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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
This Jātaka stands No. 541 in the Ceylon list under the title of Mūgapakkha or “The dumb cripple.” The Burmese, however, prefer to call it by the name of the Prince, who is the hero of the story. It is the first of the ten greater Jātaka, and, unlike the Bhūridatta, contains little or no folk-lore, but illustrates the value of asceticism.
page 359 note 1 Sākala or Sangala in the Panjab.
page 360 note 1 It is odd that it never occurred to any one that the fault was most probably the King's.
page 361 note 1 Sometimes the throne becomes hard and at others hot.
3 Childers offers no explanation of this word. It is one of the lesser Hells.
page 362 note 1 The “varajina” is a kind of celestial weapon that can penetrate through anything with its flash. I can find no mention of it in Childers. It is evidently a form of vajira, the thunderbolt of Indra.
page 363 note 1 This custom is often mentioned. Was it universal in India? Can it be connected with the slaughter of the innocents?
page 363 note 2 Nāri, commonly used for an hour, is really the sixtieth part of twenty-four hours, and the same as Pali nāli, a measure for holding water, and used in measuring time. It contains four pāda, according to the Burmese. Childers is not decided on the point. That nāri should become nāḷi is natural, as the Burmese cannot pronounce the letter r, and substitute y or l for it. It is not easy to see how nāḷi became nāri.
page 373 note 1 No stanzas are given here, but the Burmese ṱranslator remarks: “This is an amplification; of the Queen's “Tena hi Deva detha” and the Rājā's “Na sakkā Devi.” The whole passage reads very like Abraham's intercession for the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah.
page 377 note 1 Visakrom is the Burmese form of Vissakammo, the heavenly architect. The r in the word shows that the word came to the Burmese from the Sanscrit before they had Pāli.
page 380 note 1 Verses 7 and 8 are to be taken in a double sense, that is to say, “vattam” means both seed and actions. Patiṭṭham means a sure foothold in this world or hereafter. There are really 10 couplets, but’ 5 and 6 are almost the same.
page 380 note 2 The Peepul is the Nigrodha or Banyan tree.
page 382 note 1 The correct way of making supplication.
page 383 note 1 Ahosukham.
page 384 note 1 The B. V. Kammaṭṭhānam contains meditations on friendship, pity, joy in the prosperity of others, and resignation. The full text is translated by Prof. Rhys Davids, “Buddhist Sutras,” pp. 272, 273.
page 384 note 2 Certain Pāli stanzas are here given to explain the meaning of the number “akkhobhaṇi.”
In sixty bundles of bamboo,
To each let sixty be,
Reduced to dust they make a force
That's called “akkhobhaṇi.”
Another runs thus:
Take of elephants nine thousand,
To each add a hundred horses.
To each horse a hundred chariots,
In each one a hundred virgins,
To each girl a hundred women,
That “akkhobhaṇi” is called.
Childers gives “Akkohiṇi” 10,000,000, but this makes thirty-six hundred thousand millions.
page 386 note 1 When it is said in Daniel that Nebuchadnezzar did eat grass like an ox, may iṭ not simply mean that he subsisted on herbs and leaves as the hermits and jogis?
page 387 note 1 The Khattiya is the warrior caste.
page 388 note 1 The five enemies are Rulers, Thieves, Water, Fire, Foes.
page 389 note 1 This is probably Samatata, in the delta of the Ganges.