260 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 
all, in the Parable that tells how Brahmadatta the King 
made and adorned a marvellous lake to allure the Most 
Perfect One, Our Lord Buddha. You will find the tale 
in the Swan-Birth Story of the Blessed One. 
For in those far days of which no history preserves a 
hint, the Bodhisatta-Soul was incarnate in a white swan, 
of beauty, strength, and holiness incomparable, ruler of 
many hundred thousand swans that all dwelt upon a lake 
of surpassing loveliness, remote from man. So there they 
faithfully obeyed his sway, and that of his General in 
Chief, Sumukha, hardly less refulgent in purity than the 
Swan-King himself. Now, in the latter years, that then 
lay as many ages down the future as now they lie behind 
us in the sacred past, Sumukha the white was to be the 
well-beloved Ananda, standing for ever at the right hand 
of Our Lord Himself. And still, in their humbler stages, 
Bodhisatta and Ananda moved forward side by side, pre- 
eminent over all their kind in wisdom and virtue. But 
Brahmadatta, that reigned in Benares, heard of this 
great swan host, and conceived a strong desire to behold 
it, and, above all, to capture the snowy King and his 
chief friend, the general of that winged army. So Brah- 
madatta, on advice, set himself to create a lake yet more 
perfectly beautiful than their own, that so the swans 
might be lured into the clutches of the King. Not too 
near his park and palace he built it—‘ a matchless basin 
of pure water, adorned with innumerable water-plants, 
enriched with lilies and lotuses in a hundred different 
kinds. Flowery trees, bright with their quivering sprays, 
surrounded its shore, as if they had taken possession of 
the place in order to enjoy contemplation of that water ; 
swarms of bees, as if attracted by the smiling lotuses that 
lay rocking on its gently trembling ripples, hovered and 
roamed across its surface. Here its beauty was enhanced 
by different groups of water-lilies, sleepless under the 
