Page:Sacred Books of the Buddhists Vol 1.djvu/299

 gone, the king in wrath came up to the holy Rishi, threatening him with drawn sword, in order to strike him himself. On seeing that the Great Being, though thus assailed, kept his calmness unchanged with imperturbable constancy, he became the more excited, and said to him :

37. “How skilled he is in playing the holy one, that he looks even at me as if he were a Muni, persisting in his guileful arrogance!'

The Bodhisattva, however, owing to his constant practice of forbearance, was not at all disturbed, and as he at once understood from that hostile proceeding, though not without astonishment, that it was the eagerness of wrath which caused the king to act in such an unbecoming way that he had thrown off all restraint of politeness and good manners and lost the faculty of distinguishing between his good and evil, he pitied that monarch and, with the object of appeasing him, said, in truth, something like this:

38. 'Meeting with disrespect is nothing strange in this world ; for this reason, since it may also happen to be the effect of destiny and guilt, I do not mind it. But this grieves me that I cannot perform towards you, not even with my voice, the usual kind reception, due to those who come to me.

'Moreover hear this, O sovereign.

39. 'To such as you, who are bound to put evildoers on the right way and to act for the interest of the creatures, it never behoves to do any rash action. You should rather follow, therefore, the way of reflection.

40. 'Something good may be considered evil ; inversely, something evil may appear in a false light. The truth about anything to be done cannot be discerned at once before inquiring by reasoning into the differences in the several modes of action.

41. 'But such a king as gets a true insight of his proper line of conduct by reflection and, after that, carries out his design with righteousness by the way of his policy, will always effect the thrift of dharma,