a human being or one who has taken the vow of a homeless life to be wanting in mercy towards the animals ? For this reason a pious man (âry a) must show mercy to living beings.']
XXVI. The Story of the Ruru-Deer.
(Cp. the Pali Gâtaka, No. 482, Fausb. IV, 255-263; Kariyâ-pitaka II, 6.)
To the virtuous no suffering exists but that of others. It is this they cannot bear, not their own suffering, as will be taught by the following.
One time the Bodhisattva, it is said, lived in the forest as a ruru-deer. He had his residence in a remote part of a large wilderness, far from the paths of men and overgrown with a rich, manifold vegetation. There were a great number of sâls, bakulas, piyâlas, hintâlas, tamâlas, naktamâlas, of vidula and nikula reeds and of shrubs; thickets of simsapâs, tinisas, samis, palâsas, sâkas, of kusa-grass, bamboo and reeds encumbered it; kadambas, sargas, argunas, dhavas, khadiras, and kutagas abounded in it; and the outstretched branches of many trees were covered as if by a veil with the tendrils of manifold creeping plants. It was the abode of a great many forest-animals : deer of the ruru, prishata and srimara varieties, yaks, elephants, gavaya-oxen, buffaloes, antelopes of the harina and the nyanku kind, boars, panthers, hyenas, tigers, wolves, lions, bears, and others. Among them that ruru-deer was conspicuous by its hue brilliant like pure gold and the very soft hair of his body, which was moreover adorned and resplendent with spots of different lovely colours, shining like rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and beryls. With his large blue eyes of incomparable mildness and brightness, with his horns and hoofs endowed with a soft splendour, as if they were made of precious stones, that ruru-deer of surpassing beauty had the appearance of a moving
