Page:Sacred Books of the Buddhists Vol 1.djvu/304

 body in manifold ways in numbers of existences. How is it that I should give up forbearance on account of the destruction of that frame? Would it not be as if I were to give up a jewel of the first water for a straw ?

68. 'Dwelling in the forest, bound to my vow of world-renunciation, a preacher of forbearance and soon a prey to death, how should I feel the desire of revenge? Do not fear me any longer, then, peace be to you, go!!

69. After thus instructing and at the same time admitting them as disciples in the Lore of the pious, that foremost of Munis, who kept his constancy unshaken owing to his relying on forbearance, left his earthly residence and mounted to Heaven.

So then, indeed, to those who have wholly imbibed the virtue of forbearance and are great in keeping their tranquillity there is nothing unbearable. [Thus is to be said when discoursing on the virtue of forbearance, taking the Muni for example. On account of the vices of rashness and wrath, taking the king for example, this story is also to be told, and when expounding the miserable consequences of sensual pleasures, saying: 'In this manner sensual pleasures lead a man to become addicted to wicked behaviour which brings him into ruin.' It may also be told with the object of showing the inconstancy of material prosperity.]

This story is also extant in the Avadânakalpalatâ, in pallava 38, as appears from the Anukramanî, verse 15 (yah kshântisîlah sântya-bhûk khinnângo 'py avikâravân), but this part of the work has as yet not been published nor is it found in the Cambridge MSS.

Since the tenets of unbelief are blameable, those who are possessed by the vice of clinging to a false belief are especially worth commiserating by the virtuous. This will be taught as follows.