courage or disaffection towards me? Or does he really know it to be a wicked action?' Then in order to prompt him to open his true disposition of mind, he spoke in this way to the Bodhisattva: 'Say, noble Brâhman,
11. 'Those twice-born men, incapable of bearing my misfortune, are willing to resort to the course of life followed by the energetic and the heroes; but in you I find nothing but indolence and dullness. Surely, it is not you who are affected by our distress.
12. 'My suffering is evident. Its whole extent lies open to your eyes. I have made it plain by speech. Notwithstanding this, you are keeping quiet! How is it that your mind is undisturbed and untouched by sorrow?'
Upon this the Bodhisattva, after making his respectful salute to the teacher, said quite alarmed: 'Heaven forbid such feelings! Verily, it is not want of affection or hard-heartedness which causes me to keep apart, nor am I unmoved by the sufferings of my teacher, but I think the mode of acting which my master has shown us, cannot be put into practice. It is impossible, indeed, to commit a wicked action without being seen. Why? Because there does not exist anything like loneliness.
13, 14. 'No, loneliness is not to be found anywhere in the world for the evildoer. Are not the invisible Beings and the purified Munis, whose eye is endowed with divine power, lookers-on of men's actions? Not seeing them, the fool thinks himself alone and commits sin[1].
15. 'But I know no lonely place at all. Wheresoever I do not see anybody else, is such a place for that reason empty of my own Self?
16, 17. 'And of a bad action my Self is a witness far more sharp-sighted than any other person. Another may perchance perceive me, or he may not, his mind being occupied with his own business, but
- ↑ Cp. Manu VIII, 85; Mahâbhârata (ed. Bombay) I, 74, 39.
