500
ing for a mighty elephant? So I know for certain that they have been
put up to asking me by some one. Happen what will, I must give them my
splendid elephant, for how can I let a suppliant go away without obtaining his desire, while I live?" After going through these reflections, Tárávaloka gave the elephant to those Bráhmans with unwavering mind.
Then Chandrávaloka's subjects, seeing that splendid elephant being led away by those Bráhmans, went in a rage to the king, and said, " Your son has now abandoned this kingdom, and surrendering all his rights has taken upon him the vow of a hermit. For observe, he has given to some suppliants this great elephant Kuvalayapída, the foundation of the kingdom's prosperity, that scatters with its mere smell all other elephants. So you must either send your son to the forest to practise asceticism, or take back the elephant, or else we will set up another king in your place."*[1]
When Chandrávaloka had been thus addressed by the citizens, he sent his son a message in accordance with their demands through the warder. When his son Tárávaloka heard that, he said, " As for the elephant, I have given it away, and it is my principle to refuse nothing to suppliants; but what do I care for such a throne as this, which is under the thumb of the subjects, or for a royal dignity which does not benefit others,†[2] and anyhow is transient as the lightning? So it is better for me to live in the forest, among trees which give the fortune of their fruits to be enjoyed by all, and not here among such beasts of men as these subjects are."‡[3] When Tárávaloka had said this, he assumed the dress of bark, and after kissing the feet of his parents and giving away all his wealth to suppliants, he went out from his own city, accompanied by his wife, who was firm in the same resolution as himself, and his two children, comforting, as well as he could, the weeping Brahmans. Even beasts and birds, when they saw him setting forth, wept so piteously that the earth was bedewed with their rain of tears.
Then Tárávaloka went on his way, with no possessions but a chariot and horses for the conveyance of his children; but some other Bráhmans asked him for the horses belonging to the chariot; he gave them to them immediately, and drew the chariot himself, with the assistance of his wife
- ↑ * This story was evidently composed at a time when the recollections of the old clan-system were vivid in the minds of the Hindus. See Rhys David's Buddhism, p. 28. Gautama's relations " complained in a body to tho Rájá Suddhodana that his son, devoted to home pleasures, neglected those manly exercises necessary for one who might hereafter have to lead his kinsmen in case of war "
- ↑ † I read anyánupayoginyá which I find in MS. No. 3003. No. 1882 has anyánupabhoginyá. In the other MS the passage is omitted. Another syllable is clearly required. The Sanskrit College MS. reads kim cháuyánupayoginyatra.
- ↑ ‡ Cp. Richard II, V. 1. 35.
