Vessantara-Jataka in Pali and English - MyWebSpace

Translation 493 Vessantara-Jåtaka
[Fausbøll, Jåtaka, vol. VI, p. 493]
The agent said:
"Uggas and Vesiyas, charioteers, and brahmins every one,
Mahouts and lifeguards, charioteers and footmen, thither run,
All angry at thy giving gifts, and therefore banish thee."
Hearing this, the Great Being, in all content, said:
"My very eye and heart I'd give: why not what is not mine,
Or gold or treasure, precious stones, or pearls, or jewels fine?
Comes any one to ask of me, I’d give my hand, my right, 1
Nor for a moment hesitate: in gifts is my delight.
Now let the people banish me, now let the people kill,
Or cut me sevenfold, for cease from gifts I never will."
On hearing this, the agent again spoke, no message of the king's or of the people's, but
another command out of his own mind:
"This is the Sivi people's will; they bade me tell you so:
Where Kontimārā by the hill Ārañjara doth flow,
Thither depart, where banished men, good sir, are wont to go."
This he said, we are told, by inspiration of a deity.
Hearing this, the Bodhisatta replied: "Very well, I shall go by the road that those go who
have offended; but me the citizens do not banish for any offence, they banish me for the
gift of the elephant. In this case I wish to give the great gift of the seven hundreds, and I
pray the citizens to grant me one day's delay for that. To-morrow I will make my gift, the
next day I will go":
1 Reading dakkhiṇaṁ with B d ; adakkhiṇam violates the metre.