In this manner the designs of those who practise good conduct will be successful and thrive even in this world, how much more in the next. For this reason entire pureness of conduct ought to be striven after.
XVI. The Story of the Quail's Young.
(Cp. the Pâli Gâtaka, No. 35, Fausb. I, 213-14; Kariyâpitaka III, 9.)
Not even fire is able to surpass speech purified by truth. Having this in mind, one must addict one's self to speaking the truth. This will be taught as follows.
Once the Bodhisattva, it is said, lived in some part of the forest as a young quail. He had come out of the egg some nights before, and could not fly, his tender wings having still to grow both in height and in width; in his very small and weak body the different limbs, principal and minor, were hardly discernible. So he dwelt with his numerous brothers in the nest which his parents had built with great care and made impervious by a strong covering of grass. This nest was placed on a creeper within a thicket. Yet, still in this existence, he had not lost his consciousness of the Law, and would not feed on such living beings as his father and mother offered to them, but exclusively sustained himself by (the vegetable food) which was brought by his parents: grass-seeds, figs of the banian tree, &c. In consequence of this coarse and insufficient nourishment, his body did not thrive nor would his wings develop. The other young quails, on the contrary, who fed on everything offered to them, became strong and got full-grown wings. For this, indeed, is an invariable rule:
1. He who, not anxious about the precepts of the Law, eats everything, will thrive at his ease, but such a one as seeks for his livelihood in accordance with the precepts, and is careful about the choice of his food, will endure pain in this world[128].
Now, while they were living in this manner, a great forest-conflagration took place not far from them. It was characterised by an incessant tremendous noise, by the appearance of clouds of rising smoke, then by flying sparks of fire scattered about from the line of flames. This fire caused much terror to such animals as haunted the forest, and was a ruin to its groves and thickets.
4. The fire excited by the whirling of the wind, that seemed to induce it to perform manifold and different figures of dance, agitated its wide-outstretched flame-arms, leaped shaking its dishevelled smoke-hair, and crackled, taking away the courage and strength of those (animals and plants).
5. It jumped, as if in wrath, on the grasses, which trembling under the violent touch of the fierce wind, seemed to take to flight; and covering them with its glittering sparks, burnt them.
6. Yea, it seemed as if the forest itself, with its crowds of birds flying about terror-stricken and alarmed, with its terrified quadrupeds roaming on all sides, with the thick smoke which enveloped it, and with the sharp noise of the fire's crackling, uttered strong roars of pain.