Page:Sacred Books of the Buddhists Vol 1.djvu/367

 in excessive running after deer? or art thou hit with an arrow by a hunter ? or has some disease seized thee?

5. 'Say then, what ails thee, if at least it may be told to me. Likewise tell me what may be done for thee in this case. And if perhaps I possess some power for the benefit of my friends, thou must enjoy the profit I may bring about by it and recover thy health .'

The lion spoke: •Thou, virtuous and best of birds, this illness is not the effect of exhaustion nor is it caused by disease nor occasioned by a hunter's arrow. But it is the fragment of a bone that sticks here in my throat and, like the point of an arrow, causes grievous pain to me. I can neither swallow it down nor throw it up. Therefore, it is now the time of assistance by friends. Now, if you know the way to make me sound, well, do it.' Then the Bodhisattva, owing to the keenness of his intellect, thought out some means of extracting the object which was the cause of his pain. Taking a piece of wood large enough to bar his mouth, he spoke to the lion: Open thy mouth as wide as ever thou canst. After he had done so, the Bodhisattva having placed the log tightly between the two rows of his teeth, entered the bottom of his throat. With the top of his beak he seized that fragment of bone sticking athwart in it by one edge, and having loosened it, took it by another edge, and at last drew it out. And while retiring, he dropped the log which barred the lion's mouth.

6. No wound-healer, however skilled in his art and clever, would have succeeded even with great effort in extracting that extraneous substance, yet he pulled it out, thanks to his keen intellect, though not exercised by professional training, but proper to him through hundreds of existences.