376
CHAPTER XLI.
And the next day, as Naraváhanadatta was in the apartments of Ratnaprabhá, talking over various subjects with his ministers, he suddenly heard a sound, which appeared to be like that of a man weeping outside in the court-yard of the palace. And when some one asked— " What is that?"— the female attendants came and said, " My lord, the chamberlain Dharmagiri is weeping here. For a foolish friend of his came here just now, and said that his brother, who went on a pilgrimage to holy places, was dead in a foreign land. He, bewildered with grief, forgot that he was in the court and began to lament, but he has been just now taken outside by the servants and conducted to his own house." When the prince heard this, he was grieved, and Ratnaprabhá moved with pity said in a despondent tone— " Alas ! the grief which is produced by the loss of dear relatives is hard to bear ! Why did not the Creator make men exempt from old age and death ?" When Marubhúti heard this speech of the queen's, he said; " Queen, how can mortals ever attain this good fortune? For listen to the following story, which I will tell you, bearing on this question."
Story of king Chiráyus and his minister Nágárjuna.:— In the city of Chiráyus there was in old time a king, named Chiráyus,*[1] who was indeed long-lived, and the home of all good fortune. He had a compassionate, generous and gifted minister, named Nágárjuna, who was sprung from a portion of a Bodhisattva, who knew the use of all drugs, and by making an elixir he rendered himself and that king free from old age, and long-lived. One day an infant son of that minister Nágárjuna, whom he loved more than any of his other children, died. He felt grief on that account, and by the force of his asceticism and knowledge proceeded to prepare out of certain ingredients the Water" of Immortality, †[2] in order to prevent mortals from dying. But while he was waiting for the auspicious moment in which to infuse a particular drug, Indra found out what was going on. And Indra, having consulted with the gods, said to the two Aśvins— " Go and give this message to Nágárjuna on the earth from me— ' Why have you, though a minister, begun this revolutionary proceeding of making the Water of Life? Are you determined now to conquer the Creator, who indeed created men subject to the law of death, since you
