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Life and Stories of Pārsvanātha
consequent upon contempt of knowledge; and thus led many people to perfection (400-438).
Story of the pardoned thief Vasanta 18 Pārçva then turns to the exposition of the second of the charities, namely, the gift of security from fear or danger (abhayadāna: see v. 273), illustrating by story: King Druma of Vasantapura had five hundred wives, at their head the lovely Priyamkarā. It happened that a young thief was caught with his loot, and brought before the king. When the king quizzed him, he told that he was Vasantasena, son of the merchant Vasudatta in Vindhyapura. Spoiled in bringing up, he had become addicted to gambling, had committed many indiscretions, and had finally been driven from home by his father (458). He had then become a vagabond beggar, sleeping in empty temples, addicted to vice and gambling, and had finally found his way to that city. Seeing people enjoy themselves, he had been seized by a craving for pleasure, had committed theft, and been taken by the king's bailiffs : . Do thou now, O king, decree the customary doom!' (463).
Tho moved by pity, the king condemned him to be impaled. Then queen Priyamkarā begged the king to lend her poor Vasanta 19 for one day, in order that she might satisfy his curiosity as to the pleasures of the saṁsāra. The king consented. She took him with her to her house;
18 This story reappears in an inferior and briefer version in Samară. dityasamksepa 9. 578 ff. It is analogous to Shakespeare's Prolog to Taming of the Shrew. The notion of royal power granted for a limited number of days appears in the present text 7. 426; Dhammapada Commentary 10. 9; 12. 4. Related with this theme is the idea of beggar on horse-back'; see Jätakas 241, 306.
Vasantaka with intentional diminutive suffix; see p. 238.
