manner the next day at the time destined for (the accomplishment of) his vow (of hospitality). So he did also on the third, fourth, and fifth day. And the other received him as his guest in the same way, and with still more joy.
8. No suffering, indeed, not even peril of life, is able to compel the virtuous to a miserable infringement of their love for giving, a love fostered by their practice of commiseration.
Then Sakra, whose mind was overcome by the utmost amazement, knowing him to be enabled by his excess of penance to get into the possession of (his own) brilliant realm of the gods[1], if he did but ask for it, began to feel uneasy, and fear arose within him. Having assumed the wonderful beauty of his own celestial shape, he questioned him as to the purpose for which he performed his penance.
9, 10. 'Say, on what hast thou set thy hopes, that they could impel thee to leave thy beloved relations, who shed tears at thy departure, thy household and possessions that had been a source of happiness to thee, and to resort to this toilsome life of penance? For it is not for a trifling motive that the wise despise enjoyments easily obtained, and afflict their relations with grief, leaving them to go to the penance-forest destructive of pleasures.
11. 'If thou thinkest it may be told me, please, satisfy my curiosity. What may be the object of thy wishes, the penetration into the excellent qualities of which fascinated to this point a mind like thine?'
The Bodhisattva replied: 'Hearken, sir, what I am exerting myself for.
12. 'Repeated births tend to great sorrow; so do calamitous old age and illnesses, those dismal
- ↑ This fear of the Lord of the Devas rests on the belief in the transcendent power of penance, which enables great ascetics to aspire even to that dignity. Sakra, afraid of human tapas and trying to prevent its earning by every means, is a well-known figure in Indian mythology.
