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I14
THE QUESTIONS AND PUZZLES
IV, 8, 1.
Book IV. CHAPTER 8.
[DILEMMA THE SEVENTY-FIRST.
VESSANTARA'S GIVING '.] 1. 'Venerable Nâgasena, do all the Bodisats give away their wives and children, or was it only Vessantara the king who did so?'
'All of them do so, not Vessantara only.'
[275] · Do they then give them away with their own consent?'
The wife, O king, was a consenting party. But the children, by reason of their tender age, lamented. Had they thoroughly understood, they too would have approved.
"A hard thing, Nagasena, was it that the Bodisat carried out, in that he gave away his own children, his only ones, dearly beloved, into slavery to the Brahman. And this second action was harder still, that he bound his own children, his only ones, and dearly beloved, young and tender though they were, with the jungle rope, and then, when he saw them being dragged along? by the Brahman,—their hands
1 We have seen above, IV, I, 41 (I, 178), how Hînaf-kumburê expanded the story of Vessantara, which had aroused also in our author a greater enthusiasm than any of the many other subjects that he treats. Here too the Simhalese translator fairly runs riot over the 'mighty giving of the glorious king,' and expands the ten pages of the Pâli into thirty-three pages of his version (pp. 389-421), whereas usually one page of the Simhalese covers very nearly a page of the Pâli.
Anumaggiyante. See Mr. Trenckner's note. But the
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