth-born tree, on which We children of the air depend, It, even it, is now emitting fire. Seek then the skies, ye birds! Behold! our very home and refuge Itself has brought forth danger!"

Then such of the birds as were wise, and hearkened to