38, 39. 'Beggars, wanting money and goods, objects of various employment, are to be found every day, are they not? but mendicants like these cannot be obtained even by propitiating deities. Now considering the frailness of my body and that it is an abode of woe, it would be meanness of mind, I think, even to hesitate at the time of the appearance of such uncommon mendicants; but miserable self-love would be here the deepest darkness.
'Pray, do not withhold me, then, My Lords.'
Having so persuaded his council, he sent for the physicians, and after having five veins in his body opened by them, he spoke to the Yakshas:
40. 'Deign to assist me in this pious performance and to procure for me the highest gladness by accepting this bounty.'
They assented and began to drink, intercepting with the hollow of their joint hands the king's blood, the dark colour of which resembled fragrant red sandal.
41. While allowing the nocturnal monsters to drink the blood from his wounds, the monarch shone as if his body were of gold, and he had the appearance of Mount Meru covered with rain-clouds hanging down by their weight, and tinged with the hue of the twilight.
42. In consequence of the high degree of his gladness, of his magnanimous forbearance, and also of his corporeal strength, his body did not fade, nor did his mind faint, and the flowing blood did not lessen.
The Yakshas, having quenched their intense thirst, said to the king that it was enough.
43. Considering that he had now disposed of his body, that always ungrateful object and abode of many pains, so as to turn it into a means of honouring mendicants, his satisfaction grew no less when they ceased.