Story of Devabhúti.
Ignorance, my son, is to be avoided, for it brings harm in both worlds upon men of bewildered intellects: listen to this legend of sacred story. There lived in Panchála, of old time, a Bráhman named Devabhúti, and that Bráhman, who was learned in the Vedas, had a chaste wife named Bhogadattá. One day when he had gone to bathe, his wife went into the kitchen-garden to get vegetables, and saw a donkey belonging to a washerman eating them. So she took up a stick and ran after the donkey, and the animal fell into a pit, as it was trying to escape, and broke its hoof. When its master heard of that, he came in a passion, and beat with a stick, and kicked the Bráhman woman. Accordingly she, being pregnant, had a miscarriage; but the washerman returned home with his donkey.
Then her husband, hearing of it, came home after bathing, and after seeing his wife, went, in his distress, and complained to the chief magistrate of the town. The foolish man immediately had the washerman, whose name was Balásura, brought before him, and, after hearing the pleadings of both parties, delivered this judgment, “Since the donkey’s hoof is broken, let the Bráhman carry the donkey’s load for the washerman, until the donkey is again fit for work. And let the washerman make the Bráhman’s wife pregnant again, since he made her miscarry. Let this be the punishment of the two parties respectively.” When the Bráhman heard this, he and his wife, in their despair, took poison and died. And when the king heard of it, he put to death that inconsiderate judge, who had caused the death of a Bráhman, and he had to be born for a long time in the bodies of animals.
“So people, who are obscured by the darkness of ignorance, stray into the evil paths of their vices, and not setting in front of them the lamp of sound treatises, of a surety stumble. When the royal sage had said this, Somaśúra begged him to instruct him further, and Vinítamati, in order to train him aright, said, “Listen, my son, I will teach you in due order the doctrine of perfections.”