“You, friend, are the oldest of us all. Henceforth we will do all manner of service for you, and pay you reverence, and make salutations before you, and treat you with every respect and courtesy, and abide by your counsels. Do you in future give us whatever counsel and instruction we require.”
Thenceforth the Partridge gave them counsel, and kept them up to their duty, and himself observed his own. So they three kept the Five Commandments; and since they were courteous and respectful to one another, and lived on befitting terms one with another, they became destined for heaven when their lives should end.
“The holy life of these three became known as ‘The Holiness of the Partridge.’ For they, O monks, lived in courtesy and respect towards one another. How then can you, who have taken the vows in so well-taught a religion, live without courtesy and respect towards one another? Henceforth, O monks, I enjoin upon you reverence, and service, and respect, according to age; the giving of the best seats, the best water, and the best food according to age; and that the senior shall never be kept out of a night’s lodging by a junior. Whoever so keeps out his senior shall be guilty of an offence.”
It was when the Teacher had thus concluded his discourse that he, as Buddha, uttered the verse—
“’Tis those who reverence the old
That are the men versed in the Faith.
Worthy of praise while in this life,
And happy in the life to come.”
When the Teacher had thus spoken on the virtue of paying reverence to the old, he established the connexion, and summed up the Jātaka, by saying, “The elephant of that time was Moggallāna, the monkey Sāriputta, but the partridge was I myself.”