brouglit, and said to it, "Did you bite this person?" "Yes, I did," it replied. "Well, then, with your mouth extract the venom from the place that has been bitten." "I can't take back the poison I have once left. I'll not extract the venom that I've infixed," replied the serpent. Having collected some sticks, the medicine-man made a fire, and said, "If you don't mean to extract your venom, enter this fire."
"I'll even go into the fire, for I am not able to 're-sorb' the poison I've left in a wound," said the snake, uttering the following gâthâ:—
"Oh! shame to ask a thing too hard to do.
That I to-day, to save my life, should venom draw
Out from a wound where once I did it leave:
In such a case I'd rather die than live."
And when he had thus spoken, he proceeded to enter the fire.
Then the medicine-man prevented him, and extracted the poison by means of drugs and spells, and so made him well. To the serpent he gave moral instruction, saying, "From this time forth do injury to no one." Then he let it go.
The Suvabbahma Jâtaka.[1]
The Golden Flamingo and the greedy Brâhman-woman.
Once upon a time, when Brahmadatta reigned in Benares, the Bodhisat was reborn in a certain brâhman family. When he was grown up they brought him a wife from a family of equal rank to his own. Nanda, as she was called, had in the course of time three daughters, who, in due course, went and married into other families. The Bodhisat, moreover, died, and was reborn as a golden flamingo, and there came to him the knowledge and remembrance of his previous birth. When he grew up he was covered with golden feathers. On seeing the exceeding great loveliness to which he had attained, he thought to himself, "I wonder from whence I disappeared, and came here?" He remembered that it was from the "world of men." Again he mentally inquired, "How now do the brâhman-woman and my daughters get a living?" Finding that
- ↑ Jâtaka Book, vol. i. No. 136, p. 474.
