Page:Karl Gjellerup - The Pilgrim Kamanita - 1911.djvu/201

 world of change; the Master, the Perfect One, the Buddha."

"The Buddha is believed to have said that? Oh no, Vasitthi, that I do not credit. How often are the words of such great teachers misunderstood and inaccurately repeated, as I myself best know! For once, at Rajagriha, I spent the night in the entrance-hall of a potter, in the company of a foolish ascetic, who would insist on expounding the doctrine of the Buddha to me. What he advanced, however, was poor stuff, a self-fabricated and stupid doctrine, although I could, it is true, perceive that genuine sayings of the Master lay at the root of it—spoilt, however, in the attempt to correct them, and misinterpreted, by that contrary fellow. I am sure that wiseacres have also, here, reported this saying falsely to thee."

"Not so, my friend. For I have it from the lips of the Master himself."

"What, beloved? Thou hast thyself seen the Master, face to face?"

"I certainly have. I have sat at his feet."

"Oh, happy Vasitthi! For happy—that I can see—art thou now, in the memory of it. Ah, I also would be as happy and as confident as thou, had not, at the last moment, my evil fate—the fruit of wicked deeds of the past, grown ripe at that unhappy moment—robbed me of the joy of seeing the sublime Buddha. For a violent death swept me away as I was journeying to him, in the very place in which he was residing, too, in Rajagriha itself, on the morning after my talk with that fool of an ascetic. Only about a quarter of an hour's distance—just think of it—from the mango grove in which the Master had taken up his abode, did my fate overtake me.