Page:Buddhist Birth Stories, or, Jātaka Tales.djvu/401

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31. — ON MERCY TO ANIMALS.
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when they became like drunken men, he had them seized by the feet and thrown headlong upon the precipices of Mount Sineru.

They fell just upon "The abode of the Titans;" a place so called, upon the lowest level of Sineru, equal in size to the Tāva-tiŋsa heaven. In it there is a tree, like the coral-tree in Sakka's heaven, which stands during a kalpa, and is called "The variegated Trumpet-Flower Tree."

When they saw the Trumpet-Flower Tree in bloom, they knew, "This is not our heaven, for in heaven the Coral-Tree blossoms."

Then they said, "That old Sakka has made us drunk, and thrown us into the great deep, and taken our heavenly city!"

Then they made resolve, "We'll war against him, and win our heavenly city back again!"

And they swarmed up the perpendicular sides of Sineru like so many ants!

When Sakka heard the cry, "The Titans are up!" he went down the great deep to meet them, and fought with them from the sky. But he was worsted in the fight, and began to flee away along the summit of the southern vault of heaven in his famous Chariot of Glory a hundred and fifty leagues in length.[1]

Now as his chariot went rapidly down the great deep, it passed along the Silk Cotton Tree Forest, and along its route the silk cotton trees were cut down one after another like mere palmyra palms, and fell into the great deep. And as the young ones of the Winged Creatures tumbled over and over into the great deep, they burst

  1. Vejayanta. Compare what is said above, p. 97, of Māra's vāhana, Giri-mekhala.