'Therefore you may tell me also those holy sentences. Touched to tenderness as I am by the flower-shower of your words, my curiosity to hear them grows stronger. Attend also to this.
68. Having beholden the ugliness of my conduct in the mirror of Righteousness, and being touched by emotion may I not, perhaps, be a person whose mind craves for the Law ?'
Now the Bodhisattva, considering the eagerness of his desire to hear the Law, knew him to have become a fit vessel. He spoke : 'Being then desirous of hearing the Law, it is right that you listen to its preaching in the proper attitude suitable for that act. Look here.
69, 70. 'Sitting on a lower seat, which betokens illustrious modesty ; enjoying the honey of the (sacred) words with eyes expanding from gladness, so to speak; bending one's mind calm and pure to the most intense reverential attention-in this way one must listen devoutly to the preaching of the Law, as a sick man to the words of a doctor.'
Then the son of Sudâsa covered a slab of stone with his upper garment, and having offered this higher seat to the Bodhisattva, himself sat down on the naked earth before the visage of the Bodhisattva. After which, keeping his eyes fixed with attention on his face, he invited the Great Being : 'Speak now, sir[1]' Then the Bodhisattva opened his mouth and filling as it were the forest with his voice deep' and sonorous, like the lovely sound of a new-formed rain-cloud, spoke:
71. 'Meeting a virtuous person but once and by chance will suffice for
Friendship strong and for ever, not wanting repeated assurance.'
On hearing this gâthâ, the son of Sudâsa exclaimed,
- ↑ This formula (brûhîdânîm mârsha) and the whole of this ceremonial shows a striking likeness to the observances prescribed for the instruction in the Veda of a pupil by his spiritual teacher.
