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MUNIPATI
105
"In the course of his wanderings, one day, Metarya arrived at Rajagriha There he practised a long fast for 30 days On its successful completion, he rose to beg food to brcak this fast He arrived at the residence of a gold-smith The gold-smith was a great expert in his profession and he was widely known for his skill He was also the smith to King Srenika On the day the monk arrived, the gold-smith was working on a necklace for the king The speciality of this necklace was that it was made of golden beads of the size and shape of ripe barley The beads looked so real When the smith saw the monk coming towards his shop, he got up to receive him, and then he moved inside to fetch food for the monk This was a chance for a krauncha bird who had been observing these beads for quite some time and had a temptation for this fresh barley The bird came down, picked up the necklace and swallowed it Then it flew back before the smith returned and perched on the same branch of the tree as before Monk Metarya saw all this happening
“When the gold-smith came back with the food for -the monk, he was surprised to find that there was no necklace there He was totally upset He was committed to deliver it that very day to the king He looked around but -there was none in the neighbourhood whom he could suspect.
So he had a feeling that the necklace must have been picked up by the monk As he put it to the monk, he got no reply.
The monk stood silent What to speak of uttering a word, -the monk did not as much drop a hint or make a gesture that - the necklace had been swallowed up by the bird By now, the gold-smith had exhausted all his patience and he showered all sorts of abuses on the monk But when he found that these had no more effect on the monk, he lost control of himself and tied a raw hide round the monk's face and - pushed him in the sun As the hide became dry, it con. rtracted and pressed all around his face The monk felt a
