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LECTURE XII.
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beat him with a stick, or pelt him with a nut, take him by the neck, and drive him off?' (18)
On these words of the teachers, many young fellows rushed forward, and they all beat the sage with sticks, canes, and whips. (19)
At that turn king Kausalika's daughter, Bhadrâ, of faultless body, saw that the monk was beaten, and appeased the angry youngsters. (20)
'He is the very man to whom the king, impelled by the devil (who possessed me), had given me, but who would not think of me; he is the sage whom princes and gods adore, who has refused me. (21)
He is that austere ascetic, of noble nature, who subdues his senses and controls himself; the chaste man, who would not accept me when my own father, king Kausalika, gave me to him. (22)
'He is the man of great fame and might, of awful piety and power; do not injure him who cannot be injured, lest he consume you all by the fire (of his virtue).' (23)
When the Yakshas heard these well-spoken words of (the Purôhita's) wife Bhadrâ, they came to the assistance of the sage, and kept the young men off. (24)
Appearing in the air with hideous shapes, the Asuras beat the people. When Bhadrâ saw them with rent bodies spitting blood, she spoke again thus: (25)
You may as well dig rocks with your nails, or eat iron with your teeth, or kick fire with your feet, as treat contemptuously a monk. (26)
Like a poisonous snake is a great sage of severe austerities, of tremendous piety and power ; like
