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through the noose which held it. So the cat's noose wan severed, and it ran away, afraid of the hunter; and the mouse, delivered from death, fled into its hole. But when called again by the cat, it reposed no confidence in him, but remarked, " The truth is, an enemy is occasionally made a friend by circumstances, but does not remain such for ever."
" Thus the mouse, though an animal, saved its life from many foes, much more ought the same thing to take place among men. You heard that speech which I uttered to the king on that occasion, to the effect that by wisdom he should guard his own interests by preserving the life of the queen. And wisdom is in every exigency the best friend, not valour, Yogeśvara; in illustration of this hear the following story."
The story of king Prasenajit and the Bráhman who lost his treasure.:—There is a city named Śrávastí, and in it there lived in old time a king of the name of Prasenajit, and one day a strange Bráhman arrived in that city. A merchant, thinking he was virtuous, because he lived on rice in the husk, provided him a lodging there in the house of a Bráhman. There he was loaded by him every day with presents of unhusked rice and other gifts, and gradually by other great merchants also, who came to hear his story. In this way the miserly fellow gradually accumulated a thousand dínárs, and, going to the forest, he dug a hole and buried it in the ground,*[1] and he went every day and examined the spot. Now one day he saw that the hole, in which he had hidden his gold, had been re-opened, and that all the gold had gone. When he saw that hole empty, his soul was smitten, and not only was there a void in his heart, but the whole universe seemed to him to be void also. And then he came crying to the Bráhman, in whose house he lived, and when questioned, he told him his whole story: and he made up his mind to go to a holy bathing-place, and starve himself to death. Then the merchant, who supplied him with food, hearing of it, came there with others, and said to him, " Bráhman, why do you long to die for the loss of your wealth? Wealth, like an unseasonable cloud, suddenly comes and goes." Though plied by him with these and similar arguments, he would not abandon his fixed determination to commit suicide, for wealth is dearer to the miser than life itself. But when the Bráhman was going to the holy place to commit suicide, the king Prasenajit himself, having heard of it, came to him and asked him, " Bráhman, do you know of anymark by which you can recognize the place where you buried your dínárs?" When the Bráhman heard that, he said: " There is a small tree in the wood there, I buried that wealth at its foot." When the king heard that, he said, " I will find that wealth and give it back to you, or I will give it you from my own treasury, do not commit suicide, Bráhman." After saying this, and so diverting the Bráhman from his intention of committing suicide,
- ↑ * For nihatya I conjecture nikhanya.
