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70 the townspeople. One day a white-robed ascetic arrived there, a man of the most exalted virtue. He became a great attraction to every one, so much so that the Buddhist devotee was quite thrown into the shade. The Buddhist was very much put out at all the veneration being transferred from himself to the newcomer, and so he dispatched a damsel of fascinating exterior to try and lure away his rival from the strict path of virtue. The professor of exalted virtue was a somewhat impressionable person, and the damsel succeeded perfectly; the result was that there was a good deal of talk in the town. The Buddhist took care to make the scandal as public as possible, and the townspeople said that the Buddhist was evidently a very religious person, but the virtuous ascetic, in spite of his white robes, was no better than he should be. The end of it was that the ascetic lighted a fire and burnt his white clothes, after which he bid farewell to the young lady who had been the cause of all the trouble, and started off very early the next morning as a half-naked mendicant. So the gossip came to an end, and the people said. After all, our Buddhist devotee is not equal to the holy man who wore the white garments.