Texts from the Buddhist canon : commonly known as Dhammapada

148
DHAMMAPADA.
Seated thus, the disappointed Shaman explained to the
other his condition, and confessed that he was going back
home from a feeling of failure in his religious exercises.
Now it happened while he was speaking, that an old
monkey leaving the tree in which he lived, came down
into the open and disported himself; then the assumed
Shaman asked the other, why was this; to which the
last replied : " I have often observed this same monkey
come down and behave himself thus, and the reasons for^
his so doing are two,— ist, he is rejoiced to be free from
the care of providing for his wife and his belongings ; and
2dly, he is worn and hurt by constantly climbing the tree
in which his family live, and so is glad to escape the
labour of so doing: for these two reasons he leaves the
tree and enjoys himself in the open ground. But mean-
while, as the two were conversing, the monkey retreated
from the open space, and re-clitnbed the tree, on which
the strange Shaman addressed the other, and asked if he
perceiyed this, and how he explained it. On which the
latter said that it was in consequence of fear and uncertainty
that the monkey had gone back to his home ; on
which the other' rejoined : " Such is the case with your-
self; it was the anxieties caused by your wife and family
that first induced you to find release in these mountain
wilds, but now owing to doubt and uncertainty, you are
going back to the world, and by so doing you expose
yourself to all the evil consequences of renewed birth
and consequent death. Whereupon he added these
verses
:
" As ^ a tree, as long as its root is firm and safe,
although cut down, still survives and produces
fruit ;
so, unless the remnants of lust are destroyed
and uprooted, (a man) must return again and again
to receive sorrow. The monkey, away from the
' Compare rer. 338 of the PSli.