Lives of Alcyone

mercy to all he steadfastly refused ever again to kill any animals for
sacrifice, or to adopt any of the mean tricks by which. Jagannadha
had amassed so much wealth. Thus he lost much money, and made
himself very unpopular with the other temple Brahmans, especially
as he several times publicly announced his adhesion to the
Buddha’ s saying that a Brahman, who does not live as a Brahman
should, is not in reality a Brahman at all, no matter how high his birth
may be, whereas even a Shudra who lives the life of a true Brahman
is worthy of the respect accorded to a Brahman. The other
Brahmans therefore plotted against him, and reduced his revenues
still further. Nevertheless, the King being pronouncedly Buddhist,
they could not procure his depositions, though they often lodged
complaints against him.
He had a good reputation among the people for humanity and
kindliness, in spite of all the stories which the Brahmans were
constantly circulating against him, so as years rolled on he grew
richer in popularity, though poorer in pocket. It was a great triumph
for him when King Bimbisara, moved by an eloquent sermon from
the Lord Buddha, decreed that there should be no more slaughter
for the sacrifice. The other Brahmans, though greatly incensed by
this order, dared not disobey it, and because of the determined
propagation of these ideas in earlier days Mizar stood well in the
King’ s favour. Still there were many who distrusted him, because
the hostile Brahmans had somehow come to hear a distorted
version of the story of the poisoning of Alcyone’ s son and of
course they made the most of it.
Mizar still used some part of Jagannadha’ s organisation to
bring large bodies of pilgrims into his period of management of the