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 "Eat your food to satisfy your hunger, and drink to satisfy you thirst. Satisfy the necessities of life like the butterfly that sips the flower, without destroying its fragrance or its texture.

"It is through not understanding and grasping the four truths, O brethren, that we have gone astray so long, and wandered in this weary path of transmigrations, both you and I, until we have found the truth.

"Practise the earnest meditations I have taught you. Continue in the great struggle against sin. Walk steadily in the roads of saintship. Be strong in moral powers. Let the organs of your spiritual sense be quick. When the seven kinds of wisdom enlighten your mind, you will find the noble, eightfold path that leads to Nirvāna.

"Behold, O brethren, the final extinction of the Tathāgata will take place before long. I now exhort you, saying: All component things must grow old and be dissolved again. Seek ye for that which is permanent, and work out your salvation with diligence.'"

XCV.

CHUNDA, THE SMITH.

And the Blessed One went to Pāvā.

When Chunda, the worker in metals, heard that the Blessed One had come to Pāvā and was staying in his mango grove, he came to the Buddha and respectfully invited him and the brethren to take their meal at his house. And Chunda prepared rice-cakes and a dish of dried boar's meat.

When the Blessed One had eaten the food prepared by Chunda, the worker in metals, there fell upon him a dire sickness, and sharp pain came upon him even unto death. 237