“Quum sis ipse nocens, moritur cur victima pro te?
Stultitia est, morte alterius sperare Salutem.”
[289] The Light of Asia: or, The Great Renunciation (Mahâbhinishkramana). Being the Life and Teaching of Gautama, Prince of India, and Founder of Buddhism (as told in verse by an Indian Buddhist). By Edwin Arnold. London: Trübner.—In the Hindu Epic, the Mahâbhârata, the same great principle is apparent, though less conspicuously:—
“The constant virtue of the Good is tenderness and love
To all that live in earth, air, sea—great, small—below, above:
Compassionate of heart, they keep a gentle will to each:
Who pities not, hath not the Faith. Full many a one so lives.”
III.—Story of Savîtri
[290] Compare the beautiful verses of Lucretius—who, almost alone amongst the poets, has indignantly denounced the vile and horrible practice of sacrifice—picturing the inconsolable grief the Mother Cow bereft of her young, who has been ravished from her for the sacrificial altar:—