Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 4 1886.djvu/186

 178 FOLK- TALES OP INDIA.

" Perturb'd art thou in mind and thought, Distressed thy feelings are with grief ; Thine eyes are shedding bitter tears, And signs of woe do plainly show. What hast thou lost that's dear to thee ? Or what desirest thou to have That here thou stand' st thus woe-begone ? Come, brahman, say, hide not the cause."

Then the brahman informed the Bodhisat of the cause of his sorrow in the words of the following gdihd : —

" Methought I heard a tree-sprite say,
 * When you reach home your wife shall die ;

And should you not straightway go home.

Yet death yourself shall lay full low.'

On this account I am thus sad.

With care and sorrow sore bestead.

O tell me, learned Senaka,

What means the goblin's fearsome words."

The Bodhisat on hearing the brahman's speech, as if casting a net into the sea, spread out the net of knowledge, thinking to himself — in the sea, seized there by monsters of the deep, others fall into the Ganges, and are devoured by crocodiles ; some fall from trees, and are impaled by stakes, others are wounded by diverse weapons ; some take poison, others strangle themselves ; some fall down a precipice, others die also either of cold or of various diseases with which they are afflicted. Now of which of these many and various causes of death will this brahman, not returning home, die, or of what will his wife die as soon as he returns home ?"
 * ' These beings die from many and various causes. Some die drowned

With thoughts of this kind in his mind the Bodhisat looked up and saw the leather bag slung across the brahman's shoulder, and he came to the following conclusions — that a snake enticed by the odour of the meal must have crept into the bag which the brahman left open when, after his breakfast, he had gone to the spring to get a drink of water, and that the brahman on his return, unaware of the snake's presence, had fastened up his bag and set out on his home- ward journey So, by his knowledge and skill in expedients, the Bodhisat foresaw that if the brahman undid his bag at some resting-