Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 4 1886.djvu/64

56 The king, on hearing these words of his, thought—"That's true. These beings are messengers of the belly, and go about urged on by lust, and lust causes them to go about. Oh! how charmingly has this brâhman spoken." So he was pleased with the man, and spake the following gâthâ:—

And, moreover, when he had thus spoken, he was pleased, and bestowed upon the brahman great honour, saying: "Of a truth this great man has told us a thing that we had not previously heard or thought of."

In days long since past, when Brahmadatta reigned at Benares, there lived near a certain village a false and deceitful ascetic. A wealthy landowner made a hermitage for him in the forest, and there let him live, and provided him with the best of food, prepared in his own house. Believing that ascetic to be "virtuous," the landowner, for fear of thieves, brought one hundred golden pieces to his hermitage, and buried them, saying, "Reverend sir, perhaps you'll have an eye to it." Then the ascetic replied, "It is not fit, sir, to talk thus to those who have renounced the world. We have no desire at all for another's wealth." Believing the other's word the landowner departed, saying, "Well! be it so."

The wicked ascetic said to himself, "On so much wealth as this I shall be able to live."