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often tried to discover the soul by flinging the body about, bending and shaking it etc in the hope that the soul would appear (he thinks that the soul or life arises from physical movement). Kumara Kasyapa replied that if villagers, upon marvelling at the sweet sound of a trumpet, took that trumpet from the trumpeteer and flung it, bent, shook it etc, in order to produce a sweet sound they would produce no sweet sound. The trumpet must be connected to the trumpeteer, and the body must be connected to life, for the music of life to be played.
pieces bit by bit to see from which part the soul would come out. but he'd seen no soul come out. Kumara Kasyapa replied with a story of a fire worshiper who, leaving on a short trip, turned over the maintenance of the sacred fire to his adopted son. He told the boy to not let the fire die, but if it did, to use the axe, wood and fire-drill to make a new fire. The boy let the fire die, and being ignorant of the method to make a new fire, used the axe to chop up the wood and fire-drill to tiny bits, expecting the fire to spring out of one bit or another.
i. Payasi said all these explanations had not convinced him;
he was very determined in his view that there is no soul and no life beyond the body. Kumara Kasyapa told the story of the two caravan drivers, related earlier.
j. Payasi remained attached to the bodily conception.
Kasyapa Kumara compared his attachment to the attachment of a swineherd who found some human stool which he desired to feed to his pigs. So he loaded the stool into a wicker-basket and carried that upon his head. It started to rain, and the stool dripped down all over him. Still he went happily on his way home. When some people sheltering under a tree saw him coming, they cried out, "How horrible! You are covered with stool!" But the swineherd replied indignantly, "This is not stool, this is pig fodder!"
k. Payasi still would not give up. Kumara Kasyapa said this
was because he was a cheater, and told him the story of the two dicers related before.
friend, collected some hemp-grass from a village devastated by civil uproar. Travelling on, to another riotous village, they found an opportunity to drop the hemp and pick up hempen cloth. But the man refused, being attached to the hemp, though his friend took the cloth, saying, "We would have made cloth from the hemp anyway." Then they moved on to another village where there was an opportunity to drop the hemp for flax. But the man would not take it, being attached to his load of hemp, although his friend traded and received flax. They moved on and successivly that man's friend dropped flax for linen thread, linen thread for linen cloth, linen cloth for cotton, cotton for cotton thread, cotton thread for cotton cloth, cotton cloth for iron, iron for copper, copper for tin, tin for lead, lead for silver and silver for gold. But the man continued to carry his load of hemp. Though his friend was celebrated by family and friends when he returned to his home, everybody thought the man with the hemp was a fool.
21. Nanda the Elder was a monk who had renounced his princedom and beautiful wife at the behest of Lord Buddha. But when he was leaving for the monastery, his former wife wantonly wished him to make a speedy return to her. He could not forget her invitation, and he burned with lust even while wearing the robes of a monk. Compassionately, Lord Buddha took Nanda to heaven and showed him 500 apsaras. Nanda was fascinated with their unparalleled feminine charms. The Buddha asked him which pleased him more, his former wife or these heavenly damsels. Nanda answered that said that in comparison to the apsaras his wife looked like a half-blind female monkey with her ears and nose cut off. Buddha said, "If you practice the life of a monk and yet do not attain Nirvana but must take birth again, then you will take birth here in heaven and enjoy these very 500 apsaras." After that Nanda became a very serious monk. But the Buddha instructed his other disciples in the monastery to mock Nanda for practicing austerities and meditation only to attain the women of heaven instead of Nirvana. Thus he took his mind off the apsaras and applied it to liberation.
22. An example to use with (for instance) SB 1.3.32 to show the subtle continuity of self behind the changes of the external material form: a man who stole mangos from a grove was captured by the grower and brought before the king, accusing him of theft. The thief defended himself by arguing that the mangos were not the property of the grower because he put mango seeds into the ground. But later these seeds grew trees, and the trees bore mangos. So the mango fruits are different entities from the mango seeds. But obviously such an argument will not be accepted.
23. Another example to show continuity of karma is that of a man arrested for setting fire to a farmer's field. His defense is, "I made a small campfire in his field, and then I left and went on my way. The fire I made is one thing; the fire that spread and burnt up the field is quite another." Obviously, the second fire was directly caused by the first, so this defense is useless.
24. Very similar analogy is of a man who put an oil lamp too close to the thatch of a cottage while he ate. After he left the cottage it burns and ignites the whole village. In his defense he argues, the lamp-flame was one thing, the fire that destroyed the village quite another. Another futile argument.
25. An analogy to defeat those who say that the personality changes with the body ("I feel myself to be a different person than I was a year ago" etc) is that of a man who arranges to marry a young girl, agreeing with the parents that he will collect her only when she becomes a woman. When she reaches her age of womanhood, another man comes to take her away. The first man arrives and sees him packing her off. The first man says, "Now see here, that's my wife!" The second man replies, "You 666arranged to marry a young girl. But this is a full-grown woman. This is a different person altogether."
26. A king used to often play dice for sport with his family priest, rolling golden dice upon a silver board. As he would let the dice roll he would recite a poem for good luck: "By nature's law rivers wind, trees grow of wood by law of kind, and when there's opportunity, all women work iniquity." Reciting thus, he would always win. The brahmin sorely desired to beat the king at dice, and resolved that he must find a woman who would disprove the statement of the rhyme. He was expert in reading bodily signs, so when he saw a poor woman heavy with child, he could tell she would give birth to a girl. He paid her well to have her child in his home and to turn over the girl baby to him. He arranged that the girl was raised only by womenfolk; indeed, she was prevented from seeing any man except the priest. When she reached a marriagable age, the priest took her as his wife. She was completely devoted to him as she had never once looked upon any other man. So when the priest sat to play dice with the king, and the king recited his poem before rolling the dice, the priest said aloud, "Excepting my wife" after the king said, "All women work iniquity." The king lost, and lost again, and lost every time he played dice with the brahmin. The king understood that the brahmin must have married a very chaste woman, but he was sure that no matter how chaste she was, she could be seduced. He hired a rascally playboy to cause her fall. The playboy, using the king's money, opened a flower and perfume shop close to the brahmin's house. The house was seven stories tall and had seven gates with a female guard posted at each one. The girl stayed always within the house, attended by one old lady. Anything--even the garbage--that entered or left the house was carefully searched. The priest was the only man allowed to enter the premises. The playboy, by careful observation, noticed that the attendent lady would leave the house daily to make purchases. When she came near his shop he fell at her feet, crying, "Mother, mother!" He then tearfully introduced himself as her long-lost son. His friends who worked in the shop gathered around and confirmed that this lady looked exactly like the playboy's mother, from whom he was separated when he was very young. The old lady's heart became very soft at the young man's entreaties. She decided that even though it could not be true, how could she break his heart by denying that she was his mother? So she accepted him as her son. He asked her where she was going and she said shopping; when asked what items she wish to buy, she answered flowers and perfumes for the beautiful lady whom she waited upon in the house of the priest. Her "son" gave all these for free to her, and said, "Mother, you come here daily to visit me, and I will give you whatever flowers and perfumes you need free." And so daily she would come and talk with her "son". He asked her all about her activities, and naturally she spoke at length about the brahmin's beautiful wife. After a few days when she came she was told her "son" was sick in bed. She went to see him and asked why he was ill, and he answered, "For love of the beautiful and chaste wife of the brahmin. Your descriptions of her beauty and charater have afflicted my heart." The old lady said not to worry, she would help. So when she returned to the brahmin's wife she told her about her new-found son and his lovesickness. The brahmin's wife's heart also became soft. She 16said, "Well, if you can smuggle him in here, I will cure his sickness." So the old lady, when bringing out the dust and garbage from her housekeeping in a large basket, would dump it over the heads of the female guards when they asked to search through it. Thinking she must be going senile, the guards stopped searching her altogether. And so she could bring her "son" into the house by smuggling him past the guards in a large flower-basket. He seduced the girl and stayed with her for a day. When it was time for her husband to come home, she bade him to leave, but he said, "First I must hit him on his head." So together they contrived a plan, and the playboy hid himself in her room. When the brahmin came home, the wife said, "My dear, if you play the flute, I will dance." He said, "Of course," and began playing a bamboo flute. But she said, "I am too shy to dance in front of you. May I bind your eyes with a cloth?" He said, "Oh, my good little girl, yes you may do that." After his eyes were bound and she danced for a while, she asked him, "My dear, I have such an urge to hit you on the head. May I do that as I dance?" "Whatever pleases you, pleases me." The playboy came out of his hiding place and stuck the brahmin in the head with his fist. This raised a bump on his head, and the brahmin took his wife's hand and said, "Your hand is so soft, but it hits so hard!" Laughing gaily, his wife took off the blindfold after the playboy had hid himself again, and she massaged the bump with oil. Then the brahmin went out to lay down for a while, and the old lady smuggled her "son" out of the house in the flower basket. And so the next time the brahmin played dice with the king and said "Except for my wife," he lost the game. Furious, he went home and accused his wife of unfaithfulness. She denied everything and began to cry, vowing that she would prove her faithfulness by placing her hand in fire and swearing before the assembled public that no other man's hand had ever touched her." The brahmin thought this a good proposal and arranged for the demonstration to take place in the public street. A great crowd gathered to witness it, and among the crowd stood the playboy. A fire was lit and the young girl approached it, her hand outstretched, saying loudly, "I declare that no man's hand has touched me, and if it be so, let this fire not burn my hand." But as it had already been plotted, just then the playboy leapt from the crowd and seized the girl's hand, preventing her from placing it in the fire. "Enough of this!" he shouted to the crowd. "Let us have no more of this cruelty to an innocent woman. Brahmin--" he turned to her husband--"how ungallant a man you are, to subject your wife to such public humiliation!" She shook her hand free of the playboy's grip and said to her husband, "What I have sworn is now undone, and I may not brave the ordeal of fire." "Why not?" he asked. "Because my vow was that no man has touched my hand--but just now that stranger from the crowd has touched me. So what can I do?" The brahmin had no further argument against his wife, and was forced to accept her plea of innocence.
27. A king decided to sport in the royal pool with his queen and the ladies of his harem. The women came to the poolside and removed their jewels, turning them over to the care of female slaves. From above in the trees of the royal garden a female monkey observed this and desired to possess the queen's pearl neckless. When she saw that the female slave guarding the queen's jewelry was a little inattentive, she leapt down, seized the necklace and returned to the treetops. When the slave girl at last noticed the necklace was missing she cried out, "Oh! Some thief has stolen the queen's necklace!" "Catch the thief!" the king shouted to his guards, and they went rushing out of the palace grounds into the city street. A simple fellow who happened to be loitering nearby saw the royal guards running in his direction, and thinking they meant him harm, he turned and fled. "That's him, the thief!" shouted the captain of the guards. "Catch him!" The man was surrounded by the guards and decided he'd better confess immediately or they would kill him on the spot. "Yes, yes, I did it!" he cried, not even knowing what the crime was. He was searched and then hauled before the king. "Did you take the queen's necklace?" the king demanded. "Yes," the man stammered. "Then where is it, scoundrel?" Thinking fast, he said, "I gave it to the goldsmith." The goldsmith was arrested and was handled so roughly by the guards that in great fear he immediately confessed. When asked where the necklace was he implicated the royal priest. The priest in turn implicated the chief musician, and the musician said he gave the necklace to a courtesan. But she denied having ever been given a pearl necklace. It was late, so the king ordered the investigation halted until the next day. All the suspects were put into prison. In the evening the king thought, "The necklace was lost in the palace grounds, but that fool the guards brought in first was from the street. He could not possibly have entered my garden and leave again without being challenged by the guards. Out of fright he must have confessed and implicated the goldsmith. The goldsmith must have implicated the priest because he thought that the priest would deny everything and be believed, and thus clearing the goldsmith too. But the priest implicated the musician simply because he thought jail was unavoidable, so why not have music while in prison. And the musician implicated the courtesan so that she would spend time with him in prison. These five have nothing to do with that necklace. But the garden swarms with monkeys. I believe that is the answer!" The next day the king ordered that some monkeys be caught and decorated with fake pearl neclaces. They were released to the trees and observed by the king and his men. The monkeys wearing the fake pearls were very proud and showed the others, "See our pearls." Out of envy, the female monkey brought the queen's necklace out of hiding and showed them it, saying, "This belonged to the queen herself. See, these are real pearls, and yours are not." The king's men captured the female monkey and returned the necklace to the king.
28. A monkey greedily filled his mouth and both hands with peas cooked at some public function and then scampered up a tree to eat. But as he jumped he saw one pea drop from his hand. He came back down the tree to find the one pea, and dropped all the other peas from his hands and mouth in the process. Frightened by the approach of some men, he leapt back into the tree with nothing at all.
29. A ghost lived within a rose-apple tree. Once a crow sat in the tree to eat the fruit. A greedy jackal came by, and also desiring fruit to eat, flattered the crow: "Oh gentle bird of sweet song, would you bless me with some fruits?" The crow replied, "Ah, you are a noble beast who recognizes the true qualities of others. Yes, oh brave tiger-like one, please take these fruits." And the crow shook the branch upon which it perched, causing fruit to fall. The ghost, suddenly assuming a fearful form to drive these animals off, roared, "You lowborn carrion-eating beasts! Harsh-voiced crow! Cowardly jackal! Begone with your false mutual flattery!"
30. A wolf lived on a rock next to the Ganges. During monsoon the water rose all around the rock, cutting the wolf's lair off from land--thus he could get no food. The wolf thought, "Alright, let me stay here and fast for Caturmasya, and thus earn much piety." But just then he saw a goat wading in the water nearby. The wolf thought, "Ah! Here's food on the hoof! So I will observe Caturmasya some other time!" He leapt after the goat but the animal escaped him and ran nimbly up the steep embankment of the river. The wolf climbed up upon his rock again and thought, "Well, back to my Caturmasya observances."
31. A king fell in love with a beautiful girl who was a seller of jujubes. He took her to wife and despite her lowly background she became his foremost queen. One day years later while he was enjoying a bowl of jujube fruit, this very wife came to him and asked a little distainfully, "My dear king, what is this fruit you are eating today? I wonder if it something that a king should enjoy, or if it fit only for commoners." The king grew wroth and said, "What? This fruit was once the mainstay of your family. Have you forgotten how you used to stand in the marketplace, head uncovered and poorly dressed, selling this fruit to any passerby? Now you pretend you've never seen this fruit before, and indeed you reproach me for stooping beneath my station to eat of it, once your only source of wealth. Here, take a handful of these jujubes again, foolish woman, and enter the marketplace and make your living from them, for you are no longer my wife!"
32. A lion once got a bone lodged in his throat and was so sick he could not hunt. He requested a woodpecker to remove it, promising it no harm. The woodpecker, to make sure, propped open the lion's mouth with a stick, entered his throat and pulled out the bone. As the bird flew away, he knocked the stick out of the beast's mouth. The lion recovered fully and hunted once more. When it killed a buffalo, the woodpecker perched in a tree above and asked, "As I was once kind to you, I pray that you be kind to me and give me a small portion of flesh." The lion replied, "You entered my mouth and lived to tell the tale. I think that token enough of my good will."
33. There was a young lion named Manoja who used to hunt for his old father and mother and his sister and wife, who all lived in a cave. Once he met a jackal named Giriya, who was so weak from hunger he could not even walk. Giriya declared himself Manoja's servant, and Manoja gave him food. But when his father heard his son had made friendship with a jackal, he reproved him, saying, "Jackals are sinful beasts and their advice is unsound. Don't bring this one near you." But Manoja did not heed his father and continued his association with Giriya. Once Giriya said to Manoja, "My lord, we have feasted on every sort of flesh except horseflesh." "Well, friend Giriya, where will we find horses?" "On the Ganges bank at Benares." And so Manoja stalked a horse of the king's army that was being bathed with the other royal steeds in the Benares Ganges. Killing it, he dragged it back to his family's lair. His father warned him, "If you again hunt horses you will be hunted by the king. Leave horses aside and hunt the food of the wild." But Giriya desired more horseflesh, and urged Manoja to stalk the king's horses again and again. Manoja was an expert hunter and was strong and fleet of foot; the king's men could prevent neither his attack nor his escape with a killed horse in his mouth. Finally the king hired a skillful archer to guard the horses from a tower. As Manoja tried to drag a killed horse to safety, the archer shot him in the hindquarters. Giriya immediatly fled for his own life, calling back to Manoja, "There is no friendship with the dead." Manoja, ever valiant and dutiful, still managed to drag the horse to the lair of his family before dropping dead of blood loss. And they sadly reflected upon the perils of bad association.
34. Two otters caught a big fish by mutual effort. Laying it out on the riverbank, they tried to divide it but could not agree how. A clever jackal came by, and the otters, thinking him wise, requested him to be the arbiter of their dispute. The jackal offered to divide the fish himself, and they agreed. In a flash he bit off the fish's head and flung it to one otter, and then bit off the tail and flung that to the other. Seizing the middle portion in his jaws, the jackal sped away with it, leaving the otters downcast.
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