Page:Sacred Books of the Buddhists Vol 1.djvu/309

 doubtful about the last statement. (Should this be the case and shouldst thou reason in this way:)

14. '“ Then the lotuses shutting and opening themselves are also a proof, indeed, of their having already practised those movements in other existences. Otherwise, this not being admitted, why dost thou affirm that the suckling's effort of taking the breast is the effect of exertion made in previous births ?”

'then thou art obliged to put aside that doubt by the consideration that in one case there is compulsion, in the other freedom, and exertion is not made there, but that it is made here.

15. 'In the case of the lotuses, their opening and shutting depend on time, but the effort to take the breast not so. Moreover, there is no exertion in the lotus, but in the case of the suckling it is evident there is. It is the power of the sun that is the cause of the lotuses expanding.

In this manner, then, Your Majesty, by a close and careful examination it is possible to have faith in the world hereafter.'

But the king, as he was deeply attached to the false lore he professed, also because the extent of his sin was large, felt uneasy on hearing that account of the other world, and spoke : 'Why, great Rishi,

16. 'If the next world is not that (well-known) bugbear for children, or if thou judgest it fit for me to believe in it, well, lend me five hundred nishkas here, and I shall give thee back one thousand in the next existence.'

Now when the king, according to his habitual boldness, had uttered without scruple this unbecoming language, which was as it were the vomiting of the poison of his wrong belief, the Bodhisattva answered him in a very proper way.

17. 'Still in this world those who wish to employ their money, in order to augment it, do not make any loan at all to a wicked person or a glutton or a block-