So, then, even in former births the Lord showed His innate, disinterested, and immense love towards all creatures, and identified Himself with all creatures. For this reason we ought to have the utmost faith in Buddha, the Lord. [And also this is to be propounded: 'And having obtained this faith in Buddha the Lord, we ought to strive for feeling the highest gladness; in this manner our faith will have its sanctuary.'—Likewise we must listen with attention to the preaching of the Law, since it has been brought to us by means of hundreds of difficult hardships[1].—And in sermons on the subject of compassion, thus is to be said: 'in this manner compassion, moving us to act for the benefit of others, is productive of an exceedingly excellent nature[2].']
The story of the tigress, which does not appear either in the Pâli Gâtaka or in the Kariyâpitaka, is alluded to in the Bodhisattvâvadanâkalpalatâ of Kshemendra II, 108. There the Bodhisattva, on the occasion of a similar fact of self-denial and heroism in a later birth, says: 'Formerly, on seeing a hungry tigress preparing to eat her whelps, I gave her my body, in order to avert this, without hesitation.' And in the fifty-first pallava the story is narrated at length, verses 28-50. It differs in some points from ours. So does also the redaction of the Southern Buddhists, told by Spence Hardy, Manual, p. 94 of the 2nd ed.
II. The Story of the King of the Sibis.
(Comp. the Pâli Gâtaka, No. 499, Fausb. IV, 401-412; Kariyâpitaka I, 8.)
The preaching of the excellent Law must be listened to with attention. For it is by means of hundreds of difficult hardships that the Lord obtained this excellent Law for our sake. This is shown by the following.
In the time, when this our Lord was still a Bodhisattva, in consequence of his possessing a store of
