23, 24. 'Your satisfaction was pure by the disinterested feeling you experienced, but that of those mendicants was troubled by cupidity. When you gave away that foremost of elephants, O most noble prince, wrath put the Sibis out of patience and caused them to transgress the limits of their duty. They are furious against you. You must go, indeed, the way of those who live as ascetics.'
At this moment the Bodhisattva displayed both his deeply-rooted affection for the mendicants which his continuous practice of compassion had firmly established, and his grand, immense patience. He said: 'The nature of the Sibis is fickle, and they cannot understand mine, it seems.
25. 'The objects of sense being outside of ourselves, it is superfluous to say that I would give away my eyes or my head[1]. For the benefit of the creatures I support this body, how much more the possession of clothes and vehicles.
26. 'Me, wanting to honour the requests of the mendicants, if need be, with my own limbs, the Sibis believe to restrain from charity by fear! So considering, they do but unfold their foolish fickleness of mind.
27. 'Let all Sibis kill me or banish me, I shall not desist from charity for that reason. With this mind I am ready to set out for the penance-grove.'
After this, the Bodhisattva said to his wife, who had turned pale while hearing the sad news: 'Your Highness has heard the resolution of the Sibis.' Madrî[2] replied: 'I have.' Visvantara said:
28. 'Now make a deposit, fair-eyed one, of all your
- ↑ The Bodhisattva is said to have given away his eyes in one of his existences (Story II). The gift of his head is related in some gâtaka, not found in this selection of Ârya Sûra. It occurs in Kshemendra's Avadânakalpalatâ, pallava the fifth.
- ↑ It is plain that Sûra supposes the story of Visvantara to be known to his readers. Neither the name of Visvantara's wife nor even the fact of his being married has been told before.
