But the Bodisat said: “Don’t stop!” and so prevented that. And as the other gazed and gazed at the departing Bodisat, he was torn with violent grief; his heart grew hot, and blood flowed from his mouth until his heart broke—like tank-mud in the heat of the sun.
Thus harboring hatred against the Bodisat, he brought about on that very spot his own destruction. This was the first time that Devadatta harbored hatred against the Bodisat.
But the Bodisat gave gifts, and did other good acts, and passed away according to his deeds.
THE ELEPHANT THAT SPARED LIFE
At that time the Bodisat was born as a nobleman’s son. On the naming-day they gave him the name of Prince Magha, and when he grew up he was known as “Magha the young Brahmin.”
His parents procured him a wife from a family of equal rank; and, increasing in sons and daughters, he became a great giver of gifts, and kept the Five Commandments.
In that village there were as many as thirty families; and one day the men of those families stopped in the middle of the village to transact some village business. The Bodisat removed with his feet the lumps of soil on the place where he stood, and made the spot convenient to stand on; but another came up and stood there. Then he smoothed out another spot, and took his stand there; but another man came and stood upon it. Still the Bodisat tried again and again, with the same result, until he had made convenient standing-room for all the thirty.
The next time he had an open-roofed shed put up there; and then pulled that down, and built a hall, and had benches spread in it, and a water-pot placed there. On another occasion those thirty men were reconciled by the Bodisat, who confirmed them in the Five Commandments; and thenceforward he continued with them in works of piety.
Whilst they were so living they used to rise up early, go out with bill-hooks and crowbars in their hands, tear up with the crowbars the stones in the four high roads and village paths, and roll them away, take away the trees which would be in the way of vehicles, make the rough places plain, form causeways, dig ponds, build public halls, give gifts, and keep the Commandments—thus, in many ways, all the dwellers in the village listened to the exhortations of the Bodisat, and kept the Commandments.