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VAJJĀLAGGAM
[152
wrap tattered clothes round their bodies, they have to observe (enforced) celibacy and have to beg food (of their masters), but still no religious merit accrues to them (for all that).
153) If somehow, by a merest chance, servants get some happiness, it is through hundreds of difficulties, like the attainment (ascension) to heaven on the part of a Kșapanaka (Jaina monk).
154) Oh king, you may well be devoted to the practice of religious virtue, but we shall now go away. We have not at all seen any liberality in you, any more than we see any exudation of ichor-fluid in the case of a pictured (painted) elephant.
155) Oh sire, to all your (other) servants you are prompt in the manifestation of your generosity like a jack-fruit tree, whose fruit is easily within reach (of every body). But though entreated by us, you, oh king, have become in our case like a Tāla (palm) tree (which bears fruit at a very great height, almost at its top, beyond the reach of any body).
156) What emulation can even the best of trees on earth put up with the jack-fruit tree, which yields, to those that seek, a multitude of fruit as big as the temples of elephants?
157) Oh cloud, you will send down your showers and will completely fill the hollows on the earth, (only) after the community of the Cātaka birds, with their bodies dried up by thirst, is already dead and gone.
158) How can possibly the words "please give unto me”, which are incompatible with the behaviour of a self-respecting person, be uttered (by a servant)? That the master is served by a servant in a modest (or disciplined) manner is itself his entreaty (request) to him in this world.
159) The black teeth of a mighty elephant which are inside (the mouth) are privileged to eat (chew and relish) food. Those however, which do not help (in the chewing of food) are white and stand outside only.
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