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“Am I to obtain fortune by injustice? That illumination is like a
lamp: For a moment it lights up objects; but when it is at an end, there
is nothing but darkness. We are two people only in a forest : who shall be arbiter in our dispute? If, as we advance, any witnesses shall declare that vice produces success, then I, though a prince, will be your servant as long as you live.' Sajjana said : 'If my assertion is declared true, then I will take your horse, ornaments, and other possessions. The prince said: 'So be it.' When they had made this agreement, they went to a forest hamlet. There they asked some decrepit old Pulindas : 'Ho! you Pulindas, does virtue or vice produce success ? As it happened, they also said that vice produced success. Sajjana took from the prince his horse; ornaments, and other possessions, and Prince Lalitánga went along on foot. The wicked Sajjana said: 'Prince, you have experienced in an obvious. way the result of taking the side of virtue ; now make vice your rule of life.' The prince said: 'I will not desert virtue even at the “crack of doom.": Accordingly they made an agreement that the prince's eyes were to be surrendered, if virtue were worsted in the dispute. As fate would have it, they reached first the very village they had left before, and those very same old Pulindas said that vice ensured success. When they had gone a considerable distance, Sajjana said to the prince: 'Fulfil your promise; give me your eyes.' The prince went under a banyan-tree, and pulled out his eyes with his own hands, and gave them to Sajjana, exclaiming: Virtue brings success!' The wicked Sajjana went off with the two eyes. While the prince was under that very banyan-tree, the sun set.
Many birds came screaming, as if crying out from sorrow At the prince's misfortune, and settled down in their nest-dwellings. In the meanwhile, being assembled together in that banyan-tree,
Some bhárunda birds of their own accord thus began to converse. One said : Well, birds, what strange thing has anyone seen to-day ?' Another answered: 'In the city of Champá there is a king named Jitaçatru. His daughter, Push
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