“I, who do evil to no created being, am at rest, wander no more; but thou, who dost rage against all created beings, must wander ceaselessly from one place of suffering to another.”
I answered again—
“That we wander ever, I have of course heard. But that about standing still, about wandering no more, I do not understand. Wilt thou, Reverend Sir, fully explain to me what thou hast just summed up in these few words? See, I have put my spear from me, and solemnly swear to grant thee peace.”
“For the second time, Angulimala,” he said, “thou hast sworn falsely.”
“For the second time?”
“The first time it happened was at that false Rite of Truth.”
That he should know of that secret matter was not the smallest of these marvels to me; but, without pausing over that, I made haste to defend my crafty deed.
“My words, Reverend Sir, were on that occasion certainly somewhat ambiguous, but, literally, I swore nothing false, only the sense was misleading. That, however, which I swear to thee is true literally and in fact.”
“Not so,” he answered, “for thou canst grant me no peace. It were well for thee if thou didst suffer thyself to receive peace from me.”
As he thus spoke, he turned round, and motioned to me with a friendly gesture to approach.
“Willingly, Reverend Sir,” I humbly said.
“Listen, then, and pay good attention.”
He sat down in the shadow of a large tree, and bade me seat myself at his feet. And he began to teach me of good and evil deeds and of their consequences, all the while explaining everything fully as when one speaks to a child. For I was, of course, quite uneducated, whereas the pupils of ascetics are, as a rule, Brahman youths who even know the Veda. I, however, had never listened to speech so fraught with deep thought since I sat in the forest by night at the feet of Vajaçravas, of whom I have already spoken to thee, and whose name thou hast, I imagine, heard from others also.
But when this ascetic now revealed to me that no arbitrary heavenly power, but our own hearts alone, with the thoughts and deeds emanating from these, cause us to be born now here, now there, at one time on earth, at another in heaven, and then again in hell—I could not help thinking of that Vajaçravas and of the way in which he had proved to us by reasons of common sense, and by reference to the sacred writings, that there could be no hell-punishments, and that all the passages in the sacred writings having reference to such had been interpolated by weak and cowardly souls in order that by such threats they might terrify the strong and courageous, and protect themselves from the violence of the latter. “Friend Vajaçravas was never,” I thought, “able to convince me quite. I wonder whether this ascetic will be able to do so. Here stands, as a matter of fact, opinion against opinion, scholar against scholar. For even if this ascetic should be one of the great disciples of the Son of the Sakyas, yet Vajaçravas was also highly thought of by his own followers, and now, after his death, is even worshipped by the common people as a saint. Who, then, is to decide as to which of these two is in the right?”
“Thou art no longer attending to what I say, Angulimala,” said the ascetic; “thou art thinking of that Vajaçravas and his erroneous doctrines.”
Much astonished, I acknowledged the truth of what he said.
“So thou, Reverend Sir, didst also know my friend Vajaçravas?”
“People showed me his grave outside of the gate, and I saw foolish travellers offering up prayers there under the delusion that he was a saint.”
“So he is no saint, then?”
“Well, if he seems one to thee, let us visit him and see how it fares now with his saintship.”
The ascetic said this as though it were a matter of going from one house to another. Thoroughly taken aback, I stared at him.
“Visit him? Vajaçravas? How were that possible?”
“Give me thy hand,” he said. “I shall cast myself into that state of self-absorption by the aid of which the path that leads to the gods and that which leads to the demons become visible to a steadfast heart. Then we shall follow in his track, and what I see, that shalt thou also see.”
I gave him my hand. For some time he sat there perfectly still, his eyes cast down, the pupils directed inward, and I was conscious of nothing. Suddenly, however, I felt, as probably a swimmer may feel, when the demon who dwells in the waters seizes his arm and draws him down, so that the blue heavens and the trees on the bank disappear, and the waves meet over his head, and darkness that grows ever deeper closes round him on every side.
From time to time, however, tongues of flame flared up around me, and a mighty noise thundered in my ears.
Finally, I found myself in what seemed to be a vast cave, where it was quite dark save for the fitful illumination furnished by the fleeting gleam of countless lightning flashes. When I had grown somewhat accustomed to the darkness, I discovered that these flashes were the reflections of iron spearheads, which darted hither and thither as though lances were being wielded by invisible arms—it might be in a battle of ghosts. I heard screams also—not fierce and courageous, however, as those of combatants drunk with the joy of battle, but screams of pain and groans of wounded, whom, however, I did not see. For these terrifying sounds came from the background, where the quivering of the lance-heads formed one trembling and whirling mist. The foreground was empty.
In this empty space there now appeared three figures, vomited, as it were, from the black mouth of a den which opened upon it from the right. The man in the middle was Vajaçravas; his naked body trembled from
