The Teacher added, “Thus, O mendicants, the wise, even in former times, exerted themselves unremittingly, and did not give in when they received a check. How then can you lose heart, after being ordained according to a system of religion so adapted to lead you to salvation! And he then explained the Truths.
When his exhortation was concluded, the monk who had lost heart was established in the Fruit of Arahatship. Then the Teacher made the connexion, and summed up the Jātaka by saying, “The king of that time was Ānanda, the knight was Sāriputta, but the Bhoja thoroughbred was I myself.”
END OF THE STORY OF THE BHOJA THOROUGHBRED.
No. 24.
ĀJAÑÑA JĀTAKA.
The Thoroughbred War Horse.
“At every time, in every place.”—This also the Master told, while at Jetavana, about that monk who lost heart.[305] But when he had addressed the monk with the words, “The wise in former times, O monk, continued their exertion, even though in the struggle they received a blow,” he told this tale.
Long ago, when Brahma-datta was reigning in Benares, seven kings, as before, surrounded the city. Then a warrior who fought from a chariot harnessed two Sindh horses, who were brothers, to his chariot, issued from the city, broke through six lines and took six kings prisoners.
At that moment the eldest of the horses received a wound. The charioteer drove on till he came to the king’s gate, took the elder horse out, loosened his harness, made him lie down on his side, and began to harness another horse.