considering, the virtuous appreciate even their injurer, deeming him a profit. This will be shown by the following.
The Bodhisattva, it is said, one time lived in some forest-region as a wild buffalo-bull of grim appearance, owing to his being dirty with mud, and so dark of complexion that he resembled a moving piece of a dark-blue cloud. Nevertheless, though in that animal-state, in which there prevails complete ignorance and it is difficult to come to the conception of righteousness, he in consequence of his keen understanding, was exerting himself to practise righteousness.
1. Compassion, as if it had a deep-rooted affection for him in return for his long service, never left him. But some power too, either of his karma or his nature, must be taken into account to explain the fact that he was so.
2. And it is for this reason, in truth, that the Lord[1] declared the mystery of the result of karma to be inscrutable, since He, though compassion was at the bottom of his nature, obtained the state of a beast, yet even in this condition retained his knowledge of righteousness.
3. Without karma the series of existences cannot be; it is also an impossibility that good actions should have evil as their result. But it must be the influence of small portions of (evil) karma that caused him now and then, notwithstanding his knowledge of righteousness, to be in such (low) states.[2]
Now some wicked monkey, knowing his natural goodness which had manifested itself in course of time, and understanding from his habitual mercy that anger and wrath had no power over him, was in the
- ↑ In his Buddha-existence, of course.
- ↑ This apology is not superfluous, indeed. Though fables of animals have been adapted of old so as to form part of the stock of sacred lore of the Buddhists, the contradiction between the low existences of the most virtuous ones and the doctrines about the karma is as great as possible.
