PSALMS OF THE BRETHREN
Canto II.
Psalms of Two Verses
CXXXV
Sabbamitta
Translated from the Pali by Mrs. C.A.F. Rhys Davids.
Public Domain
Reborn in this Buddha-age in the family of a brahmin of Sāvatthī, and named Sabbamitta, he saw, at the presentation of the Jeta Grove, the wondrous power of the Buddha, and entering the Order he obtained a subject for exercise and dwelt in the forest. After the rains he went into Sāvatthī, to salute the Buddha, and on his way there lay a fawn caught in a trapper's net. The doe, though not in the net, kept near from love for her young, yet dared not come close to the snare. The fawn, turning hither and thither, bleated for pity. Then the Thera: 'Alas! the suffering that love brings to creatures!' Going further he saw many bandits wrapping a man they had captured alive in straw, and [123] about to set fire to it. Hearing his cries, the Thera, out of his distress at both these things, uttered a verse within hearing of the bandits.
[149] Folk are bound up with folk and cling to folk.
Folk suffer scathe from folk and wreak the same.
[150] What boots thee then this folk, and brood of folk?
Let the folk go and get thee gone from them,
Who as they go injure so many folk.[1]
So saying, he forced his way to insight, and won arahantship. But the brigands, listening to his teaching, were moved in heart and renounced the world, practising the Norm in principle and in detail.
[1] I read gacchantaɱ.
