No. 28. — 1884.] first fifty jatakas. 



175 



that man to eat, and so kill him and take all the treasure for 

 myself?" and so as soon as the food was done, he dined himself, 

 and then put poison in the rest and took it and went to the place. 

 He had hardly put down the food and stood still, when the other 

 cleft him in two with the sword, and threw him in a covered 

 place (out of sight), then ate the food and himself died on the 

 spot. Thus on account of that treasure they all came to 

 destruction. 



After one or two days, the Bodhisat came back with the treasure. 

 Not seeing his master in that place, and seeing the treasure scattered 

 about, he thought : " My master has not done as I said, but must 

 have brought the treasure-shower ; they must all have come to 

 destruction and he went on along the high road. As he went 

 he saw his master on the high road cleft in two, and saying to 

 himself, "He has died from not taking my advice," he brought 

 wood and made a pile and burnt his master and offered wild 

 flowers, and went on. Soon he saw lying dead first five hundred, 

 and then two hundred and fifty, and so on, till at the end he saw 

 two men dead ; so he thought *. " Here are a thousand men all but 

 two come to destruction : there must be two more robbers ; they 

 also cannot possibly survive ; where are they gone ?" And going 

 on he saw the path by which they had gone with the treasure into 

 the woody place, and going on he saw the heaps of treasure tied 

 up in a bundle, and then he saw one man dead by the bowl of rice 

 which he had put down. Then he perceived the whole (story, 

 and said to himself), " This is what they must have done." Think- 

 ing " where now is that man ?" he looked about and saw him also 

 laid in a covered spot. Then he thought, " Our master has not 

 done as I told him, and by his obstinacy has himself come to de- 

 struction, and by him another thousand men have been destroyed. 

 Ah ! those who seek their own advantage wrongly and unreason- 

 ably, like our master, will surely come to great destruction ;" and 

 therewith he uttered the stanza 



" Who seeks gain the wrong way, failure will him befall; 

 The Cetians killed Vedabbha, and they, too, perished all." 



Thus the Bodhisat, meaning, " As our master, making his effort 

 wrongly and bringing down the treasure-shower at the wrong 

 moment, not only himself came by his end, but was also a cause of 

 destruction to others ; so, anyone else who exerts himself in the 

 wrong way, in his desire for his own advantage, will both perish 

 himself, and will be a cause of ruin to others," preached religion 

 by this stanza in a voice that rang through the forest amid the 

 applause of the (woodland) nymphs. He then contrived to convey 



