Kathakoca or Treasury of Stories

Author(s): C H Tawney
Publisher: Oriental Books Reprint Corporation New Delhi

Page 43

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battle to drive on the elephant, and carry you into the midst of your enemies.' It turned out also that the prince and the minister were engaged in the same plot to murder the king and seize the reins of power, but were converted by the words of the actress. It is said in the Ávaçyaka Siddhanta : You have sung the tune well, you have played it well, you have
danced it well, O fair one; Since you have endured through a long night, let not sleep now make
you careless.'
When the king had thus heard the real thoughts of them all he was pleased ; and seeing the emptiness of the world, all of them, and especially the king, were by the preaching of the hermit converted to the happiness of stability. The king placed the prince on the throne, and took the vows in the presence of the hermit as his spiritual preceptor, and, having maintained a blameless walk, went to heaven. The hermit Yacobhadra also went to his spiritual preceptor, and having confessed his sin and promised amendment,* and once more maintained a holy walk, he acquired unlimited knowledge, and eventually dying a death of holy peace,t he went to blessedness. Hence it follows that:
A word spoken in season, a gift in season to living beings, A shower in season, all these, though but slight, produce fruit by
the crore.
Here ends the story of Yacobhadra having reference to a word spoken in season.
Virtue is the one thing needful, and not high birth. What is the use of high birth without virtue ? Did not some men and a queen born in a royal family, Firm of soul, by practising virtue, go to heaven?
Sita, afraid of ill repute, made her body an offering in the flame; In that the flame became like water, therein was displayed the might
of her virtue.
* See note 155 in Dr. Hoernle's translation of the Uvásaga Dasáo.'
+ Dr. Hoernle in the Uvásaga Dasáo' shows that samadhimrityu is practically a euphemism for a death by means of starvation.