The Wicked Step-Mother

Once upon a time, when Brahmadatta was king- of
Benares, the Bodhisatta was born as the son of his chief
queen ; and because his all-blessed countenance was like
a lotus full-blown, Paduma-Kumara they named him,
which is to say, the Lotus Prince. When he grew up he
was educated in all arts and accomplishments. Then his
mother departed this life ; the king took another consort,
and appointed his son viceroy.

After this the king, being about to set forth to quell a
rising on the frontier, said to his consort, "Do you, lady,
stay here, while I go forth to quell the frontier insur-
rection." But she replied, "No, my lord, here I will not
remain, but I will go with you." Then he shewed her
the danger which lay on the field of battle, adding to it
this : " Stay then here without vexation until my return,
and I will give charge to Prince Paduma, that he be
careful in all that should be done for you, and then I
will go/' So thus he did, and departed.

When he had scattered his enemies, and pacified the
country, he returned, and pitched his camp without the
city. The Bodhisatta learning of his father's return,
adorned the city, and setting a watch over the royal
palace, went forth alone to meet his father. The queen
observing the beauty of his appearance, became enamoured
of him. In taking leave of her, the Bodhisatta said, "Can
I do anything for you, mother?" "Mother, do you call
me?" quoth she. She rose up and seized his hands,
saying. "Lie on my couch!' 1 "Why?" he asked. "Just
until the king comes," she said, "let us both enjoy the
bliss of love!" "Mother, my mother you are, and you
have a husband living. Such a thing I have never before
seen, that a woman, a matron, should break the moral
law in the way of fleshly lust. How can I do such a deed
with you?" Twice and thrice she besought him, and
when he would not, said she, " Then you refuse to do as
I ask?" -"Indeed I do refuse." -"Then I will speak to the
king, and cause you to be beheaded." " Do as you will,"
answered the Great Being; and having shamed her he
left her. Then in fear she thought : " If he tell the king
first, there is no life for me ! I must get speech of him
first myself." Accordingly leaving her food untouched
she donned a soiled robe, and made nail-scratches upon
her body; giving orders to her attendants, that when the
king should ask of the queen's whereabouts, he should be
told she was ill, she lay down making a pretence of illness.
Xow the king made solemn procession about the city
right wise, and went up into his dwelling. When he saw
her not, he asked, "Where is the queen?" "She is ill,"
they said. He entered the state chamber, and asked her,
"What is amiss with you, lady?" She made as though
she heard nothing. Twice and yet thrice he asked, and
then she answered, " O great king, why do you ask? Be
silent : women that have a husband must be even as I am."
"Who has annoyed you?" said he. "Tell me quickly, and
I will have him beheaded." -"Whom did you leave behind
you in this city, when you went away?" -"Prince Paduma.'
"And he," she went on, "came into my room, and I said.
My son, do not so, I am your mother: but say what I
would, he cried, None is king here but me, and I will take
you to my dwelling, and enjoy your love ; then he seized
me by the hair of my head, and plucked it out again and
again, and as I would not yield to his will, he wounded
and beat me, and departed." The king made no investi-
gation, but furious as a serpent, commanded his men, "Go
and bind Prince Paduma, and bring him to me !" They
went to his house, swarming as it were through the city,
and bound him and beat him, bound his hands fast behind
his back, put about his neck the garland of red flowers,
making him a condemned criminal, and led him thither,
beating him the while. It was clear to him that this was
the queen's doing, and as he went along he cried out,
" Ho fellows, I am not one that has offended against the
king! I am innocent." All the city was a-bubble with
the news: "They say the king is going to execute Prince
Paduma at the bidding of a woman ! " They flocked
together, they fell at the prince's feet, lamenting with a
great noise, "You have not deserved this, my lord!"

At last they brought him before the king. At sight of
him, the king could not restrain what was in his heart, and
cried out, "This fellow is no king, but he plays the king-
finely ! My son he is, yet he has insulted the queen.
Away with him, down with him over the thieves' cliff,
make an end of him !" But the prince said to his father,
"No such crime lies at my door, father. Do not kill me
on a woman's word." The king would not listen to him.
Then all those of the royal seraglio, in number six-
teen thousand, raised a great lamentation, saying, "Dear
Paduma, mighty Prince, this dealing you have never
deserved !" And all the warrior chiefs and great mag-
nates of the land, and all the attendant courtiers cried,
"My lord! the prince is a man of goodness and virtuous
life, observes the traditions of his race, heir to the kingdom !

Do not slay him at a woman's word, without a hearing !
A king's duty it is to act with all circumspection." So
saying, they repeated seven stanzas :

No king should puiiish an offence, and hear no pleas at all,
Not throughly sifting it himself in all points, great and small.

The warrior chief who punishes a fault before he tries,

Is like a man born blind, who eats his food all bones and flies.

Who punishes the guiltless, and lets go the guilty, knows
No more than one who blind upon a rugged highway goes.

He who all this examines well, in things both great and small,
And so administers, deserves to be the head of all.

He that would set himself on high must not all-gentle be
Nor all-severe: but both these things practise in company.

Contempt the all-gentle wins, and he that's all-severe has wrath:
So of the pair be well aware, and keep a middle path.

Much can the angry man, king, and much the knave can say:
And therefore for a woman's sake thy sou thou must not slay.

But for all they could say in many ways the courtiers
could not win him to do their bidding. The Bodhisatta
also, for all his beseeching, could not persuade him to listen:
nay, the king, blind fool, said "Away! down with him over
the thieves' cliff!" repeating the eighth stanza:

One side the whole world stands, my queen on the other all alone;
Yet her I cleave to : cast him down the cliff , and get you gone !

At these words, not one among the sixteen thousand
women could remain unmoved, while all the populace
stretched out their hands, and tore their hair, with lamenta-
tions. The king said, "Let these but try to prevent the
throwing of this fellow over the cliff!" and amidst his
followers, though the crowd wailed around, he caused the
prince to be seized, and cast down the precipice over
heels head-first.

Then owing to the magic power due to his practice of
friendliness the deity of the hill comforted the prince,
saying, "Fear not, Paduma!" and in both hands he caught
him, pressed him to his heart, sent a divine thrill through
him, set him in the abode of the nagas of the eight ranges,
within the hood of the naga-king. The king received the
Bodhisatta into the abode of the nagas, and gave him
the half of his own glory and state. There for one year
he dwelt. Then he said, " I would go back to the ways of
men." "Whither?" they asked. "To Himalaya, where I
will become an ascetic." The naga-king gave his consent ;
taking him, he conveyed him to the place where men go
to and fro, and gave him the requisites of an ascetic, and
went back to his own place.

So he proceeded to Himalaya, became a hermit-sage,
and cultivated the faculty of ecstatic bliss ; there he abode,
feeding upon fruits and roots of the woodland.

Now a certain wood-ranger, who dwelt in Benares,
came to that place, and recognised the Great Being.
"Are you not," he asked, "the great Prince Paduma,
my lord?" "Yes, sir," he replied. The other saluted
him, and there for some days he remained. Then he
returned to Benares; and said to the king, "Your son,
my lord, has embraced the religious life in the region of
Himalaya, and lives in a hut of leaves. I have been
staying with him, and thence I come." " Have you seen
him with your own eyes ? " asked the king. " Yes, my
lord." The king with a great host went thither, and on
the outskirts of the forest he pitched his camp; then with
his courtiers around him, went to salute the Great Being-,
who sat at the door of his hut of leaves, in all the glory of
his golden form, and sat on one side ; the courtiers also
greeted him, and spoke pleasantly to him, and sat on
one side. The Bodhisatta on his part invited the king to
share his wild fruits, and talked pleasantly with him.

Then said the king, " My son, by me you were cast down
a deep precipice, and how is it you are yet alive ?" Asking
which, he repeated the ninth stanza :

As into hell-mouth, you were cast over a beetling hill,

No succour many palm-trees deep : how are you living- still ?

These are the remaining stanzas, and of the five, taken
alternately, three were spoken by the Bodhisatta, and two
by the king.

A naga mighty, full of force, born on that mountain land,
Caught me within his coils ; and so here safe from death I stand.
Lo ! I will take you back, prince, to my own home again :
And there what is the wood to you ? with blessing you shall reign.
As who a hook has swallowed, and draws it forth all blood,
Drawn forth, is happy: so I see in me this bliss and good.
Why speak you thus about a hook, why speak you thus of gore,
Why speak about the drawing out? Come tell me, I implore.
Lust is the hook: fine elephants and horse by blood I shew;
These by renouncing I have drawn ; this, chieftain, you must know.

" Thus, O great king, to be king is nothing to me ; but
do you see to it, that you break not the Ten Royal Virtues,
but forsake evil-doing, and rule in righteousness." In
those words the Great Being admonished the king. He
with weeping and wailing departed, and on the way to his
city he asked his courtiers: "On whose account was it
that I made a breach with a son so virtuous?" they
replied, "The queen's." Her the king caused to be seized,
and cast headlong over the thieves' cliff! and entering his
city ruled in righteousness.