No. 28.— 1884.] fiest fifty jatakas. 



109 



of both herds being exposed to constant terror and wounds, 

 lots should be cast, one day in Nigrodha's and the next in 

 Sakkha's herd, and the deer thus chosen should give himself 

 up to the slaughterer, and the rest live in peace. This went 

 on, till one day in Sakkha's herd the lot fell on a doe big with 

 young. She went to Sakkha and begged for respite or 

 exchange, but he insisted that the lot must have its course. 



So she went over to the other herd, to Nigrodha, the 

 princely stag. And Nigrodha, seeing no other course con- 

 sistent with both justice and compassion— so high has 

 Buddhism been able to rise, in imagination— took her lot 

 upon himself, and went to the place of the victims and 

 stretched himself upon the block. The king was soon told 

 of this wonder, that the prince of all the deer was lying on 

 the block, and, coming to see him, and learning from him 

 how it was, granted him his life. This was not enough ; 

 nor was the life of all the deer in that park enough. Nig- 

 rodha pleaded eloquently and importunately, and would not 

 cease till the king had granted to every living being 

 throughout his realms freedom from hurt and from fear— an 

 anticipation of the edict of Asoka (or should we, perhaps, 

 say a reference to it?). " He who was then Sakkha," said 

 Gotama, " is now Dewadatta, and Nigrodha is I myself." 



The excellence of this fiction, which, from the nature of 

 the case, cannot possibly have any foundation whatever in 

 fact, leads me to think, I confess, that those who invented 

 it could invent anything ; else I should have said that the 

 simple pathos and interest of the story of the nun were 

 probable marks of truth. 



The Sukhavihari Jdtaka (10) is a simple and completely 

 Buddhistic statement of the happiness of the life of con- 

 templation ; its burden is, " The monk is happier than 

 the king;" it has no particular value as a story. No. 18, 

 the story already reckoned under fables ( " The Brahmin 

 and his Goat") is the vehicle of a vigorous denunciation of 

 sacrifices, especially of sacrifices to the dead. The verse 

 has no particular connection with the tale, and it may well 

 be a borrowed story in substance ; bat as told it is charac- 

 teristically Buddhistic, and, like others of that class, has a 

 dignity of its own. But the story which, out of these 50, 

 can best stand with Makhadewa and Nigrodha, is the 



