Page:Sacred Books of the Buddhists Vol 1.djvu/198

 The elephant spoke:

22. “May he come into captivity from the lovely forest into the company of men, fettered with six hundred solid chains, and suffer pain from the sharp goads of his driver, he who took thy lotus-stalks, O most excellent of Munis!'

The monkey said:

23. ‘May he who moved by greediness took thy lotus-stalks wear a flower-garland and a tin collar rubbing his neck, and beaten with a stick pass before the face of a serpent, and with a long wreath hanging from his shoulder, live in the houses (of men)!'

In reply, the Bodhisattva addressed all of them with words both persuasive and kind, indicating how deep-rooted was his dispassionateness.

24. “May he who falsely said “they have disappeared,” though he had them, obtain to his heart's desire worldly pleasures and die a householder. May the same be the fate of him who suspects you of a similar action!

Those extraordinary protestations of them, indicative of their abhorrence of the enjoyment of worldly pleasures, roused the astonishment and respect of Sakra, the Lord of the Devas. He made himself visible in his own brilliant shape, and drawing near to those Rishis, said as if with resentment: You ought not to speak so.

25. Those enjoyments—to obtain which everybody who longs for happiness strives after to such a degree as to banish sleep from his eyes and to undertake any form of penance and toil-you censure, calling them “worldly pleasures !” Why do you judge so ?'