went in disguise to the harvest field, where he worked as a common labourer; and when he received the walahana, the portion of rice that fell to his share as wages, he presented it to the priest Maha Suma. After this he worked three years in a sugar plantation, near the mountain Swarnnagiri, and gave the sugar that he received as wages to the priests. Thus he who had thousands of treasure and many thousands of attendants, worked with his own hands, that he might give the produce in alms. In the time of Gótama Budha there was in the city of Sewet a rich man, who died, and the king of Kósala became the inheritor of his property. On going to worship Budha the king was late; and when the sage asked the reason, he replied, "There was a rich man in our city, who had plenty of good food, but he would eat only that which was common; when proper garments were brought to him he refused them, and made his clothes of pieces of rags; he went about in a shabby cart, covered by a leaf; he is now dead, and as he has no relative to be his heir, I have taken possession of his wealth, which has detained me beyond the usual hour." Budha then said, "If there be a pond infested with devils, the people are afraid to approach it; they do not bathe in it, nor do they drink the water; and as there is no benefit from it, it is allowed to dry up. In like manner, the wealth of the unwise man is of no benefit to himself, his parents, his wife, or his children. The rich man of whom you speak had no advantage from his wealth in this world, and he will have none in the next; he is now in the Rowra hell." The king enquired how it was that he had so much wealth, and no heart to enjoy it; when Budha informed him that in a former birth he resided in Benares, a most uncharitable man; but as he was one day going to the king's palace he met a Pasé-Budha seeking alms, upon which he commanded one of his attendants to take him to his house, and order some food to be given to him. His wife thought this was something new, and gave him food of the richest kind, which he received but did not eat, as he began to say bana. On the rich man's return he looked into the alms-bowl, and when he saw its contents, he thought, "If this had been given to my cattle or my slaves, it might have done me some good." "For ordering this food," said Gótama, "his reward was the wealth he has just left; but for afterwards regretting that food so good had been given, he was prevented from enjoying it." Thus it is necessary that what is given be given freely, with a spirit free from cove tousness. In Rajagaha there was a man whose employment it was to cut sugar-cane. One day, as he was walking along with a bundle of canes over his shoulder, he was followed by an upásaka, carrying a child, which cried for some of the cane. At first he refused to give it any; but afterwards threw for it a piece behind him. In the next birth he became a préta, and lived near a grove of sugar-cane; but when from hunger he went to take any of the canes that he might eat them, they bent down and struck him, so that he had no means of appeasing his hunger. It happened that Mugalan (one of the principal disciples of Gótama Budha) passed that way, to whom the préta made known what had occurred to him; when the priest informed him that it was in consequence of what he had done to a child in a former birth; but he recommended him to try and seize the canes, with his face turned away from them, in the same manner as he had thrown the cane to the child; which he did. The préta afterwards gave a cane to Mugalan as an offering, who presented part of it to Budha; and in the next birth the sprite became a déwa. Thus that which is given must be presented in a kind manner and with affection. In a former age Gótama Bódhisat was a man of wealth, and as he was exceedingly charitable, he afterwards became Sekra. His descendants for four generations were also charitable, and went to the same déwa-lóka; but the fifth was a great miser. Sekra therefore called these déwas, and informing them that the merit of the family was now about to pass away, he directed them all to put on the appearance of brahmans, and go to the door of their former dwelling to ask alms. The first who went was ordered away; but he repeated a stanza, for which he received permission to remain. The same occurrence happened to them all. Then the rich man told his slave to give them rice in the husk, but they would not receive it; then unboiled rice, but they still refused it; and afterwards such rice, boiled, as is given to oxen; but when they attempted to eat it, it stuck in their throats, and they fell down as if dead. The master therefore told his slaves to take the rice away, and put in its stead such rice as he himself was accustomed to eat; after which he called together the citizens, and said that as he had given them good rice, it was no fault of his that they were choked. Then Sekra assumed the appearance of a déwa, and exposed his deception; but he also gave him good advice, telling him the merit of giving alms, by means of which he was induced to become charitable, and continued so until the day of his death, after which he was born a déwa. Thus, such food must be given as is commonly used, when alms are presented, and not that which is of an inferior kind. A great feast was to be given to Piyumatura Budha and his priests, in a former age, by the citizens of Benares. The scribes went round from house to house, to know how many priests each householder would feed. Some gave their names for ten, and some for four hundred, according to their ability; but there was a poor labourer who could only put his name down to feed one; and he resolved that he would work a whole day, and devote whatever he received in wages to procure food for the priest. On arriving at home he informed his wife of the promise he had made, and she determined to assist him. The next day they both worked hard, and received good wages, with which they purchased the articles that were requisite for the feast. The merit of the couple being observed by Sekra, he went in disguise as a cook to the house, and requested employment. They told him their intention and circumstances; but he agreed to assist them without wages, if they were unable to pay him. When all was ready, the man went to the scribe to enquire what priest he was to have; but the scribe told him that, as he was so poor a man, he had paid no more attention to the matter. The labourer, on hearing this was sorely disappointed, and began to weep; when the bystanders, who had been attracted to the place by his expressions of sorrow, recommended him to go and inform Piyumatura. Accordingly he went at once to the wihára, and Budha, who was at that moment coming out of his residence, put the alms-bowl in his hand, though kings and nobles were waiting to receive it, who offered him untold treasures if he would give it up; but he still retained it. Budha went to his house, and partook of the food that had been prepared, which filled the whole city with its fragrance. As a reward for his charitable act, Sekra filled the labourer's house with jewels; he was afterwards ennobled by the king, and, when he died, was born in a déwa-lóka. In the time of Dípankara Budha, Gótama Bódhisat was a rich man in Benares, who gave alms in such abundance that the whole of Jambudwípa was as if "all the ploughs had been hung up :" all persons ceased from labour. When Sekra saw this he became alarmed, (thinking that the merit of the rich man would be so great as to entitle him to receive the office he himself then held as ruler of a celestial world) and destroyed all his remaining substance, except a sickle, a cord, and a yoke. With these Bódhisat went to cut grass, resolving to give half his earnings to the poor; but when he saw so many in destitute circumstances he gave away the whole, and his wife and he had nothing to eat for the space of six days. At last he fainted away, when in the act of cutting grass. At this moment Sekra appeared to him, and offered to return him all his substance if he would cease to give alms; but he refused to make a promise to this effect. However, as Sekra now found out that he did not do this to obtain his throne in Tawutisá, he became propitious to him, and gave him an immensity of wealth. There was a certain noble who did not keep the precepts, but he one day presented a mango to a priestess. When he died, he was next born, by night a déwa with a thousand beautiful attendants, and by day a préta; by night his body was like a flower of the garden, but by day like fire; by night he had the usual number of fingers, but by day he had two claws. Thus he was alternately punished for his crimes, and rewarded for the giving of the mango. When Gótama, in the seventh year after he became Budha, went to the Tawutisá déwa-lóka, Ankura and Indaka were the first of the déwas who went to hear bana. Even before the arrival of Sekra, Maha Brahma, Mahéswara, and the other principal déwas, they approached the teacher of the three worlds. Indaka took his station on the right hand, and Ankura on the left; but as the déwas successively arrived, Ankura gradually receded to a greater distance, until he was twelve yojanas from Budha, whilst Indaka remained at his original station. Before Budha commenced the saying of bana to the assembled déwas, he declared to them how it was that this difference had been caused. "In a former birth," said the sage, "Ankura presented an offering twelve yojanas in extent, and gave alms continually during 10,000 years; but he gave always to the unworthy, as there were none in existence at that period who possessed merit. On the other hand, Indaka gave only a single spoonful of rice to the priest Anurudha. It is on account of the difference in the merit of those who received their respective gifts, that Indaka remains at my right hand, whilst Ankura retires to a distance." In like manner, when the husbandman scatters his seed in bad ground, though it be ever so much in quantity, the produce is small; whilst he who scatters his seed in good ground, though the quantity be small, gains an abundant harvest. ... In this manner we might proceed, heaping together in palling profusion similar instances of the fertility of man's imagination, when that which concerns his subsistence is the object of regard. The noble principle implanted in the heart by God of sympathy, charity, or love, has in all ages been seized upon by men, who are either to be charged with selfishness, or with extreme ignorance of the teachings of the word of inspiration. How mournful the feeling that enters the spirit at the reading of such passages as the following, from the page of Chrysostom! "The fire," says he, speaking of the lamps carried by the virgins mentioned in the parable, "is virginity, and the oil is alms-giving. And in like manner as the flame, unless supplied with a stream of oil, disappears, so virginity, unless it have alms-giving, is extinguished. . . . Hast thou a penny, purchase heaven. . . . Heaven is on sale, and in the market, and yet ye mind it not! Give a crust, and take back paradise; give the least, and receive the greatest; give the perishable, and receive the imperishable; give the corruptible, and receive the incorruptible. . . . Alms are the redemption of the soul. . . . Almsgiving, which is able to break the chain of thy sins. . . . Almsgiving, the queen of virtues, and the readiest of all ways of getting into heaven, and the best advocate there."* St. Eligius, or Eloi, in the seventh century, exhorts the people to make oblations to the church, that when our Lord comes to judgment they may be able to say, "Da, Domine, quia dedimus." ↑ Again, in a similar strain, Edgar says of this virtue, "Oh, excellent almsgiving! Oh, worthy reward of the soul! Oh, salutary remedy of our sins!" It was usual to recommend this mode of obtaining liberation from guilt. Nor were arguments wanting to set forth the propriety of this course. "For many a man so hard is of herte, He may not wepe although him sore smerte: ... Chaucer's Prologue, v. 229. By the exercise of charity the sick were taught to expect cures. The rich, as well as the poor, were accustomed to put a written schedule of their sins under the cloth which covered the altar of a *Taylor's Ancient Christianity. + Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History. |