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CHAPTER SIX
'Our master's sons died before our eyes. Be firm now. I shall quickly rescue your master drowning in a sea of sorrow by an enlightening speech like a hand."
The Brāhman and Sagara (60–211) After comforting them all in this way, the Brāhman took a corpse that had been left unclaimed on the road and went to the city Vinītā. He went to King Sagara's palace-courtyard, stood with upraised arms, and uttered loud lamentations :
"O Cakravartin, acting with justice, having unbroken power of arm, a very wicked thing, a disgraceful deed has been committed here, alas! I have been robbed; robbed in this country called Bharata, though protected by you like heaven by Purandara.”
When Cakrin Sagara heard these words never heard before, as if the man's grief had penetrated himself, he said to the door-keeper: “By whom was he robbed ? Who is he, and where from? Ascertain all this, and have him come in here."
The door-keeper quickly approached the Brāhman and questioned him, but he pretended not to hear and continued his lamentations in the same way. The doorkeeper said again :
"Listen, Brāhman, are you deaf from grief or deaf by nature? The brother of Ajita Svāmin, the King himself, the protector of the poor and protectorless, the refuge of the seekers of a refuge, earnestly questions you lamenting, as if you were his brother. Tell us by whom you were robbed, who you are, and where from. Or rather, come yourself and describe to the King the cause of your sorrow, like the manifestation of illness to a doctor."
So addressed by the door-keeper, the Brāhman, with tearful eyes, like a pool with lotuses covered with drops of frost; with the moon of his face faded, like a winter midnight; like a bear with thick disordered hair; like an old
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