Kathakoca or Treasury of Stories

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

Page 54

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rule of piety and virtue, went to heaven. Here ends the story of Madanarekhá concerning persistence in virtue.
Asceticism is the net in which all the senses are tamed like deer; A myrobalan not dried up by action, that allays the fever of sin.
Now follows an example having reference to the subject of asceticism. In this very Bharata there was a city of the name of
Kusumapura. In it there lived a STORY OF NÁGADATTA.
A. merchant named Nagachandra; he had a son named Nágadatta.
A modest, ever-active, intelligent son, dear to his father and mother, Who is full of merit, and naturally clever, is born by special good
luck. Once on a time that Nágadatta witnessed a religious celebration of eight kinds, which some pious man caused to be performed in the temple of the Jina. The son said to his father: 'Father, I also will acquire wealth with my own arms, and will perform such a ceremony, for Who cannot increase the inherited property acquired by his father
and transmitted by him to his children? But seldom does a mother give birth to a man who without wealth
is himself enterprising.* Having gone through these reflections, he was anxious to go to a foreign land; so he sat down in the market-place. While he was there, a Bráhman was offering for sale for five hundred drachmas the following eloka : That which ought not to be done is not to be done, even though
a man's life be in his throat; That which ought to be done is to be done, even though a man's
life be in his throat. Nágadatta bought this çloka for five hundred drachmas, whereat his father flew into a passion, and in his spite scolded him severely. Then Nagadatta went on a seavoyage with five hundred ships. The ships, after sailing over the open sea for some days, fell into the hollow of the snake-encircled mountain. First one ship fell into the
* This closely resembles a verse on p. 32 of Dr. Schmidt's Çuka. Baptati. I fear that my translation is only approximately correct.