Now he exhorted the troop of monkeys, saying, "My children! in this forest there are poisonous trees, and pools haunted by demons. When you are going to eat fruits of any kind you have not eaten before, or to drink water you have not drunk before, ask me about it."
"Very well," said they. And one day they went to a place they had not been to before. There they wandered about the greater part of the day; and when, in searching about for water, they found a pond, they sat down without even drinking, and looked forward to the arrival of their king.[1]
When the Bodisat had come, he asked them, "Why, my children, do you take no water?"
"We awaited your arrival," said they.
"It is well, my children!" said the Bodisat; and fixing his attention on the foot-marks close round the edge of the pond, he saw that they went down, but never came up. Then he knew that it was assuredly haunted by demons, and said, "You have done well, my children, not to have drunk the water. This pond is haunted!"
But when the demon of the water saw that they were not going down into it, he assumed the horrible shape of a blue-bellied, pale-faced, red-handed, red-footed creature, and came splashing out through the water, and cried out, "Why do you sit still here? Go down and drink the water!"
But the Bodisat asked him, "Are you the water-demon who haunts this spot?"
"Yes! I am he!" was the reply.
- ↑ Any one who has seen the restlessness of monkeys in the safe precincts of a Buddhist monastery (or even in the monkey-house at the Zoological Gardens) will appreciate the humour of this description. The Bharhut sculptor, too, has some capital monkeys sitting, like good little boys, and listening to the Bodisat.
