long time in the empty hermitage, like the bird kâtaka[1] whose little ones have been killed.
69. 'How will mother behave, when coming back with the many roots and fruits she has gathered in the forest for us, she will find the hermitage empty?
70. 'Here, father, are our toy horses, elephants, and chariots. Half of them you must give to mother, that she may assuage her grief therewith.
71. 'You must also present to her our respectful salutations and withhold her at any rate from afflicting herself; for it will be difficult for us, father, to see you and her again.
72. 'Come, Krishnâ, let us die. Of what use is life to us? We have been delivered by the prince to a Brâhman who is in want of money.'
After so speaking they parted. But the Bodhisattva, though his mind was shaken by these most piteous laments of his children, did not move from the place where he was sitting. While representing to himself that it is not right to repent having given, his heart was burnt by the fire of irremediable grief, and his mind became troubled, as though it were paralysed by torpor occasioned by poison. The fanning of the cool wind made him soon recover his senses, and seeing the hermitage noiseless and silent, as it were, being devoid of his children, he said to himself in a voice choked with tears:
73. 'How is it possible that this man did not scruple to strike my very heart before my very eyes in my children?[2] O, fie on that shameless Brâhman!
74. 'How may they be capable of making the journey, going bare-footed, unable to bear fatigue by reason of their tender age, and become servants to that man?
- ↑ This bird, the cuculus melanoleucus, is a favourite with Indian poets and rhetoricians. It is said to feed on raindrops.
- ↑ Lit.: 'On my very heart, whose name is offspring.' This identification of the heart of the father with his children depends on an old formula, forming part of the prayers and sacred mantras of the grihya-books. Cp. also Kaushîtakibrâhmanopanishad II, 11.
