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native, if not Buddhistic. Yet of the simple narrative and the adulterated mystery-play, if one has to choose, the former must take precedence. From the point of view of history, Northern Buddhism, however old its elements, can be regarded only as an admixture of Buddhistic and Brahmanic ideas. For this reason we take a little more space, not to cite from the Lotus or the grotesque Lalita Vistara,[68] but to illustrate Buddhism at its best. Fausböll, who has translated the dialogue that follows, thinks that in the Suttas of the Sutta-nip[ra]ta there is a reminiscence of a stage of Buddhism before the institution of monasteries, while as yet the disciples lived as hermits. The collection is at least very primitive, although we doubt whether the Buddhist disciples ever lived formally as individual hermits. All the Samanas are in groups, little 'congregations, which afterwards grew into monasteries.
This is a poetical (amoebic) contest between the herdsman Dhaniya and Buddha, with which Fausböll[69] compares St. Luke, xii. 16, but which, on the other hand reminds one of a spiritualized Theocritus, with whom its author was, perhaps, contemporary.
I have boiled the rice, I have milked the kine—so said the herdsman Dhaniya-I am living with my comrades near the banks of the (great) Mah[=i] river; the house is roofed, the fire is lit—then rain if thou wilt, o sky!
I am free from anger, free from stubbornness—so said the Blessed OneI am abiding for one night near the banks of the (great) Mah[=i) river; my house has no cover, the fire (of passion) is extinguished—then rain if thou wilt, О sky!
Here are no gad-files—so said the herdsman Dhaniya—The cows are roaming in meadows full of grass, and they can endure the rain—then rain if thou wilt, o sky!