The Bodhisat, as soon as he found him in this condition, sprang up from the island, leapt on the back of the crocodile, and flying from thence like a flash of lightning stood on the further shore.
When the crocodile beheld this wonderful feat, he thought, "This monkey has done an exceedingly clever thing. O monkey-chief," said he, "in this world a person endowed with four qualities overcomes his foes. I verily believe you possess them all within you." Then he uttered the following gâtha:—
Like you, king of apes,
A man his foes subdues,
If true and just he be,
Unselfish and eke bold."
The Bilâra Jâtaka.[1]
The Jackal and the Rats.
Once upon a time, when Brahmadatta reigned in Benares, the Bodhisat was reborn among the rat-kind. When he was full grown, he had an immense body just like a young hog, and lived in the forest with a following of several hundreds of rats.
One day a jackal, wandering about hither and thither, saw the troop of rats, and thought to himself, "I'll cajole and eat these rats." So not far from the abode of the rats he stood on one foot, with his face to the sun and drinking the air. As the Bodhisat was going about in search of food he saw him and thought, "This will be a holy individual." He went up to him, saying, "Who are you, sir?" "'Dhammika (Just), I am called." "Why," asked the rat, "instead of putting your four feet on the ground, do you stand on one leg?" "Were I to put four feet on the ground it would not be able to support me, therefore I stand on one leg," replied the jackal. "But why do you stand with your mouth wide open?" asked the rat. "I eat no other food but air," he replied. "Then why," inquired the rat-king, "do you stand facing the sun?" "I pay reverence to the sun," replied the jackal. On hearing this the Bodhisat thought, "Surely he'll be a saint."
- ↑ Jâtaka Book, vol. i. No. 129, p. 461.
