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could a discriminating creature, even if hungry, kill a living creature to produce extreme pain on the one hand and pleasure for a moment on the other hand? Your hunger can be appeased by other food surely. The fire of bile which can be extinguished by sugar, can it not also be extinguished by milk?841 Pains arising in hell arrived at because of the murder of living creatures cannot be extinguished by any means except endurance. Then give up the killing of living creatures and practice one system of ethics by which you will undoubtedly attain happiness in birth after birth."
The hawk replied to the king in human speech: "This dove came to you for protection from fear of me. I am suffering from hunger. To whom shall I go for protection? Tell me. For the great, rich in compassion, are favorable to all. Protect me also, O king, just as you protect him. The breath of me, suffering from hunger, is leaving. Consideration of right and wrong is for persons in comfort. Does not even a righteous person commit a crime when he is hungry? Enough of talk about ethics. This one that has become my food should be surrendered. What kind of ethics is it when one is protected and another killed? I would not be satisfied by other food, O king. I am an eater of quivering flesh of creatures recently killed by myself."
CHAPTER FOUR
The king said to him, "I will give you my own flesh, weighing it with the dove. Be satisfied. Do not die."
The hawk said, "Very well," and the king put the dove in the scales on one side and his own flesh on the other side, cutting it off again and again. As the king threw in his own flesh, as he continued to cut it off, so the dove kept increasing in weight. When the king saw that the dove kept increasing in weight, he himself got on the scales with unequaled courage. Seeing the king on the
tastes.
341 265. Bile is appeased by the bitter, astringent and sweet Milk and sugar both belong to the madhura (sweet) group. Sushruta-Samhita, I, 383, 390.
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