Page:Sacred Books of the Buddhists Vol 1.djvu/38



Even in former births the Lord showed His innate, disinterested, and immense love towards all creatures, and identified himself with all beings. For this reason we ought to have the utmost faith in Buddha, the Lord. This will be instanced by the following great performance of the Lord in a previous birth, which has been celebrated by my, a venerator of the Three Jewels, an authority because of his thorough study of virtues, and beloved by his own   by virtue of his religious practices.

In the time that the Bodhisattva, who afterwards became our Lord, benefited the world by manifold outpourings of his compassion: gifts, kind words, succour, and similar blameless deeds of a wisdom-cultivating mind, quite in accordance with the excessive engagements to which he had bound himself, he took his birth in a most eminent and mighty family of Brâhmans, distinguished by the purity of their conduct owing to their attachment to their (religious) duties. Being purified by the  and the other sacraments in due order, he grew up and in a short time, owing to the innate quickness of his understanding, the excellent aid in his studies, his eagerness for learning and his zeal, he obtained the mastership in the eighteen branches of science and in all the arts ( s) which were not incompatible with the custom of his family.

5. To the Brâhmans he was (an authority) like the Holy Writ; to the Kshatriyas as venerable as a king; to the masses he appeared like the embodied Thousand-eyed One 1 ; to those who longed for knowledge he was a helpful father.

In consequence of his prosperous destiny (the result of merits formerly earned), a large store of wealth, distinction, and fame fell to his share. But the Bodhisattva took no delight in such things. His thoughts had been purified by his constant study of