Page:Sacred Books of the Buddhists Vol 1.djvu/317

 this manner emotion of the mind makes a man inclined to care for his salvation.')

Of this Gâtaka no Pâli recension has been edited as yet, nor am I aware of its occurring in other texts of the Northern Buddhists. Yet, at least stanza 16, which contains the pointe of the tale, must be founded on some old traditional verse, one of those sacred sayings, of which the Gâtaka-class of the Holy Writ is made up.

If they may cause by it the happiness of others, even pain is highly esteemed by the righteous, as if it were gain. This will be taught by the following.

Once the Bodhisattva, it is said, was a huge elephant. He had his residence in some forest suitable for elephants, which had for its ornament, so to speak, the young offshoots of its excellent trees, whose tops were conspicuous by their twigs, flowers, and fruits. Its bottom was hidden under manifold kinds of shrubs and trees and grasses. It was beset with mountainridges and plateaus that made the effect, as if they were detained there by the charming beauty of the forest and would not long for another place. That wood was the abode of forest-animals, and contained a lake of abundant and deep water. It was far remote from the habitations of men, being surrounded on all sides by a large desert, where there was no tree, no shrub, no water. There he lived a solitary elephant.

1. Like an ascetic he stayed there, pleased with leaves of the trees, lotus-stalks and water, and with the virtues of contentment and tranquillity.

Now one time, when the Great Being was wandering near the border of that forest, it happened that he heard a noise of people from the side of the wilderness. Then this thought entered his mind: What may this be? First of all, there is in this direction no road leading to any country; nor is it likely, a hunting-party should have crossed a wilderness so large as this. Still less can there be question of an attempt to catch