The male-servant said :
18. 'May he be the head of a village, cheerfully living with his comrades, exhilarated by the dances and chants of women, and never meet with harm from the king's side, he who destroyed his own interest for the sake of those lotus-stalks !'
The sister said:
19. `May that person[1] who ventured to take the lotus-stalks of such a being as you, be a woman of resplendent beauty and figure, may a king make her his wife and put her at the head of his zenana of a thousand females !'
The maid-servant said :
20. ‘May she much delight in eating sweetmeats alone stealthily, disregarding the pious, and be greatly rejoiced when she gets a dainty dish, she who set her heart on thy lotus-stalks, not on thy righteousness !'
Now three inhabitants of the forest had also come to that place to hear the preaching of the Law, namely a Yaksha, an elephant, and a monkey. They had heard the conversation and were overcome with the utmost shame and confusion. Among them, the Yaksha attested his innocence, uttering in their presence this solemn protestation:
21. May he who failed against thee for the sake of the lotus-stalks, have his residence in the Great Monastery, entrusted with the charge of the reparations in (the town of) Kakangalâ, and make one window every day![2]'
- ↑ Both the Sanskrit and the Pâli redaction have here the masculine pron. demonstr. The fault must be a very ancient one. In the imprecation of the female servant the grammatical gender is respected by Sûra, not so in the Gâtaka.
- ↑ This imprecation alludes to the story of a certain devaputra, who in the time of the Buddha Kâsyapa dwelt in the said monastery and was obliged to do the labour imposed on him, whereby he suffered much. A brief account of that tale is given in the commentary on
the Pâli Gâtaka, which proves here of essential help, since katuhsatam of the Sanskrit text is a wrong Sanskritisation of Pâli katussadam, and does not suit the context.
