“Abstain from speech, Ananda.”
“Even so, Lord. But if they should speak to us, what then?”
“Keep wide awake, Ananda.”
And O that it were possible to set down the laughter of the Lord among his own, and the sweet converse when he related to them the stories of his former births, and whether parables or truths, how is it possible for the not wholly enlightened, who know not their own chains of births, to say? But wise were these stories and sweet and full of teaching for the little ones of the Law and babes might run to hear and laugh, and yet again the wisest pause and ponder the noble truths hidden in them.
Hear now a Birth Story of the Lord. For this is called the Holy Quail, and the Blessed One told it as he and his went through a jungle. For there a very great jungle fire arose and roared toward them very terribly, and some would have made counter-fire and burned the ground before it, but others cried aloud:
“Monks, what is it you would do? Surely it is madness, for we journey with the Master who can do All. And yet, making a counter-fire you would forget the power of the Buddhas! Come, let us go to the Master.”
So they went, and the flame came roaring on to the place where they stood, and when it came within fifteen rods of the Blessed One it was extinguished like a torch plunged in water, and they magnified him. But he said:
“Monks, this was not due to my power but to the faith of a Quail. Hear this.”
And they said:
“Even so, Lord.”