Page:Buddhist Birth Stories, or, Jātaka Tales.djvu/443

Rh the ocean. In his house again a constant supply of rice was ordered to be kept in readiness for five hundred members of the Order, so that the Merchant's house was to the Order like a public pool dug where four high roads meet; and he stood to them in the place of father and mother. On that account even the Supreme Buddha himself used to go to his residence; and the Eighty Chief Elders also; and the number of other monks coming and going was beyond measure.

Now his mansion was seven stories high, and there were seven great gates to it, with battlemented turrets over them; and in the fourth turret there dwelt a fairy who was a heretic. When the Supreme Buddha entered the house, she was unable to stop up above in the turret, but used to bring her children downstairs and stand on the ground floor; and so she did when the Eighty Chief Elders, or the other monks were coming in or going out.

And she thought, "So long as this mendicant Gotama and his disciples come to the house, there is no peace for me. I can't be eternally going downstairs again and again, to stand on the ground floor; I must manage so that they come no more to the house."

So one day, as soon as the chief business manager had retired to rest, she went to him, and stood before him in visible shape.

"Who's there?" said he.

"It's I; the Fairy who dwells in the turret over the fourth gate."

"What are you come for?"

"You are not looking after the Merchant's affairs. Paying no thought to his last days, he takes out all his money, and makes the mendicant Gotama full of it. He undertakes no business, and sets no work on foot. Do