The Theft of a Smell

Once upon a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in
Benares, the Bodhisatta was born in a brahmin family of
a village in Kasi: when he grew up he learned the arts
at Takkasila, and afterwards became an ascetic and lived
near a lotus-pool. One day he went down into the pool
and stood smelling a lotus in full flower. A goddess who
was in a hollow in a trunk of a tree alarming him spoke
the first stanza:

You were never given that flower you smell, though its only a single
bloom ;
'Tis a species of larceny, reverend sir, you are stealing its perfume.

Then the Bodhisatta spoke the second stanza :

I neither take nor break the flower: from afar I smell the bloom.
I cannot tell on what pretence you say I steal perfume.

At the same moment a man was digging in the pool
for lotus-fibres and breaking the lotus-plants. The
Bodhisatta seeing him said, "You call a man thief if he
smells the flower from afar : why do you not speak to that
other man?" So in talk with her he spoke the third
stanza :

A man who digs the lotus-roots and breaks the stalks I see:
Why don't you call the conduct of that man disorderly?

The goddess, explaining why she did not speak to him,
spoke the fourth and fifth stanzas :

Disgusting like a nurse's dress are men disorderly:

I have no speech with men like him, but I deign to speak to thee.

When a man is free from evil stains and seeks for purity,

A sin like a hair-tip shews on him like a dark cloud in the sky.

So alarmed by her the Bodhisatta in emotion spoke
the sixth stanza:

Surely, fairy, you know me well, to pity me you deign :
If you see me do the like offence, pray speak to me again.

Then the goddess spoke to him the seventh stanza :

I am not here to serve you, no hireling folk are we:
Find, Brother, for yourself the path to reach felicity.

So exhorting him she entered her own abode. The
Bodhisatta entered on high meditation and was born in
the Brahma-world.