O stupid men, who fall ‘neath woman’s power!
[288] When the Master had taught them this story, he proclaimed the Four Truths. And at the conclusion thereof that love-sick monk was converted. And the Master made the connexion, and summed up the Jātaka by saying, “The mountain-deer of that time was the love-sick brother, the roe was his former wife, and the tree fairy, who preached the sermon showing the evil of passion, was I myself.”
END OF THE STORY OF THE DART OF LOVE.
No. 14.
VĀTA-MIGA JĀTAKA.
The Greedy Antelope.
“There is nothing worse than greed, they say.”—This the Master told when he was living at Jetavana about the Elder named Tissa the younger, the keeper of the law concerning food.
For when the Master, we are told, was residing at the Bambu-grove, near Rājagaha, a young man of a very wealthy family of distinction, by name Prince Tissa, went one day to the Bambu-grove, and when he had heard the Teacher’s discourse, he became desirous to devote himself to a religious life. And when, on his asking leave to enter the Order, his parents refused their consent, he compelled them to grant it, in the same manner as Raṭṭhapāla had done, by refusing to eat for seven days.[289] And he then took the vows under the Master.
The Master remained at the Bambu-grove about half a month after receiving him into the Order, and then went to Jetavana. There this young man of family passed his life, begging his daily food in Sāvatthi, and observing all the Thirteen Practices by which the passions are quelled. So under the name of “The Young Tissa who keeps the law concerning food,”[290] he became as distinguished and famous in Buddhadom as the moon in the vault of heaven.
At that time they were holding festival in Rājagaha, and the parents of the monk put away all the jewelry which had belonged to him in the days of his laymanship into a silver casket; and took the matter to heart, weeping, and saying, “At other festivals our boy used to keep the feast wearing this ornament or this. And now Gotama the Mendicant has taken him, him our only son, away to Sāvatthi! And we know not what fate is falling to him there.”