So he tore it out with golden pincers, and placed it in the hand of the king. There were then eighty-four thousand years of the lifetime allotted to the king still to elapse. But, nevertheless, as he looked upon the grey hair he was deeply agitated, as if the King of Death had come nigh unto him, or as if he found himself inside a house on fire.[273] And he thought, “O foolish Makhā Deva! though grey hairs have come upon you, you yet have not been able to get rid of the frailties and passions which deprave men’s hearts!”[274]
As he thus meditated and meditated on the appearance of the grey hair, his heart burned within him, drops of perspiration rolled down from his body, and his very robes oppressed him and became unbearable. And he thought, “This very day I must leave the world and devote myself to a religious life!”
Then he gave to the barber a grant of a village whose revenue amounted to a hundred thousand. And he sent for his eldest son, and said to him, “My son! grey hairs have appeared on my head. I am become an old man. I have done with all human hopes; now I will seek heavenly things. It is time for me to abandon the world. Do you assume the sovereignty. I will embrace the religious life, and, dwelling in the garden called Makhā Deva’s Mango-park, I will train myself in the characteristics of those who are subdued in heart.”
His ministers, when he formed this intention, came to him and said, “What is the reason, O king! of your giving up the world?”
Then the king, taking the grey hair in his hand, uttered this verse—
These grey hairs that have come upon my head
Are angel messengers appearing to me,
Laying stern hands upon the evening of my life!
’Tis time I should devote myself to holy thought!
Having thus spoken, he laid down his sovranty that very day, and became a hermit; and living in the Mango-grove of Makhā Deva, of which he had spoken, he spent eighty-four thousand years in practising perfect goodwill towards all beings, and in constant devotion to meditation. And after he died he was born again in the Brahma heaven; and when his allotted time there was exhausted, he became in Mithilā a king called Nimi, and reunited his scattered family.[275] And after that he became a hermit in that same Mango-grove, and practised perfect goodwill towards all beings, and again returned to the Brahma heaven.