Page:Buddhist Legends Part 1.djvu/87

Rh with mechanical appliances worked from the inside by sixty men and could move very rapidly. Moreover, its belly contained also a quantity of elephant-dung, which the men inside dumped at regular intervals. King Udena suddenly found himself the captive of his rival. King Caṇḍa Pajjota, who, it appears, had resorted to this ruse to get possession of Udena's elephant-charm. Udena refused to teach him the charm unless he would pay him homage, but agreed to teach it to another. Caṇḍa Pajjota seated Udena on one side of a curtain and his own daughter on the other side, first telling Udena that his pupil was a hunchback and telling his daughter that her teacher was a leper. But Caṇḍa Pajjota lost both charm and daughter when Udena, in a fit of impatience, cried out, "Dunce of a hunchback!" and his pupil in indignation asked him to look and see for himself that she was no such thing.

In iv. 12 we are told that a disciple of the Buddha, angered by the repeated assertions of a friend that the Jain ascetics knew all about the past, the present, and the future, and could tell unerringly just what was going to happen and just what was not going to happen, resolved to teach those same ascetics a good lesson. So first preparing a trap for them, he invited them to his house. Suddenly they were all tipped over backwards and flung heels over head into a ditch filled with filth. In V. 13 a a cripple, seated behind a curtain, cures a house-priest of talkativeness by tossing pellets of goat's dung into his mouth. In iii. 4 a discontented young monk, who has resolved to return to the life of a layman, muses on ways and means of earning a living as he stands and fans his uncle. Roused to a high pitch of anger at the thought that his future wife may disobey him, he swings his fan vigorously and brings it down on the head of the older monk. The older monk, who happens to be his uncle, knowing the thoughts that are passing through the mind of his nephew, calmly remarks, "Nephew, you did n't succeed in hitting your wife; but why should an old monk suffer for it?" In viii. 10 a monk enters into a state of trance. A pack of thieves mistake him for the trunk of a tree, pile their sacks on his head and body, and lie down to sleep. In the morning they discover their mistake, beg the monk's pardon, and are converted.

There is grim humor in the ruse by which, in ii. 1. 6, King Udena makes Māgandiyā confess her guilt to the crime of causing the death by fire of Sāmāvatī. "Whoever did this deed must have loved me greatly." "It was I." "I am delighted! Send for your relatives, and I will reward you all properly." Thereupon many persons in no