Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 3 1885.djvu/365

 FOLK-TALES OF INDIA. 357

" In front of the Tindu that's facing you now There stands a tall fig-tree, once known and ador'd- A treasure doth lie at the root of that tree, Pray dig it up quick, no owner it claims."

And when the tree-sprite had thus spoken, he gave this advice to the brahman : " Depart ; I will of a truth bring it (the treasure) to your house and deposit it in such and such a place Do you, as long as life lasts, enjoy your riches, give alms, and keep the moral precepts."

Then the tree-sprite, by its supernatural power, deposited the treasure in the house of the brahman.

The Godha Jataka.* The greedy Hermit and the wise Lizard.

In days gone by, when Brahmadatta reigned at Benares, the Bodhisat was re-born among the lizard-kind. At that time an austere anchorite, possessing the five abhimuts, lived in an hermitage within the forest near a border-village. The villagers zealously ministered to the wants of the hermit.

The Bodhisat dwelt at the end of a cloister, on an ant-hill, and, while living there, he, two or three times a day, paid a visit to the holy man, and, having listened to his discourse concerning things spiritual and temporal, he saluted him, and then returned to his dwelling- place.

After a time the hermit took leave of the villagers, and went elsewhere. But after the departure of the virtuous anchorite there came a false ascetic who took up his quarters in the aforesaid hermitage.

The Bodhisat thought to himself — " This person is religious," and so he visited him just as he had previously the good hermit.

One day in the hot season, quite unexpectedly, there came a down- fall of rain, and the ants came out of their retreat. The lizards went


 * Jdtaha Booh, vol. i. No. L38, p. 480.