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JAINA STORIES
"Who was this fellow? What is his story? Kunchika started,
"In a certain forest, there lived a whiteelephant with a herd of 700 she-elephants Once, while wandering, an iron nail pricked into his leg He had so much pain that he could hardly move and lay in one place for days without food and drink One elephant from thc berd saw a bhiia one day and she induced him to follow her She brought him straight to the suffering elephant and the man took out the nail In gratitude, the elephant gave him many tusks and pearls By selling these, the bhila was now a rich man When people enquired about his sudden affluence, he narrated the whole story This scon reached the ears of the king Out of greed for the tusks and the pearls, the king caught the whole herd and brought the elephants to his city Sır, you are like that lngrateful bhila The elephant had rewarded him but itwas bis report to the king that deprived the whole herd of its liberty By taking out my treasure you have plt me to difficulty in the same manner"
The monk knew not how to change the opinion of the merchant about himself So he spoke in a somewhat rude tone,
"Merchant 1 Even animals are more considerate than you are They take not much time to know the truth, but not you How very wonderful is this !"
"Sır | How do you say that animals are more considerate than me ?"
"I give you an instance," said the monk "On the Vaitadhya bill, in a certain cave, there lived a lioness. A she-deer and a she-jackal were her intimate friends Once the lioness gave birth to an offspring, but after delivery as she became very hungry, she left her offspring with her friends and herself moved out in search of some prey - The dcer lay on the ground and fell asleep Thus the jackal
