he was great friends with a dog, and I fancy it's through, missing it that he refuses his food."
And so saying, he uttered the stanza:
No longer can he take a morsel even
Of rice or grass; the bath delights him not!
Because, methinks, through constant intercourse,
The elephant had come to love the dog.
When the king heard what he said, he asked what was now to be done.
"Have a proclamation made, O king, to this effect: 'A man is said to have taken away a dog of whom our state elephant was fond. In whose house soever that dog shall be found, he shall be fined so much!'"
The king did so; and as soon as he heard of it, the man turned the dog loose. The dog hastened back, and went close up to the elephant. The elephant took him up in his trunk, and placed him on his forehead, and wept and cried, and took him down again, and watched him as he fed. And then he took his own food.
Then the king paid great honour to the Bodisat for knowing the motives even of animals.
When the Teacher had finished this discourse, and had enlarged upon the Four Truths,[1] he made the connexion and summed up the Jātaka, "He who at that time was the dog was the lay convert, the elephant was the old monk, but the minister paṇḍit was I myself."
END OF THE STORY ON CONSTANCY.
- ↑ Note by the Commentator. "This so-called enforcing (or illustrating) the story by a discourse on the Four Truths is to he understood at the end of every Jātaka; but we only mention it when it appears that it was blessed (to the conversion of some character in the Introductory Story)."
