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CONTES
[2. BHAVA
(Main story continued.) Dharmaghopa was ordained by Amaragupta, as he told the prince. The latter asked him to explain the nature of the Samdira. In the course of his homily, the saint related :
The apologue of the man in the well,' 110, 17
• 114, 10. A man, stricken with poverty, left his country and wandered about. Once he entered a dreadful forest, where he soon was pursued by a furious elephant while in front he was opposed by a hideous Rāksasi. He fled towards a huge banyan tree, but he was not able to climb on it. Near it there was an old well; to save himself from the elephant the man jumped in it, and got hold of a tuft of reed which grew out of its wall. Looking round he perceived, on all four sides of the well, hissing snakes ; and at the bottom of it, a huge serpent; at the root of the reed to which he clung, there were gnawing in turn a white and a black mouse. The elephant at the mouth of the well could not reach the man; however, he gave violent shocks to the tree, whereby a bee-hive on a branch just above the well was so shaken, that the bees issued from it and stung the man, while drops of honey trickled down from the boney-comb and fell on his face. He licked them up and was so pleased with their sweet taste, that he eagerly looked out for more and forgot the dangerous position in which he was placed. 113, 16. The man is likened to the soul (jiva); the forrest to Samsāra; the Ráksasi to old age ; the elephant to death ; the banyan tree to mokşa; the well to human life; the four snakes to the four cardinal passions; the tuft of reed to the length of human life; the white and black mice to the bright and dark fortnights ; the bees to the diseases; the huge serpent to hell, the drops of honey to the pleasures. 114, 18.
Dharmaghosa then gave a short description of the yati Sharmg; those who ošnnot follow it, should become Śrāvanas.
See E. Kuhn's learnod paper on this famous apologue in Festgruas kazi Otto von Böhtlingels" Stuttgart 1888, p. 68-76.
