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HIS ENEMIES
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“I too Brahmin, do plough and do sow before I eat.”
“I fail, however, to see the worthy Gautama’s yoke, or plough, or ploughshare, or goad, or ox-team —albeit, he asserts that he ploughs and sows before he eats.
“You claim to be a tiller, though we see none of your tillage. Tell us how you till; for of your tilling we would fain hear more.”
“My seed is faith; austerity of life my rain; wisdom my yoke and plough; my pole is fear to err; with thought to strap the yoke; and mindfulness for plough share and the goad,” replied the Lord.
“Watchful o’er word and deed, and temperate in diet, I make in sight weed my crop, nor rest till final bliss is harvested. Effort is my stout ox, which turns not back at headlands;—straight to Peace he bears me on, to that last bourne where anguish is no more. Thus, I till with Deathlessness for crop. And who tills as I, is freed from ills.”
Thereupon the Brahmin served up milk-rice on a great bronze dish and offered it to the Lord, saying: “Eat this, Gautama, a tiller indeed art thou, in that thou tillest a crop that is Deathless.”
But the Lord said: “I take no chanter’s fee. Seers countenance it not; the Enlighten’d scout such fees; and while this Doctrine lasts, this practice must hold good. Provided with other fare a sage of holy calm, consummate, cankerless; merit to reap,— sow there.”
On hearing these words the Brahmin went over to the Lord, and, bowing his head at the Lord’s feet, cried: “Wonderful, Gautama; quite wonderful. Just as a man might set upright again what had fallen down, or reveal what had been hidden away, or tell a man who had fallen down, or reveal what had been hidden away, or tell a man who had gone astray which was his way, or bring a lamp into darkness so that those with eyes to see might see the things about them,—even so, in many ways has Gautama made his Doctrine clear!
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