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CHAPTER ONE
and his household were not able to show their faces to each other from shame. Thinking angrily, "I and my household have been derided by the king with cruel food," the Brahman went outside the city.
As he was wandering outside, he saw in the distance a goatherd perforating the leaves of a fig tree with pieces of gravel. Reflecting, "He is capable of effectuating my hostility," after gaining him over with honor as well as money, he said to him: "By throwing little balls (of rock) you must put out the eyes of the one who goes on the highway, mounted on an elephant, with a white umbrella and chauris." The goatherd agreed to the Brahman's command. Cattleherds act without reflecting, like cattle.
Taking his place inside a hut, throwing two little balls at the same time, he knocked out the king's eyes. The command of Fate is not to be transgressed. The goatherd was caught by his bodyguards, like a crow by a hawk, and when he was beaten, confessed that the Brahman alone was the cause of his crime.
After hearing that, the king said: "Shame, shame on the tribe of Brahmans! Wherever they eat, they, wicked, break the dish. Better a gift to a dog than to him who becomes master of the giver. Certainly it is not fitting to give to ungrateful Brahmans. Whoever created deceivers, cruel men, wild animals, meat-eaters, and Brahmans, he must be blamed first of all."
Saying this, the king, very angry, had the Brahman killed, together with his sons, brothers, friends, like a handful of flies. Blind in both eyes, a promise having been made in his heart in anger, he had all Brahmans, family priests, et cetera, killed. He instructed the minister, "Fill a big dish with eyes of Brahmans and set it before me." Knowing the king's cruel state of mind, the minister filled a dish with fruit of the sebesten and put it before him. Brahmadatta was delighted, touching them frequently with his hand, saying, “The dish is well filled with eyes of Brahmans."
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