32. Yet their graceful demeanour, their modesty and comeliness did not appease his mind incensed with the fire of wrath.
But the queens who commenced already to recover from their first terror, perceiving that the king in the fierce manner of one whose behaviour is altered by anger was marching with a weapon in the direction of the holy Rishi, on whom he kept fixed his adverse looks, placed themselves in his way, and surrounding him entreated him: 'Your Majesty, pray, do not commit a reckless act, do not, pray. This man is the Reverend Kshântivâdin.' The king, however, owing to his heart's wickedness, became the more angry, thinking: 'Surely, he has already gained their affection.' He reproved their temerity in requesting by clear signs (of his discontent), frowning and casting on them angry looks, fierce as the jealousy which had taken possession of his mind. After which, turning to his eunuchs and shaking his head so that his royal diadem and ear-rings trembled, he said with a glance at his wives:
33. 'This man speaks only of forbearance, but he does not practise it. For example, he was not impassible to the covetousness of the contact with females.
34. 'His tongue does not at all agree with his actions, still less with his ill-intentioned heart. What has this man with unrestrained senses to do in the penance-forest, that he should simulate religious vows and dress and sit down in the hypocritical posture of a saint?'
Now, the king in his fit of wrath having thus rebuked his queens and shown his hard-heartedness, they were affected with sorrow and sadness, for they knew his ferocious nature and his contumacy which made him inaccessible to persuasion. The eunuchs, who were likewise alarmed, affected with anxiety, and afflicted, made signs to them with their hands that they should withdraw. So they went away, lowering their faces with shame and lamenting over that best of Rishis.
35. 'We are the cause of the king's wrath against that sinless and self-subdued holy ascetic, wide-famed for his virtues. Who knows what will be the end of it? In one way or other will the king perform some unbecoming deed, when he will make his wrath fall down on him, however virtuous.
36. Yea, this king would be able to destroy his own royal behaviour and his glory obtained by it, hurting the body of that Muni, as well as the body of his penance, and grieving our guiltless minds at the same time!'
After the queens thus lamenting and sighing on his account—for what could they else do for him?—were gone, the king in wrath came up to the holy Rishi, threatening him with drawn sword, in order to strike him himself. On seeing that the Great Being, though thus assailed, kept his calmness unchanged with imperturbable constancy, he became the more excited, and said to him:
37. 'How skilled he is in playing the holy one, that he looks even at me as if he were a Muni, persisting in his guileful arrogance!'
The Bodhisattva, however, owing to his constant practice of forbearance, was not at all disturbed, and as he at once understood from that hostile proceeding, though not without astonishment, that it was the eagerness of wrath which caused the king to act in such an unbecoming way that he had thrown off all restraint of politeness and good manners and lost the faculty of distinguishing between his good and evil, he pitied that monarch and, with the object of appeasing him, said, in truth, something like this: