Page:Sacred Books of the Buddhists Vol 1.djvu/306

 (sîla), &c., felt a deep-rooted contempt for such as led à religious life, and owing to his want of faith, bore ill-will to the religious law-books. Being inclined to laugh at tales concerning the other world, and showing but little respect and honour to Sramanas and Brâhmans, whom he held in little esteem, he was exclusively given up to sensual pleasures.

2. He who is firm in the belief 'surely, there is a world hereafter where good and evil karma produce their fruit of happiness and mishap,' such a one will avoid evil actions and exert himself to cultivate pious ones. But by absence of faith a man follows his desires.

Now that king, whose disastrous attachment to a false lore must have mischievous consequences and become a source of calamities to his people, roused the compassion of that High-minded Devarshi. One time, when that king, always directed by his indulgence in sensual pleasures, was staying in a beautiful and lonely arbour, he descended in his flaming brilliancy from the Brahma-world before his eyes. On beholding that luminous being who blazed like a mass of fire, shone like an agglomeration of lightnings, and spread about a great brilliancy of intense light like a collection of sun-rays, the king, overwhelmed by that lustre, was alarmed and rose from his seat to meet him reverently with folded hands. Respectfully he looked up to him (who stood in the air) and said:

3. 'The sky makes thee a resting-place for thy feet, as if it were the earth, O thou being with lotus-like feet; thou shinest far and wide, bearing the lustre of the sun, so to speak. Who art thou, whose form is a delight to the eyes ?'

The Bodhisattva replied:

4. Know me, O king, one of those Devarshis who attained Brahma's world, having by the power of their mind's strong and assiduous attachment to religion vanquished love and hatred, those two proud foes, like two haughty chiefs of a hostile army in battle.'