Page:Sacred Books of the Buddhists Vol 1.djvu/119

 canopy; there blew an agreeable and odoriferous wind; and his path was shortened by Yakshas not enduring his labour and fatigue.

In this manner the Bodhisattva with his wife and children experienced the pleasure and the delight of a walk, without feeling the sensation of weariness, just as if he were in some park, and at last he perceived Mount Vaṅka. Being showed the way by some foresters, he went up to the penance-forest which was on that mountain. This forest was beset with manifold charming and smooth-barked, excellent trees, with their ornaments of twigs, flowers, and fruits; birds exulting with lust made it resound with their various notes; groups of dancing peacocks enhanced its beauty; many kinds of deer lived in it. It was encircled as with a girdle by a river of pure, blue water, and the wind was agreeable there, carrying red flower-dust. In this grove stood a desert hut of leaves, lovely to behold, and pleasing in every season. Visvakarman himself had built it by the orders of Sakra. There the Bodhisattva took up his residence.

52. Attended by his beloved wife, enjoying the artless and sweet talk of his children, not thinking of the cares of royalty, like one who is staying in his gardens, he practised in that grove strong penance for half a year.

One day, when the princess had gone to seek roots and fruits, and the prince watching the children kept himself within the borders of the hermitage, there arrived a Brâhman, whose feet and ankles were stiff with the dust of the journey, and whose eyes and cheeks were sunken by toil; he was bearing over his shoulder a wooden club, from which his waterpot hung down. His wife had despatched him with the pressing errand, to go and search after some attendance. When the Bodhisattva saw a mendicant coming up to him after a long time, his heart rejoiced, and his countenance began to beam. He went to meet him, and welcomed him with kind words. After the usual complimentary conversation he told him to enter the hermitage,