Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 3 1885.djvu/367

 FOLK-TALES OF INDIA. 359

By way of rebuking him he uttered the following gdthd : —

" What need to thee, O fool of matted hair, What need to thee of garments made of skin? Thy heart is foul within with ravening lust, Though to the outward eye thou seemest clean."

And when the Bodhisat had rebuked that false ascetic he at once entered the ant-hill. The rascally ascetic, too, departed from that place.

The Vaka Jataka.*

In days long gone by, when Brahmadatta reigned at Benares, the Bodhisat was reborn as Indra, king of the gods. At that time a certain wolf lived on a rock, on the bank of the Ganges, When the winter-flood came it surrounded the rock.

The crow got on top of the rock and lay down. He had no means at all of getting food (where he was), nor was there any path by which he could go to seek his prey. The water, too, was even rising ; so he thought to himself : " I've no food at all here, nor is there a way by which I could go in search of prey. But methinks it were best, while I am lying here without anything to do, to keep the Uposatha- fast." So he forsooth, having resolved in his mind to keep Uposatha- day and to observe the ten precepts, lay down.

Then Indra, considering the matter, became aware of the weak resolve of that wolf, and thought, " I'll torment the wolf." Coming in the form of a wild goat, and stationing himself not far off the wolf, he showed himself. As soon as the wolf beheld the goat, thought he, " I'll see about keeping the Uposatha-fast some other day." Then, rising up, he made a spring in order to seize the goat. The goat^ skipping about hither and thither, did not allow itself to be caught. The wolf, unable to catch the goat, came to a standstill, and then laid himself down just as before, thinking, "I've not broken the UposatJia- fast (after all)."

Indra, by his divine power, stood even in the air, saying, " What


 * Jataka Booh, vol. ii. No. 300, p. 450.