“My lads! take this goat to the river, and bathe it, and hang a garland round its neck, and give it a measure of corn, and deck it out, and then bring it back.”
“Very well,” said they, and accordingly took it to the river; and when they had bathed it and decorated it, let it stand on the bank.
The goat, seeing in this the effect of his former bad conduct, thought to himself, “To-day I shall be free from that great misery;” and, glad at heart, he laughed a mighty laugh, in sound like the crashing of a jar. Then, thinking to himself, “This Brāhman, by killing me, will take upon himself like misery to that which I had earned,” he felt compassion for the Brāhman, and wept with a loud voice.
Then the young Brāhman asked him, “Friend goat! you have both laughed heartily and heartily cried. Pray, what is it makes you laugh, and what is it makes you cry?”
“Ask me about it in your teacher’s presence,” said he.
They took him back, and told their teacher of this matter. And when he had heard their story, he asked the goat, “Why did you laugh, goat, and why did you cry?”
Then the goat, by his power of remembering former births, called to mind the deeds he had done, and said to the Brāhman, “Formerly, O Brāhman, I had become just such another Brāhman,—a student of the mystic verses of the Vedas; and determining to provide a Feast of the Dead, I killed a goat, and gave the Feast. By having killed that one goat, I have had my head cut off in five hundred births, less one. This is my five hundredth birth, the last of the series; and it was at the thought, ‘To-day I shall be free from that great misery,’ that I became glad at heart, and laughed in the manner you have heard. Then, again, I wept, thinking, ‘I who just by having killed a goat incurred the misery of having five hundred times my head cut off, shall be released to-day from the misery; but this Brāhman, by killing me, will, like me, incur the misery of having his head cut off five hundred times;’ and so I wept.”
“Fear not, O goat! I will not kill you,” said he.
“Brāhman! what are you saying? Whether you kill me or not, I cannot to-day escape from death.”
“But don’t be afraid! I will take you under my protection, and walk about close to you.”