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ten lectures. These, however, deal not with the wicked but righteous lives of ten persons. Of these only the first is given in full details, the remaining nine being given only in bare outline.
The first lecture of Subāhu, while illustrating how Subāhu led a life of religion and monkhood, also points out the importance of giving pure alms to worthy monks with a pure intention, and it shows that if-pure alms, a worthy donor and a worthy recipient-if these three things combine, bliss and happiness reign upon this world, even gods send showers of gold and flowers and the donor of such alms obtains the happiness of heaven and final beatitude.
The remaining nine lectures are similar to the first, the different names of persons and places being merely substituted for those occurring in the story of Subāhu, and hence they need no comments.
The descriptions and plots of the stories of the present Sutra are mechanical and contain endless repetitions which are either to be supplied from the stories of other Sūtras or even from the previous stories of the same Sūtra. Moreover, at times the stories in the present Sūtra are quite repulsive and cast in the atmosphere of gloom and cynicism. It may be that.