And this is that trunk with long, finger-like tip, wherewith He showed us this way.
'Oh! This is, in truth, a wonder of surpassing strangeness!
37. 'Ah! So great a friendship has He shown to us, without first inquiring into our family, our conduct and faith, to us broken by misfortunes and never heard of by Him before! How great must His goodness be for His friends and relations!
'In every way veneration be to Him, that Illustrious One!
38. ‘Assisting the likes of us, distressed people, overcome with fear and sorrow and desponding, He, bearing the shape of an elephant, holds up, as it were, the sinking behaviour of the pious[1].
39. Where has He been taught this extraordinary propitiousness? At the feet of what teacher may He have sat in the forest ? The popular saying: 'no beauty of figure pleases without virtues' is exemplified in Him.
40. 'Oh! How He has manifested by the splendid loftiness of His nature the auspiciousness to be expected of (his auspicious figure)! Verily, even in His dead body, His self-satisfaction appears in His complexion shining like the Snow-mountain, as though it laughed with joy!
'Who, therefore, will allow himself to feed on the body of this exceedingly virtuous being, who, surpassing by his goodness affectionate relations and friends, was thus inclined to help us, thus ready to sacrifice even his own life for our benefit ? No, it becomes us rather to pay him our debt of gratitude by the cremation of his body with the proper rites and worship.'
Thus considering, they were inclined to indulge in mourning, as if a family-disaster had befallen them; their eyes grew dim with tears and they lamented
- ↑ I have not adopted the ingenious conjecture of Professor Kern, sishatsatâm, as I now think the text of the MSS. gives a good sense, if but the complex of aksharas sîdatsatâm is divided into two words. Accordingly I read sîdat satâm udva hatîva vrittam.
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