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 



