“In this way my parents went to another world, and my mother’s sister brought me to her own house to rear me, and while I was unmarried, there came there a certain Bráhman guest, and my mother’s sister ordered me to wait on him. And I diligently strove to please him as Kuntí to please Durvásas, and owing to a boon conferred by him, I obtained you, a virtuous husband. Thus good fortune is the result of virtue, owing to which my parents were both born at the same time in royal families, and also remembered their former birth.” Having heard this speech of the queen Tárádattá, the king Kalingadatta, who was exclusively devoted to righteousness, answered her, “It is true, a trifling act of righteousness duly performed will bring much fruit, and in proof of this, O queen, hear the ancient tale of the seven Bráhmans.”
Story of the seven Bráhmans who devoured a cow in time of famine.[15]
Long ago, in a city called Kuṇḍina, a certain Bráhman teacher had for pupils seven sons of Bráhmans. Then that teacher, under pressure of famine, sent those pupils to ask his father-in-law, who was rich in cows, to give him one. And those pupils of his went, with their bellies pinched by hunger, to his father-in-law, who dwelt in another land, and asked him, as their teacher had ordered them, for a cow. He gave them one cow to support them, but the miserly fellow did not give them food, though they were hungry. Then they took the cow, and as they were returning and had accomplished half the journey, being excessively pained by hunger, they fell exhausted on the earth. They said—“Our teacher’s house is far off, and we are afflicted by calamity far from home, and food is hard to obtain everywhere, so it is all over with our lives. And in the same way this cow is certain to die in this wilderness without water, wood, or human beings, and our teacher will not derive even the smallest advantage from it. So let us support our lives with its flesh, and quickly restore our teacher and his family with what remains over: for it is a time of sore distress.” Having thus deliberated, those seven students treated that cow as a victim, and sacrificed it on the spot according to the system prescribed in the sacred treatises. After sacrificing to the gods and manes, and eating its flesh according to the prescribed method, they went and took what remained of it to their teacher. They bowed before him, and told him all that they had done, to the letter, and he was pleased with them, because they told the truth, though they had committed a fault. And after seven days they died of famine, but because they told the truth on that occasion, they were born again with the power of remembering their former birth.
“Thus even a small germ of merit, watered with the water of holy aspiration, bears fruit to men in general, as a seed to cultivators, but the same corrupted by the water of impure aspiration bears fruit in the form of misfortune, and à propos of this I will tell you another tale, listen!”
Story of the two ascetics, one a Bráhman the other a Chaṇḍála.
Once on a time two men remained for the same length of time fasting on the banks of the Ganges, one a Bráhman and the other a Chaṇḍála. Of those two, the Bráhman being overpowered with hunger, and seeing some Nishádas[16] come that way bringing fish and eating them, thus reflected in his folly—“O happy in the world are these fishermen, sons of female slaves though they be, for they eat to their fill of the fresh meat of fish!” But the other, who was a Chaṇḍála, thought, the moment he saw those fishermen, “Out on these destroyers of life, and devourers of raw flesh! So why should I stand here and behold their faces?” Saying this to himself, he closed his eyes and remained buried in his own thoughts. And in course of time those two, the Bráhman and the Chaṇḍála, died of starvation; the Bráhman was eaten by dogs on the bank, the Chaṇḍála rotted in the water of the Ganges. So that Bráhman, not having disciplined his spirit, was born in the family of a fisherman, but owing to the virtue of the holy place, he remembered his former existence. As for that Chaṇḍála, who possessed self-control, and whose mind was not marred by passion, he was born as a king in a palace on that very bank of the Ganges, and recollected his former birth. And of those two, who were born with a remembrance of their former existence, the one suffered misery being a fisherman, the other being a king enjoyed happiness.
“Such is the root of the tree of virtue; according to the purity or impurity of a man’s heart is without doubt the fruit which he receives.” Having said this to the queen Tárádattá, king Kalingadatta again said to her in the course of conversation,—“Moreover actions which are really distinguished by great courage produce fruit, since prosperity follows on courage; and to illustrate this I will tell the following wonderful tale. Listen!”