in succeeding existences, a body to be sacrificed for others![1]
Garuda (looking at the hero).
Speedily will I catch up and eat this Nága, dressed in red garments, who looks as if besmeared with blood, which gushes from his heart that has burst through fear of me. I will first split open with my beak, which is fiercer than the fierceness of a thunderbolt, the breast of this one, who has fallen on the surface of the execution rock, to save the rest of Nágas.
Behind the scenes flowers shower down, and drums sound.
Garuda (astonished).
Why now does this shower of flowers fall, rejoicing the bees with their fragrance? Or why does this noise of drums cause to re-echo the quarters of the sky? (Smiling.) Ah! I know what it is. I conjecture that even the tree of Paradise itself is shaken by the wind of my speed; and that the clouds of doomsday give forth their growl, anticipating the world's immediate annihilation.
Jímútaváhana (to himself).
Good luck! I have attained my desire.
Garuda (seizing the hero).
Although this protector of the Snakes seems to me
- ↑ This wish, to a Buddhist, would seem the ne plus ultra of self-sacrifice, since to escape from the necessity of future birth, and to obtain nirvána, is the supreme end of their system.
