heart in his audience-hall as well as in the inner apartments of his palace these two stanzas, full of import:
4. 'Attending on Buddhas[1] by paying them honour, howsoever little, cannot produce a trifling fruit. This has been taught before only by words, now it may be seen. Look at the rich affluence of the fruit, produced by a small portion of saltless, dry, coarse, reddish-brown gruel.
5. 'This mighty army of mine with its beautiful chariots and horses and its dark-blue masses of fierce elephants; the sovereignty of the whole earth; great wealth; Fortune's favour; my noble wife: behold the beauty of this store of fruit, produced by a small portion of coarse gruel.'
Neither his ministers nor the worthiest among the Brâhmans nor the foremost among the townsmen, though tormented with curiosity, ventured to question the king as to what he meant by these two stanzas which he was in the habit of reciting every moment. Now by the king's incessant repeating of them the queen also grew curious; and as she felt less embarrassment in putting forth her request, one day, the opportunity of entering into conversation upon this subject pre-
- ↑ The text has na Sugataparikaryâ vidyate svalpikâpi, the parallel passage in the Pâli Gâtaka may serve as its commentary:
Na kir' atthi anomadassisu
Pârikariyâ Buddhesu appikâ.In stanza 18 of this Gâtaka the purport of these words of the king is thus expressed: kshînâsraveshu na kritam tanu nâma kimkit; therefore, kshînâsrava = Pâli khînâsavo, 'who has extinguished his passions,' is here synonymous with buddha. Speaking properly, then, all wandering monks, who are earnestly performing their duties as such, may be styled 'buddhas,' cp. for instance, Suttanipâta, Sammâparibbâganîyasutta, verse 12; in other terms, buddha may sometimes be an equivalent of muni. So it is used in chapter xiv of the Dhammapada; see the note of Prof. Max Müller on verses 179 and 180 in Sacred Books, vol. x, p. 50, and the verses pointed out by Weber, Ind. Streifen, I, p. 147. It is also plain that the Pratyekabuddhas are considered to belong to the general class of the Buddhas. Though they are different from the Supreme Buddhas (Samyaksambuddha), they are nevertheless also sugatas or buddhas. Cp. Spence Hardy, Manual, pp. 37-39; Kern, Het Buddhisme, I, pp. 294-296.
