has been both uncalled for and unfitting. I am afraid they
were overwrought and not entirely in control of their
faculties. I trust that you will not, on this account, strike
this house with your ascetic anger. I will fill your alms‐
bowl myself with the best this house has to offer,
Honoured Sir. How fortunate that the bowl is as yet
empty! I will fill it so that it cannot contain another morsel
and no neighbour shall, this day, earn merit by feeding
you. You have indeed not come to the wrong door,
Venerable One; and I believe the food will be to your
taste, for it is a proverbial saying in Ujjenī: “His table is like
the merchant Kāmanīta’s,” and I am he. I trust, therefore,
Venerable One, that you will not be angry at what has
taken place, and will not curse my house.”
Whereupon he answered, and with no appearance
of unfriendliness:
“How could I be angry at such abuse, O head of
this house, seeing as how it is my duty to be grateful for
even far coarser treatment? Once, in the past, I took myself
with robe and alms‐bowl into a town to receive food from
the charitable, as is our custom. But in that town, Māra, the
Evil One, had just then stirred up the brahmins and the
householders against the Order of the Buddha — ‘Away
with these so‐called virtuous, noble‐minded ascetics!
Abuse them, insult them, drive them away, pursue them.’
And so it happened, as I passed along the street a stone
flew at my head; next a broken dish struck me in the face
and a stick which followed half crushed my arm. But
when, with head all cut and covered with blood, with
broken bowl and torn robe I returned to the Master, his
words were: ‘Bear it, brahmin! Bear it! For you are experi‐
encing here and now the result of deeds because of which
you might have been tortured in hell for many years, for
many hundreds of years, for many thousands of years.’”
At the first sound of his voice, there quivered
120
through me from head to foot flash of horror and, with
every additional word, an icy cold ess penetrated deeper
into the very recesses of my being For it was, brother, the
voice of Angulimāla, the ro
how could I doubt it?
And when my convulsive
ed itself on his face, I
recognised it a
lthough his beard formerly went up
almost to his e
deep into
rehead, and whereas he now stood completely
e
as in
d
assuredly the same that had once clutched my throat
ke devilish talons.
I
at abuse?” my
ruesome guest went on, “Has not the Master said:
s
lf
y
e
a
n
.
bber —
glance fix
lso: a
yes and his hair had grown down
his fo
clean‐shaven before me. But only too well did I recognis
again the eyes under those bushy, coalescing eyebrows,
although instead of darting flashes of rage at me,
those former days, they now looked kindness itself; an
the sinewy fingers which encircled the alms‐bowl — they
were
li
“How, indeed, could grow angry
g
‘Bhikkhus, even if robbers and murderers were to sever
you savagely limb by limb with a two‐handled saw, one
who gave rise to a mind of hatred on that account would
not be carrying out my teachings.’”
When I, brother, heard these words, with their
diabolically concealed yet to me so evident threat, my leg
shook under me and to such a degree that I had to hold
on to the wall in order not to fall down.
With the greatest difficulty I managed to pull myse
together so far as to indicate to the robber‐ascetic, more b
gesture than by my few stammered words, that he was to
have patience until I should procure him the food.
Then I hurried, as rapidly as my shaking legs
would carry me, straight across the courtyard into the larg
kitchen, where just at that moment the midday meal for
the whole household was being prepared, and where from
every pot and pan there came the sounds of roasting and
boiling.
121
Here I chose, with no less haste than care, the best
and most savoury morsels. Armed with a golden ladle and
wait upon and,
pos
followed by a whole troop of servants bearing dishes, I
dashed again into the courtyard in order to
if
sible, conciliate my terrible guest.
But Angulimāla had disappeared.
122
~ 16 ~
R
EADY FOR ACTION
H
ALF‐SWOONING, I SAT down upon a bench. My
brain, however, began to work again at once.
Angulimāla had been there, of that there could be no
doubt; and the reason for his coming was only too clear to
any tales had I heard of his implacability
nd g
s not
ount
—
e
er honour; yet he
y
ut
ad
half of the
me.
*
*
*
How m
a
reed for vengeance! Moreover, I had had the mis‐
fortune to slay his best friend and, from my time with the
robbers, I well knew that friendship among them doe
c
for less than among highly respectable citizens
indeed, if anything, for much more. At the time when I
was his prisoner, Angulimāla couldn’t kill me without
contravening the laws of The Senders and at the same tim
putting an indelible blot upon his robb
nevertheless all but did it twice over. Now, however, he
had at last been able to seek out this land, in spite of its
lying so far from the scene of his favoured activities, and
evidently he intended to make up for that past omission.
In the disguise of an ascetic he had succeeded in leisurel
surveying the places in the neighbourhood and, witho
doubt, had resolved to act that same night. Even if he h
by any chance perceived that I recognised him, he dared
not delay, for this was the last night of the dark
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