It was at the sight of such a perfect abnegation of self that Buddha gave to Thoumeda the assurance that one day he would become a Buddha. On that occasion great wonders took place.
From that time he began to practise with a fervent earnestness the great virtues and perfections prescribed by the law. The whole period of time that elapsed from the time Gaudama was the pounha Thoumeda to the time he became Prince Wethandara—that is to say, reached that existence which immediately preceded the last one, when he became Buddha—is of four thingies and one hundred thousand worlds or revolutions of nature. A detailed account of the most meritorious and interesting actions performed by him during several existences that illustrated that almost incalculable period is to be found in the great dzedi of Ceylon.
The accounts must be short and concise, otherwise the dzedi above referred to, how large soever we may suppose it to have been, could never have held them.
THE FOX AND THE LION.
1. When the most excellent Buddha was in the Dzetawon monastery, surrounded by his disciples, desiring to correct a religious who was in the habit of keeping bad company, he narrated the following story: At the time that the Princes Bramanas reigned at Baranathee, Phralaong was then a lion, father to two little ones, one male and the other female. The first was named Menandza. The lion’s household, when Menandza was grown up and had married, was composed in all of five individuals. Menandza, strong and bold, went out every day in quest of prey for the support of his four relations that remained in the den. One day, in the middle of one of his predatory excursions, he happened to meet with a fox, which was lying on his belly, in a most respectful posture. On being asked by the proud lion, with a terrific voice, heightened by a threatening glance, what he was doing, the fox respectfully answered: “I am humbly prostrated here to do homage and pay my respects to your majesty.” “Well,” said Menandza; and he took him alive to his den. As soon as the father saw the fox, he said to his son: “My son, the fox is an animal full of cunning and deceit, faithless, without honour, addicted to all wicked practices, and always engaged and embroiled in some bad affairs; be on your guard; beware of such a companion, and forthwith send him away.” Unheeding his father’s wise advice, Menandza persisted in his resolution, and kept his new friend with him.
On a certain day the fox intimated to Menandza that he longed to eat the flesh of a young colt. “Where is the place these animals are wont to graze?” asked Menandza. “On the banks of the river of Baranathee,” replied the fox. Both started immediately for the indicated spot. They saw there a great number of horses bathing in the river. Menandza, in an instant, pounced upon a young one, and carried it to his den. “It is not prudent,” said the old father, “to eat those animals which belong to the king. One day he will cause you to be shot from a distance with arrows, and kill you. No lion that eats horse-flesh has ever lived long. From this day cease to attack those animals.” Deaf to such wholesome warnings, Menandza continued to carry destruction among the horses. News was soon conveyed to the king that a lion and a fox were making great havoc among his horses. He ordered the animals to be kept within the town. The lion, however, contrived to seize some and carry them away. Orders were given to keep them in an enclosure. Despite this precaution, some horses disappeared. Enraged at this, the king called a bowman and asked him whether he could transfix a lion with his arrows. The bowman said that he could do it. Hereupon, leaving the king, he went and hid himself behind a post, waiting for the offender. It was not long ere he made his appearance; but the cautious fox had remained somewhat to the rear, hidden in a drain. In one start, the lion, with the quickness of lightning, was on the wall, and straightway he went to the stable. The bowman said within himself: “The lion’s movements are very quick; I will wait until he come back loaded with his prey.” He had scarcely revolved this thought in his mind, when the lion was already on his way back carrying a horse. The bowman, all ready, shot an arrow that transfixed the fierce animal. The lion made a start, crying with a terrific voice, “I am wounded.” The fox, hearing his friend’s accents, and the sharp whistling of the bow-string, knew at once what had happened. He said to himself, shaking his head: “There is no friendship, forsooth, with the dead; my friend has fallen under the bowman’s arrow; my life is safe; I will go back to my former place.”
The wounded lion, making a last effort, went back to his den, and dropped dead at its entrance.
Menandza’s relatives, perceiving the wound and the blood gushing out of it, understood at once that he had been shot through with an arrow, and that the fox was the cause of his miserable and untimely end. His mother gave vent to her grief as follows: “Whoever associates with the wicked shall not live long; behold my Menandza is no more, because he followed the fox’s advice.” The father, in his turn, bewailed the loss of his son: “He who goes in company with the wicked shall meet with some evil fate; witness my son, whom his desolate mother sees weltering in the very blood she gave him.” His sister cried aloud: “He who does not follow the advice of the good shall repent of it; he is mad, and, like my brother, shall come to an untimely and cruel end.” Menandza’s wife exclaimed: “He who belongs to a superior rank ought to beware to associate with those of a rank inferior to his own, otherwise he soon becomes as despicable as those he associates with. He loses his position, and becomes the laughing-stock of all.”
Buddha concluded his discourse with this reflection, that no one ought to keep company with those that are wicked and of an inferior position. The religious profited so well by the lecture that he broke at once with his former friends, and soon reached the state of Thautapan. The fox has been since Dewadat, Menandza, the religious, the object of the lecture, Menandza’s sister, Oopalawon; his wife, Kema; his mother, Yathaudara; his father, Phralaong.