Page:Sacred Books of the Buddhists Vol 1.djvu/199

 The Bodhisattva spoke: 'Sensual enjoyments are accompanied by endless sins, sir. Why, hear then, I will tell thee concisely, what the Munis have in view that makes them blame sensual enjoyments.

26. 'On account of them, men incur captivity and death, grief, fatigue, danger, in short manifold sufferings. For the sake of them, kings are eager to oppress righteousness, and consequently fall into hell after death.

27. 'When the ties of friendship are suddenly loosened, when men enter the road of political wisdom, that unclean path of falseness, when they lose their good reputation and hereafter come to meet with sufferings —is it not sensual enjoyments that are the cause thereof?

28. 'Now, since worldly pleasures in this manner tend to the destruction of all conditions of men, the highest, the middle and the lowest, both in this world and in the next, the Munis, O Sakra, who long only for the Self, keep aloof from them, as they would from angry serpents.'

Then Sakra, the Lord of the Devas, approved his words, saying, 'Well spoken,' and as he was propitiated by the greatness of mind of those Rishis, he confessed that he himself had committed the theft.

29, 30. ‘A high opinion of virtue may be tested by trial. Thus considering, I hid the lotus-stalks in order to try you. And now, how fortunate is the world in that it possesses such Munis as you, whose glory is tested by fact. And thou, here, take these lotus-stalks, as a proof of a constant holy behaviour.'

With these words he handed the stalks over to the Bodhisattva. But the Bodhisattva reproved his unbecoming and audacious way of proceeding in terms though modest, yet expressive of noble self-esteem.

31. We are no kinsfolk of thine, nor thy comrades, nor are we thy actors or buffoons. What, then, is the reason for thy coming here, Lord of the Devas, to play with Rishis in this manner?'

At these words Sakra, the Lord of the Devas,