UC-NRLF 
 
 2M 515 
 
 THE - LAYMAN - REVATO 
 
 EDWARD - P BVF F ET 
 
GIFT OF 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
To the Librarian : 
 
 The accompanying copy of "The Layman Revato; 
 A Story of a Restless Mind in Buddhist India at the time 
 of Greek Influence," is sent without charge, trusting that 
 you will place it permanently upon your shelves and so 
 classify it that it may be found by studious readers inter 
 ested in the subjects to which it relates. It is a work of 
 research and reflection, appealing little to the ordinary 
 novel reader; hence its fictional structure might be, so far 
 as possible, ignored. For the guidance of your cataloguer 
 I may suggest that the chief topics of the book are Bud 
 dhism and India (historical, literary, philosophical), while 
 other possible references would be the following: Period 
 of Asoka; Greek Philosophy; Alexander the Great (his 
 influence on Asia) ; Comparative Religions; Pali Literature. 
 
 A formal acknowledgement is unnecessary, but I 
 would appreciate a postal upon receipt, stating that the 
 book has arrived and will be preserved in your library. 
 Respectfully, 
 EDWARD P. BUFFET, 
 
 804 Bergen Avenue, 
 
 Jersey City, N. J. 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 A STORY OF A RESTLESS MIND IN 
 
 BUDDHIST INDIA AT THE TIME OF 
 
 GREEK INFLUENCE 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD P. BUFFET 
 
 EDWARD P. BUFFET 
 804 BERGEN AVENUE 
 JERSEY CITY, N. J. 
 
 i Address for orders or other correspondence.) 
 
 I .. 
 
 1914 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY 
 EDWARD P. BUFFET 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The meeting of West and East through Alexander s 
 invasion is better known to us as a glittering gener 
 ality than in its detailed results. Obscure is the 
 effect of Hellenic influence upon Bactria and India. 
 Archeological research, however, is revealing the 
 Graeco-Buddhist buildings and sculptures of Gand- 
 hara and other districts, where oriental ideas are 
 carried out with a classic technique. We have 
 learned that the Buddho figure, which is now so 
 familiar all over Eastern Asia, and which to us 
 appears so characteristically "native," is really a 
 debased copy of a Grecian original. Before the 
 coming of the "Yonakas," it appears that Buddho s 
 disciples had not presumed to depict their master 
 otherwise than by the symbol of a tree, a footprint, 
 or the like. 
 
 Such tangible memorials as stone images but 
 feebly indicate the mutual influences and modifica 
 tions that may have taken place in two great religions 
 which were opposite as the poles of the earth in their 
 attitude toward life. One stood for self-repression, 
 the other for self-expression; one for "the will to 
 refrain," the other for "the will to act"; one for the 
 gospel of Tolstoi and the other for the gospel of 
 Nietzsche. Such is the great issue between East and 
 West. Upon it the world was divided then and is 
 divided to-day. It united, in Christianity, to a 
 synthesis which again and again has been broken 
 up. It still wages war within the mind of many an 
 individual, as of Henri-Frederic Amiel. While we 
 dwell upon the meeting of the two cultures, we 
 shall fail of our lesson if we find in it merely an idle 
 story of the past and do not allow its appeal to our 
 innermost feelings, or realize that it is alive with 
 relevancy to the problems of the modern world. 
 
 The present, largely historical, although structur 
 ally imaginative, study is a rendering of Indian life 
 and thought toward the close of the third century 
 B. C., in the last days of Piyadasi, Asoko, the 
 "Buddhist Constantine." It projects an interplay 
 between Buddhism and Hellenism, like that which 
 has left a trace on the Punjab monuments, into the 
 Ganges valley at this earlier period; yet where and 
 when an intercourse had actually been established 
 for two generations. We shall see an architect and 
 sculptor, whom Asoko has procured from a Western 
 land, beautifully externalizing the conceptions of 
 the puritanic Buddhism, yet perverting them by an 
 idolatrous apotheosis. As we bring together, in 
 many ways, the cultures and ideals of East and 
 West, we shall observe their reactions, thus making a 
 moral laboratory study of the world. 
 
 But this is not all that my book means. So com 
 plex are its contents and purposes, that I do not 
 know how to indicate them in brief. On one hand, 
 it is a conglomerate from the literature of its age, 
 
 having cost such long and painstaking research as 
 one puts into a large treatise on history or philoso 
 phy. The different lines of study that I have fol 
 lowed for it cannot here be enumerated. Bewilder 
 ing, however, as is the mass of material accumulated, 
 I trust that those who explore it carefully will find 
 a strong unity. 
 
 I solicit the attention of the thoughtful student 
 rather than of the amusement seeker. It is regret 
 table that space does not permit copious notes and 
 citations which might distinguish the large number 
 of extracts from Pali literature and other informatory 
 matter scattered throughout. I am sorry that this 
 is knit together by fiction, but how otherwise could 
 I have had freedom to treat the subject so humanly 
 as I have tried to do? For, after all, neither history 
 nor romance is here primary, but an endeavor to 
 peer into some of the most inscrutable mysteries of 
 duty and to witness the travail of a soul. Whoever 
 does not bring hereto something of personal experi 
 ence, will carry nothing away. 
 
 However strongly Buddhist is the temperament of 
 my created character, Revato, he must be under 
 stood as having one of those morbidly adventurous 
 minds which cannot be bonded by any imposed 
 philosophy. Whether the ideas ascribed to him are 
 natural outgrowths from the Buddhism of his day, 
 are modern ones grafted thereupon, or are truly 
 independent of time and place this question I 
 leave to the few critics qualified to judge. In justice 
 to Christianity, I admit a possibility that I have 
 credited to an earlier age some moral perceptions 
 which are peculiarly its own. Moreover, there is 
 certainly in Revato a pathological element. 
 
 Pseudo-mystics and fad religionists have rendered 
 the very word "Oriental" suspicious. In spite of the 
 Epilogue, there may be a reluctance to read my 
 book on the part of serious Christian thinkers, whom 
 I am especially anxious to reach, and who ought to 
 sympathize with the deep soul of Revato. Is it to 
 be condemned that, while reverting to a time cen 
 turies before the Galilean ministry, and dwelling 
 among some of its noblest anticipations, an author 
 should heartily drink the spirit of his surroundings? 
 Christ is now supreme, however usefully Buddho 
 may be qualified to serve as His helper, and the de 
 mand of Christianity to be spread everywhere is 
 implied in its very nature. 
 
 A word in passing as to the coincidences so 
 constantly met with in comparative study of reli 
 gions. The tyro is sure to frame ambitious hypotheses 
 of borrowing. Wider reading should teach him cau 
 tion in theorizing, because of the very redundancy of 
 such resemblances and because they can be found 
 where borrowing is out of the question. For example, 
 I once compiled a list of startling likenesses, in 
 
PREFACE 
 
 minute detail, between the lives of Buddho and St. 
 Francis. There is much yet to be explained about 
 the law of coincidence in Religion, Jurisprudence, 
 Biology and other lines. Is it impossible that, after 
 all, life may be subtly directed by a tendency of 
 approximation to certain ideals or arch-types, among 
 which humanity standardizes the animal world and 
 Jesus the spiritual? 
 
 Coming back to "Revato," let me say that the 
 Parayana monastery is not historical, but that in 
 great measure the description of Pataliputta city, 
 and still more that of Rajagaha, has been worked 
 out by laborious research. Most of the monasteries 
 mentioned in the story are real. 
 
 In many cases I have followed native tradition uncritically, 
 as in attributing the authorship of certain sayings to Buddho 
 and his diciples, the walls of Rajagaha to Govindo. My knowl 
 edge of Indian natural history has largely come from ancient 
 sources; I have often used Pali names for trees, etc., and such 
 description as those of the forest voices in Chapter XIII are 
 idealized. "Gotamo s Gate," on the north of Pataliputta city, 
 is assumed to be shifted from its traditional site in the west side 
 of the old village. Too late I find that I probably erred in 
 dating the river flood stage after the close of the rainy season, 
 rather than within that period. 
 
 Nearly all the Greek poetry used I have put into its present 
 metrical form, availing of such prose translations as are found in 
 Lang s "Homeric Hymns" and Wharton s "Sappho." They are 
 adapted at pleasure; thus, I have not hesitated to make patchwork 
 of Sappho fragments, nor to incorporate in an Anacreonic ode a fit 
 ting line from Theocritus. Certain quotations are verbatim in 
 Way s spirited verse, namely, his Euripidean choruses, "Flowing 
 with milk is the ground," from the "Bacchanals," and "Oh, the 
 works of the Gods," from "Andromache." 
 
 The Buddhist poetry I have spent much time in working out 
 from the books of the Pali canon, sometimes with, often without, 
 close reference to other translations. Much has been taken from 
 
 the "Thera- and Theri-Gatha, " so beautifully rendered into 
 German by Karl E. Neumann, under the title, "Die Lieder der 
 Monche und Nonnen Gotamo Buddho s" (Ernst Hofmann & 
 Co., Berlin). Just on going to press, I have had the advantage also 
 of Mrs. Rhys David s English translations of the same, "Psalms 
 of the Brethren and Sisters" (published for the Pali Text Society 
 by Henry Frowde). Neither of these translators, however, is to 
 be held responsible for my free-and-easy renderings, some of 
 which I now discover to be quite distorted from their real mean 
 ings, yet in a manner which adapts them well to my present 
 literary purpose. The poems and fragments from this collection 
 are chiefly those on pages i, 2 (both); 8, 10, 15 (first); 26 (sec 
 ond); 31, 34 (last); 46, 50 (first); 67, 75, 79 (third); 80 (third); 
 81, 82 (second); 83 and 92. 
 
 In several poetic fragments and otherwise, I have followed, or 
 been helped by, Strong s "Udana," Miiller s "Dhammapada" and 
 Fausboll s "Sutta-Nipata." On the last are based the lines 
 concerning Nibbana, late in Chap. I and the Further Shore, 
 beginning Chap. VI, both of which are adapted from my versions 
 printed in the "Open Court," Chicago. 
 
 I have no idea how many hundred books I have read or con 
 sulted in preparing for "Revato," and cannot give a list sufficient 
 to cover even my real indebtedness, but the following deserve 
 mention: Everything of T. W. Rhys Davids , especially his 
 "Buddhist India"; also, in the "Sacred Books of the East" series, 
 his "Buddhist Suttas" and (with Oldenberg) "Vinaya Texts," 
 from which source books I have worked into my story numerous 
 passages. Like every Pali student, I add my praises to Childers 
 wonderful, if obsolete, dictionary; among other uses, it has served 
 me extensively as a phrase-book. Much has come from Cowell s 
 Cambridge edition of the Jataka, Warren s "Buddhism in 
 Translations," Smith s "Asoka, " Beal s "Hiuen Tsiang, " 
 Legge s "Fa-Hien," Cunningham s "Ancient Geography of 
 India" and "Archeological Survey Reports," Waddell s "Ex 
 cavations at Pataliputta, " Lassen s " Indische Alterthumskunde, " 
 Foucher s "Art Greco-Bouddhique du Gandhara," Cams 
 "Gospel of Buddha," Moore s "Iti-Vuttaka," Peer s "Sutra 
 d Upali," Philpot s "Sacred Tree," Farrar s "Old Greek Nature 
 Stories," Easby-Smith s "Songs of Alcaeus," Buckley s "Euripi 
 des," Fairbanks "First Philosophers of Greece," Kerr s "Bac- 
 chae," J. M. Edmonds "Sappho Fragments," in the Classical 
 Review, June, 1909. 
 
 [vi] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 GIJJHAKUTA, THE VULTURE S PEAK 
 
 Autumn life is fast returning 
 
 Where the spoiling storm winds blew; 
 
 Limbs are leaved and boughs are burning, 
 
 Flaming every floral hue. 
 
 Tis a year-time strong with yearning; 
 
 Valorous man, it calls on you. 
 
 Tree buds crumble here and yonder, 
 Prodigal with flocks and scents; 
 Fruits on every fluttering frond are 
 Waxing large in recompense. 
 Tis a moon when strong men wander. 
 Hasten to be going hence! 
 
 Thus have I heard. At a certain time many bhik- 
 khus of the Sangha were dwelling through the rainy 
 season at the priories in the Bambu Grove and JI- 
 vako s Mango Grove by Rajagaha. But the Vener 
 able Bharadvajo and the Venerable Kondanno, 
 likewise mendicants of the Society, dwelt in leaf 
 huts which they had built on the mountain of the 
 Vulture s Peak. When the four months rain ceased, 
 as the moon came to a full in the early winter 
 month Kattika, the brethren held the great festival 
 of Pavarana "Invitation" mutually inviting re 
 buke for offences seen or heard or suspected, and 
 having received new robes, they set forth upon their 
 journeyings about the country. 
 
 Now on the day which began the forthwandering, 
 toward sunset, the young lay disciple, Revato 
 Yuvano, Receiver of Royal Customs at Rajagaha, 
 having ascended the mountain of the Vulture s Peak, 
 drew near to where the Venerable Bharadvajo and 
 the Venerable Kondanno were. Having drawn 
 near, he passed around them, keeping his right side 
 toward them, and took his seat respectfully at a 
 little distance. When seated, he addressed them 
 thus: 
 
 "Long life to your Reverences." 
 
 To this vain greeting, as Buddho had expressly 
 permitted, they answered for civility s sake: "May 
 you live long, avuso friend." 
 
 "How soon do you start, bhavanta Reverend 
 Sirs and whitherto?" asked Revato. 
 
 "To-morrow before the meal," Kondanno replied. 
 Short and squat was he, not over-old; his face was 
 shaped like his begging bowl and red as an indago- 
 
 NOTE: A casual reader may prefer to pass rather lightly over 
 the first two chapters, which are introductory. The first lays an 
 ethical and psychological foundation; it defines that concrete 
 moral perplexity by which the large, vague problem of the book 
 is primarily exemplified. The second chapter is partly a retro 
 spective character study, partly a historical excursus. 
 
 Cold comes not with frosty shiver, 
 Heat is not unduly pressed. 
 Month of every boon the giver! 
 Sons of Sakya, rise from rest; 
 Tis a time to cross the river, 
 Facing toward the unbound West. 
 
 Hopefully man toils in tilling, 
 Strews in hope the seedling grain; 
 Hopefully, their cargoes filling, 
 Merchants voyage across the main. 
 Cheered by hope, my heart is willing; 
 May that hope of mine be gain! 
 
 paka bug. "We shall pass for alms and preaching 
 through the villages toward Pataliputta," said 
 Kondanno. 
 
 "Thither am I going also," spoke Revato; "I 
 have determined that I must resign my office." 
 
 "Your office!" exclaimed Bharadvajo. Crisp was 
 his countenance like the sear leaves strewn round 
 about by the rainy season, as well it might be, for 
 eighty vassas had fallen upon it; but his form was 
 still straight like a bambu clothes-pole. "Resign 
 your office which you obtained through the memory 
 of that blessed arahat, the Elder Mahindo!" 
 
 "Supposing, bhante, " rejoined Revato, "that 
 the Thera Mahindo were to-night returned to us 
 across the sea from Tambapanni Island, and suppos 
 ing that, reluctantly, I should explain to him my 
 reasons, and should ask of him, Sattha Master 
 what ought I to do in this matter? I have no doubt 
 he would answer, It is meet to be weary of, it is 
 meet to be estranged from, it is meet to be set quite 
 free from the bondage of all composed things. " 
 
 "Can you not confide equally in your friends at 
 home?" asked Bharadvajo. "I, alas, have pro 
 gressed but a little way in the Paths; though I am 
 old, I remain only a learner. The Venerable Kon 
 danno, however, is wise. You know that he can 
 recite the whole Discipline and more than half of 
 the Higher Doctrine. Let him pass judgment on 
 your case." 
 
 "Oho, Upasaka Layman the Venerable Bhara 
 dvajo would flatter me!" cried Venerable Kondanno; 
 "but he knows it to be a fact that in me dwell the 
 Six Knowledges and the Ten Powers and the Four 
 Grounds of Confidence. Do not hesitate to ask me 
 any question that you choose and I will gladly 
 impart to you the best of my experience." 
 
 Both of the Brethren had been Revato s lifelong 
 intimate counsellors and yet on this occasion he 
 
 i] 
 
LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 hung back from frank speech to either. The craving 
 for a good confessor and director is stronger than 
 almost any other human want; it is a demand the 
 denial of which has wrecked myriad souls; but 
 where the heart is deep, satisfaction of its need 
 becomes difficult or impossible. Did not the dying 
 Buddho leave his disciples to explore singly the 
 darkness of Eternity when he said: "Be ye lamps 
 unto yourselves; be a refuge to yourselves. Betake 
 yourselves to no external refuge. Hold fast to the 
 Truth as a lamp. Look not for a refuge to anyone 
 beside yourselves"? 
 
 To seek advice, moreover, on a deep and delicate 
 question, of the pedant Kondafino, Revato s mental 
 self-respect forbade. The Venerable Bharadvajo, 
 he felt to be a saint like them of old, like those who 
 formed that little circle around the Blessed Master 
 during five and forty years of tireless wandering. 
 If any man in these days might become an arahat, 
 surely Bharadvajo, in spite of his disclaimer, had 
 attained that state; his presence breathed the purple 
 cloud of Nibbana. Like Gotamo, he pervaded the 
 world with kindness. Appropriate to him seemed 
 the words of Sirimitto the Elder: 
 
 "Who wrath nor hate not judgment in word or thought hath 
 
 known, 
 He, in the long Hereafter, hath never cause to moan. 
 
 "Well barred is passion s portal, but friendship s door is wide; 
 Him, in the long Hereafter, shall never woe betide. 
 
 "Among the lowly Brethren, clear-eyed, with vision plain, 
 Men cannot call him wretched his life is not in vain." 
 
 Yet, as Revato felt, Bharadvajo s clarity of per 
 ception extended only through the world of his own 
 transparent heart. With the denser problems of 
 life he lacked experience. His very mildness and 
 innocence set his limits as an adviser. Therefore the 
 visitor said: 
 
 "My reasons for resigning, bhadanta, cannot be 
 explained. It is better for me not to try. " 
 
 "I know how little the opinion of another would 
 dissuade you," said the Venerable Bharadvajo, 
 "and perhaps, after all, your purpose to set your 
 life free is the fruit of a good kamma. Let me speak 
 now, my son, what has been upon my heart from 
 your childhood but which up to this time I have 
 hesitated to utter. I have ever been waiting to see 
 you become pabbajja to forsake household life for 
 the homeless condition. You, if any man, are fitted 
 to take the bowl and yellow robes. Few samanas 
 recluses ever become so well versed in the Dhamma 
 as you are already. I trust that even now you have 
 entered the Paths and I am certain that if you train 
 yourself by the full Discipline you will, even before 
 you leave this life, attain the Supreme Goal." 
 
 "I am sorry to grieve you, bhante, but this is not 
 for me. I must struggle and suffer and fail on lower 
 ground." 
 
 The old monk held silence for a moment, then 
 recited tremulously: 
 
 "Susukhang vata nibbanang 
 Sammasambuddhadesitung 
 Asokang virajang khemang 
 Yattha dukkang nirujjhati. 
 
 "(Yea wonder-sweet Nibbana lies, 
 Declared by Him so Purely Clear, 
 Woeless Retreat where passion dies 
 And every pang will disappear.)" 
 
 "How few of the bhikkhus, bhante," said Revato, 
 "ever reach the Refuge or even act as if they cared 
 to." 
 
 "Not few, but many, avuso, many attain in this 
 life, more in the paraloka. But some, alas, have 
 joined the Sangha for lesser reasons: to escape the 
 tyranny of kings or to be safe from robbers or to gain 
 food and clothing. I was a mere boy when I became 
 a novice; I knew not the aim, but I thought: They 
 are wise scholars, these samanas, Sons of the Sakiya, 
 they will be able to teach me. By them I have been 
 taught and now I both know and understand what 
 is the reason and advantage in Renunciation. Our 
 Renunciation is to the end that present sorrow may 
 perish away and that no further sorrow may arise; 
 this complete passing away without clinging to the 
 world is our highest aim." 
 
 "To me this is all a mirage," said Revato. 
 
 "How strong in you, Layman, must be your 
 clinging to the world!" sneered Venerable Kon 
 dafino. "Is it because you possess a few more of its 
 illusive delights than some other men that you 
 cannot let go your grasp? Little you know what 
 renunciation means!" 
 
 "And do you know what Renunciation means?" 
 retorted Revato, turning toward him with less 
 reverence than befitted an upasaka, a mere lay 
 disciple, in addressing an ordained religious. 
 
 "Renunciation? Oh yes, Layman, I know," 
 answered Venerable Kondafino complacently. "Re 
 nunciation is the third among the ten Perfections. 
 It is the state of an anagami, one who has entered 
 the third of the Four Paths and will not be reborn 
 in this world. Renunciation was fulfilled by the 
 pre-incarnate Buddho times without number, as in 
 the abnegation by which he abandoned his throne 
 when born Prince Somanasso, Prince Hatthipalo 
 and the pandit Ayogharo. But the acme was 
 reached when, as related in the Lesser Sutasoma 
 Birth Tale, he said, A kingdom dropped into my 
 hands; like spittle vile I let it fall, nor felt for it the 
 smallest wish, and thus Renunciation gained. Let 
 us now discuss in detail the elements whereof Renun 
 ciation consists and the classes into which it falls. 
 Firstly" 
 
 "I will take them for granted," interrupted 
 Revato," as I have heard them all from you before. 
 You are able to tell about Renunciation as others 
 told you who themselves never knew what it is to 
 renounce, and you are ready to talk flat self-contra 
 dictions rather than lose the credit of saying every- 
 
 [2] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 thing that you can think of. Now listen, if you will, 
 while I declare to you what Renunciation is like, as 
 I have seen it many times loom before me: 
 
 "When a man yields up by his own act that which 
 he deems most needful to his life s happiness, be it 
 wealth or home or some great opportunity, or secur 
 ity from violent death, starvation, torture; and when 
 he thus foregoes because he cannot enjoy this benefit 
 except by some past fraud or untruth or other wrong, 
 unintentional perhaps on his part and slender as the 
 finest filament of a creeper, a remote link in a chain 
 of causation, yet an efficient link nevertheless when, 
 I say, a man thus rejects his advantage, he knows 
 what it means to renounce. Was it not of such mat 
 ter that the Blessed One thought when he said: 
 
 " Not in the lofty air nor ocean s hollow 
 Nor dark in some deep cave s perpetual night, 
 Nor any earthly where shall cease to follow 
 The present power of a past unright ? 
 
 "Or if, after long struggle toward some noble 
 end, for one s own good or others sake, he can now, 
 if he would, reach forward and touch it with his hand, 
 yet a shadow of guile, seen by his eye alone, falls 
 between him and the goal and he will not cross that 
 shadow he knows what it means to renounce. 
 
 "But infinitely beyond even this, bhadanta, is the 
 relinquishment of Nibbana itself of the peace 
 attainable in this life and of that ineffable Peace 
 which remains after the personal elements have 
 fallen apart. It is not an ignoble fancy, which some 
 of the schismatics of our religion conceive, that 
 Buddho has, by reason of his unspeakable compas 
 sion, refused to enter the Nibbana which he attained, 
 but is tossing still in the whirlpool of existence in 
 order to rescue poor wretches from its waves of 
 ignorance and craving. It may be that you and I, 
 bhadanta, when, on some unknown ocean, many an 
 eternity hence, we have sounded with our feet the 
 shallows that slope to the Further Shore and can 
 behold, as it were, the sightlessness of its intertwining 
 forests and hear the murmur of its never-ending 
 silence that you or I then may be impelled to turn 
 about and fling ourselves once more into the deep. 
 For even here and now, as we are engulfed in the 
 agony of the feeling world, comes a strong impulse 
 to combat this misery with a very lawlessness of 
 endeavor, ignoring that Way which leads to the 
 Cessation of Sorrow. Whoso, in pity for anguish, 
 denies himself the way of escape from anguish he 
 knows what it means to renounce." 
 
 "You have described, Layman, the conduct of a 
 fool," rejoined Kondanno. "He who would relieve 
 the suffering of the world must the more zealously 
 train himself. He must observe the four Excom- 
 municatory rules, the thirteen Public Disciplinary 
 rules, the two Restrictionary, the thirty Forfeitory- 
 Expiatory, the ninety-two Expiatory, the four Con- 
 fessory, the Regulatory, the seven 
 
 " Yakkhamatta! Demoniac!" muttered Revato 
 under his breath, but Venerable Kondanno heard him 
 and desisted from prolonged hortation. 
 
 "It appears to me," remarked Venerable Bharad- 
 vajo, who had not heard Revato s epithet, "That 
 when a man breaks a rule or even swerves from the 
 Eight-fold Path because of compassion, this may be 
 but another and better manner of following the 
 Path." 
 
 "In the twenty-seventh section of the fifth chapter 
 of the commentary on the second Parajika, they who 
 from compassion released deers and boars from 
 snares and fishes from a net were held not guilty of 
 larceny." This from Kondanno who was ready to 
 sacrifice both argument and resentment to an oppor 
 tunity for display of learning. 
 
 "But why, avuso, " asked Venerable Bharadvajo, 
 "why, if you have sounded the depths of renuncia 
 tion so far as have few mendicants, do you hold back 
 from pabbajja, from going forth yourself? Is it 
 because the difficulties seem too great to you? Be 
 lieve me, you over-estimate them and you ignore 
 the rewarding peace and bliss of the cloister." 
 
 "Not for me is the outward cloister, bhante. If 
 ever I find such a retreat it must be a cloister within 
 my heart. Not kdyaviveka, bodily seclusion, but 
 cittaviveka, spiritual seclusion, and either way, with 
 no confident hope of final upadiviveka, separation from 
 the properties of being that everlasting Peace." 
 
 "The outward seclusion is almost indispensable to 
 the inward, my son." 
 
 "Almost? It is altogether indispensable," broke 
 in Venerable Kondanno. "Have you forgotten that 
 it was my discussion of this question with Moggali- 
 putto Tisso, even the Archbishop Upagutto, which 
 led to its embodiment in his Account of Opinions. 
 My precise contention was, that though a layman 
 may become a saint, he cannot remain one." 
 
 "You know better than I, bhante," said Bharad 
 vajo to Kondanno. "It is true that the Blessed 
 One advised the beneficent rich merchant Anatha- 
 pindiko, of Savatthi, to remain at his affairs and 
 guard the interests of those dependent upon him, 
 since it is not wealth, but cleaving of the heart there 
 to, which poisons. But how many are there who can 
 possess without clinging? Remember, that the 
 layman Sono Kotikanno was advised by the Vener 
 able, the Great Kaccano to practice the discipline at 
 home. Twice, after futile attempts, he pleaded: 
 It is not easy for a man who dwells at home to live 
 the higher life in entire fulfillment, in complete 
 purity, in all its bright perfection. When finally he 
 was permitted to shave his head and don the yellow 
 robe he quickly attained that wisdom and purity 
 which the Lord of the Dhamma so highly praised in 
 him." 
 
 " Do not imagine, bhante, " returned Revato, " that 
 because I refrain from taking the bowl and yellow 
 robe I feel less accountable for discipline. Happy 
 are they whose consciences are appeased by the eight 
 precepts for the householder; such complacency may 
 or may not be a fruit of good Kamma, but at any 
 rate it is denied to me. The burden imposed upon me 
 is to suffer all of the monastery s privations with 
 
 [3] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 none of its requitals, to dwell free from guile though 
 exposed to manifold temptation, to remain clean 
 like the lotus in the foulest mire. Instead of the 
 forest calm, for which I yearn to replace the void of 
 expelled ambitions, I must be jostled by offensive 
 folk on the burning highway. In abandonment of 
 my livelihood I must face old age with no comfortable 
 dependence upon the bowl that never goes empty. 
 All this I must endure against thwarting and con 
 tempt on every side. The rabble will shout after me: 
 Why forsooth should the layman Revato profess to 
 be walking in the Paths when he dare not shave his 
 head and go among the monks? Verily the layman 
 Revato is unwilling to submit himself to the disci 
 pline of the Dhamma! A hypocrite is the layman 
 Revato ." 
 
 "But it would be the height of folly, "said Bharad 
 vajo, "for you in your self-training to forfeit your 
 livelihood. In so doing, you would be departing 
 from the Middle Way taught by the Tathagato, who, 
 when he prescribed freedom from care for the body, 
 provided means for relief from such care. Utter 
 destitution would defeat its own purpose." 
 
 "The purpose in my case is not self-training," 
 said Revato, "it is honesty. I must defray my obli 
 gations. You could not see why I should not join 
 the Sangha? Here is a definite ground on which I 
 am by its rules ineligible I am a debtor." 
 
 "You have shown no evidence of it," remarked 
 Venerable Bharadvajo. "Of whom did you borrow? 
 
 "It is a debt not by borrowing but by fraud." 
 
 "Datthacora! rascally thief!" exclaimed Kon- 
 dafino clutching tightly at his bowl. "Abbhutang 
 vata bho! dubbhagang vata bho! dusilang vata bho! 
 Mysterious, alas, oh! unfortunate, alas, oh! immor 
 al, alas, oh!" 
 
 Bharadvajo checked his brother monk with the 
 words: "The Blessed One admonished us that he 
 who warns another must not only be himself pure 
 and of great wisdom but must possess a kindly 
 heart." Then to Revato: "You have defrauded 
 no one, avuso, I am confident. I would not stir 
 your pride by praise, but all Rajagaha calls you the 
 most scrupulous revenue officer in the continent of 
 Jambudipa." 
 
 "I see," answered Revato with a sigh of resigna 
 tion, "that the more we talk the farther apart we 
 get, and now that I have said so much I might as 
 well tell the whole story. If I let you hear it, I may 
 save you from the guilt of manesika, thought guess 
 ing, which one of the amusements prohibited to you 
 Bhikkhus. 
 
 "Ingha tvang! Come you then ["continued Revato, 
 "Tatrayang anupubbikatha, here s the tale from the 
 beginning. You admit that I am fairly honest in 
 my dealings, don t you? That I levy upon each 
 caravan that passes through town a sum fairly pro 
 portioned to the goods in the carts, no more and no 
 less, of which amount I deliver to the royal treasurer 
 all except my lawful perquisites? Saccang nu kho 
 etang no Is this true or not?" 
 
 "Saccang, true, Revato." 
 
 "And you are aware that other collectors, for per 
 sonal reasons, exact unjust amounts, of some mer 
 chants more, of others less, but on the whole vastly 
 more; out of which they enrich themselves although 
 they are enabled to return to the exchequer larger 
 sums than I do. For not all merchants, neither all 
 customs men are as honest as Anathapindiko of 
 Savatthl." 
 
 "I dislike to think so," said Venerable Bharad 
 vajo," still, tis so alleged by many who understand 
 the matter as I do not." 
 
 "And you concede that if I held not the office, one 
 of those cheating collectors would fill it?" 
 
 "That seems reasonable." 
 
 "So then, were it not for me the King s receipts 
 would be larger?" 
 
 "Ama, yes." 
 
 "And also certain corrupt merchants, such as 
 Sanjayo the Licchavi, Tapusso of Baranasi, dealer in 
 Kasi land muslins, and Bhalliko Daruciriyo, who 
 spends a year traveling across the Jambu Grove from 
 Roruka by the Hinder, the Western, ocean where 
 ships of the Yonakas arrive from the edge of the 
 world these traders, bhante, and many like them 
 who would obtain unrighteous forbearance of the 
 customs does not my strictness cost them dear?" 
 
 "Evang, even so, Revato, and great merit it is to 
 you that they cannot save it." 
 
 "Well then, bhante, we are agreed that my tenure 
 of office is a continual loss to the King on one hand 
 and to the corrupt merchants on the other." 
 
 "Ko te doso what is thy fault?" said Venerable 
 Bharadvajo. "No one loses anything to which he is 
 entitled." 
 
 "True in a sense, bhante, but in another aspect 
 doubtful. Are not all beings, whether kings or 
 traders, men or animals, angels or demons, entitled 
 to every advantage that would accrue to them from 
 my doing right? Is there not due to them immunity 
 from any damage occasioned by my doing wrong?" 
 
 "Are you not doing right, avuso, in administering 
 your office justly?" 
 
 "While I hold it I must administer it justly, for the 
 justice of the immediate act is paramount and other 
 wise, too, the innocent would suffer. Is it then a 
 wrong in me that the undeserving are injured? That 
 depends upon whether my conduct be otherwise clear 
 in holding the office; if it were so, there need be no 
 misgiving. But if I be not clear, I am defrauding on 
 one side or the other so long as I remain at my post. 
 The fact is, bhante, that I transgressed in that ever 
 I accepted it." 
 
 "Transgressed in accepting it, moghapurisa fool 
 ish person!" exclaimed Bharadvajo with an epi 
 thet of unusual severity for him, though sanctioned 
 by the example of his gentle Master. "Was it not 
 freely granted you by the Angel-Beloved, the Gra 
 cious Maharaja Asoko in fulfillment of the promise 
 made to his brother the Thera Mahindo?" 
 
 [4] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 "The transgression," explained Revato, "was not 
 in outward actions, but within my own heart. When 
 I recalled His Majesty s memory to that promise I 
 did so as a work of covetous desire." 
 
 "Perhaps desire is not always a bad kamma," 
 replied Bharadvajo after a pause, seeking for a re 
 joinder that would have been both apt and ortho 
 dox, but finding none. 
 
 "How, how indeed!" cried Kondanno. "Desire 
 not always a bad kamma? From desire, attachment 
 springs, from attachment existence, from existence 
 birth, from birth old age, death and misery, and thus 
 around the wheel till desire once more arises." 
 
 "Kondanno is right," admitted Bharadvajo in 
 meek retraction. "Still, I do not think Revato did 
 any wrong in soliciting the collectorship." 
 
 "Let us simplify the case," persisted Revato. 
 "Whether desire be always pernicious is irrelevant, 
 whether my act was in its nature evil, is irrelevant. 
 The fact remains that when I went to the king to 
 proffer my request I was dominated by a desire 
 which I then felt to be wrong. As a result of a wilful 
 violation of my sense of duty, I obtained my post 
 whereby the king and the unjust traders are losing 
 sums of money which have already amounted to 
 more than I possess or can ever acquire. For, bhante, 
 though the caravans that pass the way of the road 
 through Rajagaha are fewer than of ancient times, 
 yet they bring wealth when they come." 
 
 "According to your logic, Layman," remarked 
 Kondanno, "there could be nothing in the world un 
 tainted with consequential sin not even the life of 
 an arahat, which sufficiently proves its absurdity." 
 
 "Your sin is a bygone matter," said Venerable 
 Bharadvajo, "and its bad energy will be spent in 
 some future birth. Your duty at present is to make 
 the best of your existing circumstances, however 
 they were brought about." 
 
 "In general," said Revato, answering Venerable 
 Bharadvajo, "your rule is the only reasonable one 
 to follow, yet I dare not condone with it a plain, 
 avoidable, continuous and remediable injury to any 
 person." 
 
 "As concerns the merchants," argued Kondanno, 
 "you need have no scruples; you have merely 
 thwarted their designs to defraud the King." 
 
 "Have I not already explained, bhante," persisted 
 Revato, "that I must not do them a wrong even to 
 defeat their crimes? If the perfect only had rights, 
 who but arahats would possess any? Is it not steal 
 ing to carry off the booty from a thief? A learned 
 muni such as you cannot be unfamiliar with the case 
 of the amba fruit in the canon law 
 
 "Quite so," interrupted the Venerable Kondanno. 
 "It is found in the second Parajika book of the Sutta 
 Vibhanga, which treats of Taking the Ungiven 
 Thing. Robbers had stripped a mango tree and 
 being pursued by the owners, dropped the fruit. 
 Some monks with thievish intent, picked it up, and 
 when the case was brought before Buddho were 
 adjudged Parajika excommunicated. Likewise 
 
 were convicted the bhikkhus who stole meat from 
 cattle thieves." 
 
 This incident led straightway to a discussion of 
 the question whether the thievish monks crime lay 
 against the robbers or against the true owners of the 
 fruit and meat, but no solution of this subtle doubt 
 was forthcoming and Revato adhered to the opinion 
 that two wrongs could not make a right. 
 
 "And even if it were true, bhavanta," he argued, 
 "that I owe no duty to the dishonest merchants, 
 I surely owe one to the King." 
 
 "Against him," declared Venerable Bharadvajo, 
 " there is no injury, since one so wise in the Dhamma 
 and so practiced in virtue as he would not willingly 
 profit by anything unlawfully acquired. He seeks 
 not those products of fraud and oppression which 
 might be turned in by a cheating collector in your 
 place. Be at rest in the thought that if he knew, he 
 would approve your conduct." 
 
 "He is old," answered Revato, "and his treasure 
 will soon pass to his successors. They are not his 
 equals in devotion to the Dhamma and they might 
 not so readily reject the fruits of dishonesty. In 
 withholding from him, I am withholding from them. 
 Moreover, I am already robbing the innocent objects 
 of his charity throughout the world." 
 
 "It is a thankless task to dispute with you, 
 Revato," exclaimed Bharadvajo almost petulantly. 
 "The longer you talk the more unreasonable you 
 become. But how would your resignation of the 
 office reduce you to poverty as you have been claim 
 ing? You still have your estate here at Giribbaja." 
 
 "That would not suffice to cover the losses I have 
 caused. Of old the Teacher told Vaddho that one 
 must look upon sin as sin and do frank contrition. 
 How can such repentance be for me without resti 
 tution?" 
 
 "What s this you say? You wouldn t throw your 
 property away, would you?" 
 
 "Not only that, but all I could earn the rest of 
 my life." 
 
 "To whom," asked Kondanno, in wide-eyed 
 wonder, "do you propose first to tender your 
 possessions to His Majesty or to the merchants? 
 I doubt if one of them is base enough to accept the 
 offer." 
 
 "I shall probably retain it all now indefinitely. 
 I lack the courage of my convictions. The atmos 
 phere of learned moralists like yourself benumbs 
 me. What I propose is not a present active sur 
 render of my life s goods but a potential one. I can 
 no longer count my little possessions as my own, but 
 as a trust to be relinquished one day, probably in 
 old age when I am unable to work. Meanwhile I 
 must shape my life in accordance, spending as little 
 of my income on myself as possible and making 
 every endeavor to increase the principal which 
 ultimately must be given up. To this end I must 
 toil like a Sudda, denying myself comfort and rest, 
 fearful to repose in the cool of the trees at noonday 
 and forbidden the meditation that is needful to 
 
 [5] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 spiritual attainment. Before the world I shall 
 occupy a false position, for while I excite the sharp 
 envy that riches draw after them I shall be lacking 
 even the eight chattels of a mendicant to call my 
 own. Because I cannot give away the goods of 
 another, I shall be called miserly and uncharitable; 
 I must turn from my door the holy friar and the 
 starving dog." 
 
 "The Discipline," said Kondarmo, when Revato 
 had finished, "lays down that he who suggesteth 
 difficulties of conscience to another in order to make 
 him trouble committeth a Pacittiya offence. And 
 in the book of the Truth-Steps it is declared that 
 they who see sin where is no sin enter the path of 
 destruction." 
 
 "The same is said, " retorted Revato, "of those 
 who see no sin where sin is. By seeing according to 
 the reality, as elsewhere the Elder Adhimutto 
 observed, one never goeth to destruction. " 
 
 "How long," inquired Venerable Bharadvajo, 
 "has this trouble been upon you?" 
 
 "Since the day, seven years ago, that I took office, 
 it has been rising around me as if I were hemmed in 
 by a river freshet. At last the waters touch my 
 feet and soon thy will be over my head." 
 
 Bharadvajo commenced to intone: 
 
 " Where the spreading floods are surging, 
 Saith of old the Blessed One, 
 All the race of men submerging, 
 By decay and death undone, 
 I will name an isle of saving. 
 Those who find it find the best. 
 Nothing holding, nothing craving, 
 They have reached the Perfect Rest. 
 This the island of Nibbana " 
 
 "Don t talk to me about Nibbana, bhante," 
 cried Revato, as though the word in his ears had been 
 a red-hot iron. "You are speaking a different lan 
 guage from any that I can understand. When a 
 man is maddened with problems of present conduct 
 he can neither comprehend nor endure the idea of 
 spiritual raptures. I can contemplate Nibbana when 
 in the mood for it, but that is growing infrequent. 
 These moral doubts harass me day and night, year 
 in and year out not only the one I have told you 
 about, but thousands of others, many of them vastly 
 more complex, more distressing and as you would 
 say more foolish. They insinuate themselves every 
 where like serpents like the Virupakkhas, the Era- 
 pathas, the Chabyaputtas, the Kanhagotamakas. 
 Buddha told* us to love these reptiles. Am I thus to 
 love my doubts?" Revato ended mahdhasitung 
 hasanto laughing a great laugh. 
 
 "Just as when a hen," the old monk said in a low 
 voice, "with eight or ten or twelve eggs, has care 
 fully sat upon them and around them and brooded 
 over them, yet she becomes anxious and a longing 
 arises in her heart, Oh that my little chickens would 
 break open their shells with their beaks or with their 
 claws and safely come forth into the light! yet all 
 the while those little chicks are destined to break 
 
 the shells and come forth even so, the brother who 
 is fast enclosed in darkness by a hard wall around 
 him, yet who is persistent and determined, will 
 surely come forth into the light, surely reach up to 
 the higher wisdom, surely attain the Extreme 
 Security." 
 
 Revato smiled his incredulity. "Take comfort at 
 least," encouraged Bharadvajo, "that if you are 
 subjected to unusual troubles, you are endowed with 
 extraordinary power to submit and renounce." 
 
 "Renounce?" exclaimed Revato, "I can t re 
 nounce. When I perform such feats of self-abnega 
 tion as few of you monks ever dream of, I am still 
 only a hypocrite hollow as a reed. In all I do I 
 am a mere actor of a drama, watched by myself. 
 I no more taste of my religion than the spoon tastes 
 the soup. Besides, I never accomplish the conclu 
 sive act of renunciation, there is always some reserve. 
 Especially there is no true sacrifice of my heart. As 
 much as I agonize to perform it, I am like a felon 
 whose hands and feet the king has cut off for his 
 crimes, who is clutching at roots and grass to drag 
 himself up the bank of a rising river, grasping with his 
 stumps of arms which have no means to take hold. 
 
 "Are you such a criminal?" exclaimed Kondanno 
 in virtuous horror. 
 
 "My heart is a valakantara a jungle of serpents 
 and wild beasts." answered Revato. "In truth that 
 is one reason why I cannot join the Order I would 
 never dare to make confession yet I could not do 
 so intelligibly if I would and were I to try, the 
 Brethren would never hear me out but would deal 
 with me in pity as a madman." 
 
 Kondanno, now relenting, volunteered to prescribe 
 for Revato effective spiritual remedies. He advised 
 the forty subjects of meditation, to wit, the Ten 
 Kasina trances of concentration, the ten ponderings 
 on Physical Corruptions, the ten Reflections, the 
 four Sublime States, the four Formless States, the 
 Perception and the Analysis. He advocated espe 
 cially the ten salutary cemetery reveries on corpses 
 in as many successive stages of decay. He further 
 recommended the violent breathing exercise which 
 rids the mind of evils as a great storm allays the 
 summer dust. 
 
 The Venerable Bharadvajo more simply sug 
 gested: "Tata my dear child postpone your jour 
 ney to Pataliputta until the next moon." 
 
 "I cannot, bhante, for beside the resignation of 
 my work, there are sundry accounts to adjust, for 
 which I must visit the Capital at this time. 
 
 "Then promise me to defer your resignation till a 
 future occasion." 
 
 "Ask me not to promise anything. No man who 
 perfectly respects his word can bind up his future 
 conduct without finding himself somehow entrapped. 
 Insincere as I am, half my life s troubles have come 
 from promises and vows uttered often in words 
 that spring to the lips unpremeditated." 
 
 "Then before your act is final," pleaded Bharad 
 vajo, "submit your case to Migalandiko, the King s 
 
 [6] 
 
THE 
 
 LAYMAN 
 
 R E V A T O 
 
 Dhamma-mahamatto the High Minister of Relig 
 ion. You know it is his business to hear appeals 
 from all branches of the public service grounded in 
 moral questions, and to correct evils." 
 
 "No man living is able to alter the facts of the 
 case," answered Revato, "but at least I might make 
 the experiment and see whether the High Minister 
 of Religion can perform the impossible. Now, Dabbo 
 Kumaputto, the Dhammayutta Assistant in the 
 Departmentof Religion at Pataliputta,is my friend. 
 I might first call on him." 
 
 At this moment came sportively up to them a pack 
 of yellow robed boys, the samaneras, novices, who 
 waited upon the ordained members of the Order and 
 received instruction. 
 
 "You would better not say anything to them," 
 whispered Kondanno to Revato. "Your influence 
 might not be good for them. They must not be 
 exposed to the temptations of anyone who has con 
 fessed to fraud in the King s business." 
 
 Revato turned from him with scorn and after a 
 greeting of reverence to Venerable Bharadvajo, pre 
 pared to descend the mountain. 
 
 The neophants had come to Kondafino to make 
 informal confession, to recite those passages from 
 
 sacred canon which they had been studying through 
 the afternoon, and to attend upon his words of wis 
 dom. As they grouped cross-legged on the ground 
 around their teacher, Revato heard him launch into a 
 disquisition on "dependent origination" which 
 boded ill for weary young brains. 
 
 The Venerable Bharadvajo meanwhile had as 
 sumed a posture of revery and, as was his wont, 
 would pass the first watch of the night in pondering 
 on some chosen theme. 
 
 "As the lightning seeks a cleft of Vebhara or Pan- 
 dava, thus having come to a mountain cavern, the 
 son of the Freed One is afire" jhayati he burns, he 
 meditates the word for both is the same. But the 
 fervours of Bharadvajo s nature were ever of the sort 
 which led to tranquility. The workings of his mind 
 were no churning of trouble. His life arranged itself 
 in no complexities. 
 
 "It is easy for the good to do good." 
 
 Unwilling to disturb further the devotions of his 
 aged counsellor, Revato passed around him with 
 right side nearest, and left him to visions of rap 
 turous joylessness on the ground hallowed by so 
 many vigils of the attained Master. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 RAJAGAHA 
 
 GIRIBBAJA, BERGENBURG 
 
 Revato turned away from the leaf huts which his 
 friends, the friars, had built high up on the side of 
 the Vulture s Peak mountain. Close at hand, at the 
 head of a rocky gulley, was the favorite cavern retreat 
 of Buddho, and in front of it the stony cells that 
 Anando and other of his disciples had so often occu 
 pied. From yonder cliff the treacherous Devadatto 
 had flung a rock and wounded his Master s foot. 
 High above towered the fair green pinnacle of the 
 mountain. 
 
 A bend of the path threw open a far vista of coun 
 try sloping northward toward Ganga River. The 
 far, flat horizon was studded with a few purple cloud 
 shapes emblematic of the great mountains of Hima- 
 vanta which abode there and which were visible from 
 hills beyond the river, though never from Rajagaha 
 for all the straining of expectant eyes. Those 
 mountains were the enchanted land of Aryan legend. 
 Certain pinnacles were popularly indentified with 
 Meru, Kelasa, Cittakuta and others, whose wonders 
 had been handed down from the old religion. 
 Mount Meru, or Sineru, with its reputed 84,000 
 yojanas 588,000 miles of altitude, was the very 
 centre of the world, the heaven of Sakko, of Indo, 
 which the orthodox Brahmin might have sought 
 in a life-destroying quest, like the desert pilgrimage 
 of Pandu s sons with fair Dropadi and the dog, 
 
 while the Buddhist read therein lessons of sparkling 
 angels, now sporting with goddess girls in sensuous 
 gardens of Nandana, but anon to be hurled down 
 frigid precipices to the country of the titanic Asuras 
 in expiation of former lives and to be fed on fire by 
 lictors of Yamo s Niraya for so long a time that all 
 Himavanta might therein be worn away by the occa 
 sional whisking of a little silken kerchief. 
 
 Revato, it is true, had no fixed faith in Sakko s 
 heaven or Nandana garden. He took little inter 
 est in the popular superstitions which clung to the 
 rational doctrines of the Dhamma as drops from the 
 muddy waters of deva worship out of which it had 
 emerged, thus stultifying its own favorite figure of 
 the lotus which remains clean amid foulness. 
 
 Yet if the worlds of pleasure had never touched 
 him with a sense of reality, those of pain had held 
 their power over him since the nights of his shudder 
 ing infancy. Optimistic denials he impugned on 
 the ground that they might as well be raised against 
 the existence of all evil, wherein they would be re 
 futed by evident facts. "The game is serious accord 
 ing to the stake," he reasoned, "though it be but a 
 game of chance, and where prodigious kappas of 
 time are set against a few years, what signify the 
 torments of life compared with the hazards of that 
 desert which no camel has crossed?" The cogency 
 of these dreadful appeals lay most of all in his con- 
 
 7] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 science an ad hominum sort of argument by 
 which he disproved his own skepticism and which 
 served more than any other force to strengthen 
 him against laxity or compromise in life. Where 
 to-morrow s death curbs the eating and drinking of 
 to-day, there must be faith though it cannot find 
 itself. A life thus buttressed might evince worldly 
 fortitude if not courage, and justice if not gen 
 erosity. 
 
 The northern sky faded. Revato gazed upon it no 
 more, but descended the mountain side and turned 
 up a rough defile leading southwestward, between 
 two ranges of hills, toward the city. All around 
 were sweet-smelling lodda and sparkling-leaved 
 assattha trees and the kanaka, the perennially 
 blooming tree of gold. At the base of the rocks, the 
 bright rose-apples of the jambu blinked in their 
 leaves. Revato walked warily for fear. of snakes in 
 the shadows, yet rapidly to lessen the time of 
 exposure to that tiger which long had terrorized the 
 region and had devoured six persons, among them 
 the old nun Sumedha. Before quite dark, he 
 crossed the southern shoulder of Mount Isigili and 
 entered a gate of the outer wall, which followed the 
 apex line of the ridges encircling the populous valley. 
 From this elevation he could look over the inner 
 city at his left and beyond it to the ruined palace of 
 Jarasandho at the base of Mount Pandava. North 
 ward, between the walls, he could see where, in the 
 sangharama of Jivako s Mango Grove, the brethren 
 were kindling their oil lamps. Some of these monks 
 had made the town monasteries their retreat all 
 through the wet vassa months; others deemed it a 
 better following of Buddho s commandment to 
 retire for the Lenten season to outlying caves or leaf 
 huts. Many of these were now returned to the 
 communal viharas to pass a few days before starting 
 on their alms and preaching tours, or to remain longer 
 if they did not intend to walk abroad. Still without 
 entering the inner wall, Revato skirted the base of 
 Mounts Isigili and Vipula, passing near the dense, 
 cool mango grove. Across the way from it he 
 reached the Hatthinipura gate of the central city 
 which looked northward through the pass between 
 converging Vipula and Vebhara where opened the 
 port of the outer wall. Through this finally he came 
 out from the valley enclosure. Beside him the 
 rivulet SarassatI, which traversed the town, flowed 
 through the pass to be reborn in larger streams and 
 in mighty Ganga; to merge at last in the Nibbana of 
 ocean. Haze of hot springs on its banks intensified 
 the evening crepuscle. Its surface still obscurely 
 reflected the western sky. Across the stream flew 
 a great marsh bird and was lost to sight in the purple- 
 toned thicket of Veluvana, that Bambu Grove where 
 Buddho so often dwelt. There came to Revato s 
 mind an old hymn of the Faith: 
 
 "Yada balaka sucipandaracchada 
 Kalassa meghassa bhayena tajjita 
 
 "When bright as the light, from a dark cloud in fright, 
 There comes a pale crane, wide-winged on her flight, 
 
 And seeking a refuge, she reaches a home, 
 Ajakara s river is then my delight. 
 "When white on the sight, from a dark cloud in fright, 
 There comes a pale crane, wide-spread on her flight, 
 
 And questing a shelter, she finds an abode, 
 Ajakara s river is then my delight. " 
 
 To-night was no storm in the sky nor noise in the 
 wave, but a sensuous tenderness of perfumed air 
 which did all that Nature could do to imbue the heart 
 with Nibbana. There is, however, an intensity of 
 moral struggle to which the philosophy of peace is 
 an insult, and such was Revato s. A slight calming 
 of nerve was performed for him by these gentle 
 influences, but in the suggested spiritual consolation 
 he could find no part. 
 
 The highway, as it emerged from the mountain-girt 
 valley, skirted the Veluvana Bambu Grove con 
 taining the Kalandaka-nivapa Squirrels Feeding 
 Ground and many viharas of the faithful. About 
 its solemn edifices grave, pale-robed figures could be 
 discerned in the twilight. The stillness of early night 
 was broken by a flaw of wind which set the bambu 
 stems rattling together, "Tatatatayati," like the 
 old bones with which, when a boy, Revato had played 
 in the neighboring cemetery. 
 
 Revato now turned abruptly southwestward 
 behind the toe of Mount Vebhara, upon whose 
 shady side were continued bambu thickets, containing 
 close at hand the Pipphala cave where Buddho so 
 often had meditated and, far along the mountain, 
 the great Sattapanni cavern at whose door had 
 assembled the First Council soon after Buddho s 
 death, to repeat the precious words bequeathed from 
 his lips and pass them down by an unbroken chain 
 of memory. Instead, however, of continuing past 
 these grottoes, Revato branched off into a by-road 
 and soon reached the gate of his own abode. 
 
 The old city of Rajagaha lay in a far northeastern 
 offshoot of those mountains, the Vinjhas, which 
 divide the valley of Ganga from that great central 
 plateau, the Dakkhinapatha, Dekkan, Southern 
 Road. The city dated from immemorial days. It 
 had witnessed the tumults of nations stirred up by 
 the abduction of Sita from Ramo. A thousand 
 years had passed since the war among the offspring 
 of the Great Bharata when its king Jarasandho had 
 been slain by Bhlmo, son of Pandu a bloody mem 
 ory for the present era of peace. The compact, 
 closely built town, hardly three miles in circuit, had 
 been laid out, it was said, by that ancient architect, 
 the Maha Govindo, and its massive walls of stone 
 were a marvel throughout the land of Magadha. 
 Giribbaja, the Mountain Stronghold Bergenburg 
 was from of old its favorite name, for it nestled 
 in the hollow of five precipitous hills, Vebhara, 
 Vipula, Pandava, Isigili and Udaya*, which twere 
 
 * For this southeastern hill I can find no name of the Bud 
 dhist period, but feel justified in using the modern one, because 
 that is in good Pali form and is used somewhere to denote the 
 "Sunrise Mountain." 
 
 [8] 
 
THE 
 
 LAYMAN 
 
 R E V A T O 
 
 infidelity not to mention severally, so teemed they 
 with memories of Buddho. Far as traveled the 
 Dhamma, there followed it the fame of the "Five 
 Hills," yet with a sad confusion, for strangers classed 
 among them Gijjhakuta, the Vulture s Peak, which 
 really was a sixth mountain northeastward behind 
 Pandava as a spur to the group. It rose terrace 
 upon terrace, highest and grandest of all and dearer 
 to the pious heart than even Vebhara. 
 
 That fragrant sacrificial kusa, or munja, grass, 
 which abounded in the vicinity, had given the old 
 city another characterizing name, Kusagarapura. 
 Its third cognomen, Rajagaha, the King s House, 
 more properly belonged to the new town on the open 
 land below the valley. Thither had the seat of 
 Magadha government been moved in Buddho s time, 
 nearly three centuries before, though now departed 
 from the region. The story ran that King Bimbisaro 
 had decreed banishment to the "cold forest" the 
 cemetery for anyone who negligently allowed 
 his house to take fire, and when it chanced to be 
 the palace which burned, he drove himself to exile 
 upon the charnel ground beyond the northern gate. 
 Thus, the "King s House" had formed a nucleus for 
 the more modern town. 
 
 THE HEIR TO THE REVATOS OF OLD 
 
 Revato s homestead, in which he had spent all the 
 remembered years of his thirty or more, stood some 
 distance off the road between the two cities. The 
 dwelling was built of brick, stuccoed, larger and 
 older than neighboring ones, and it was curiously 
 adorned with moulded cornices. Farther out in the 
 country were fields which one of Revato s remote 
 ancestors unlike the Ariyas generally, who were 
 inclined to leave agriculture to the earlier inhabi 
 tantshad cleared from the forest and which had 
 remained a heritage, tilled by servants or on shares 
 while the owners had often been officially and other 
 wise occupied. Legally, these servants were held in 
 a mild serfdom, but had one of them chosen to better 
 his condition elsewhere, Revato would not have said 
 him nay, and might have been the gladder party, for 
 they maintained the upper hand of him in their deal 
 ings. Most of the neighboring land had from of old 
 been cultivated by peasant proprietors or communal 
 villages. Since the consolidation of the empire, the 
 titles to arable land had become more largely vested 
 in the Crown, and this included Revato s, so that 
 only the possession, not the property right, came 
 down to him through the last few generations. The 
 difference was no mere distinction, for it subjected 
 him to a rental tax averaging a fifth of the produce; 
 in addition, he had to contribute about one-third of 
 it in water rates for irrigation. No wonder that farm 
 ing had ceased to pay! Before he took the customs 
 office he never could make ends meet without spend 
 ing much of his own time in the fields, often plodding 
 behind the oxen at the plough. 
 
 The family were of noble white Khattiya color, 
 like the Gotamo Buddho himself, though the force of 
 
 such a rank was much lessened by the confusion due 
 to erasure of class lines in the religious Order. There 
 the meanest outcaste could become a peer with the 
 highest saint. The Venerable Bharadvajo was born 
 of _the white Brahmin color, and Venerable Kon- 
 danno as a bourgeois Vessa mixed with some non- 
 Aryan blood, but in the Sangha they shared as 
 brothers. Since the building of new Rajagaha, the 
 old mountain city had been given over largely to 
 families who were Brahmin, not only in color, but 
 also in religion. With these deva worshippers the 
 Buddhist Brahmins were less closely in sympathy 
 than with their neighbors of other colors but their 
 own faith. If they could forget caste lines when 
 meeting consecrated samanas, why not among 
 fellow laymen? Especially might this be easy 
 between the Khattiya and Brahmin, whose rivalry, 
 founded on the conflicting claims of Church and State, 
 was disarmed by the overthrow of priestcraft. 
 Quite of another category were their social differ 
 ences from the plebian Vessas, still more from the 
 servile, mongrel Suddas or the outcaste Candalas 
 and Pukkasas, of an-ariyaka non-Ariyan subju 
 gated stock. Religion had not destroyed the racial 
 instinct of self-preservation from drowning in impure 
 blood. Not the meekest among unworldly brethren 
 could help but see with satisfaction the untinged 
 whiteness of his Aryan skin or could forget if his 
 parentage was among the castes of the Twice-Born. 
 Revato s own position at Ragajaga was anomalous, 
 for his father s family were unknown to its traditions. 
 His mother, Sundari, through whom descended the 
 estate, had in her youth attended on the queen at 
 Pataliputta, where she had married, soon to be 
 deserted by her husband and return to her father s 
 house with her child. She was a strong-spirited 
 woman who kept herself by preference in seclusion 
 as strict as, by a growing custom, the aristocracy 
 enforced on wives and widows of wealthy men in the 
 large towns, but this implied no recognition of sex 
 inferiority on her part. Rather, it was an alienation 
 from her neighbors in experience and feeling. To 
 her religious duties she was punctiliously faithful; 
 even in so clerically populous a district as Rajagaha 
 no alms bowl ever left her door without rice, curry 
 or sweet cakes, while robe stuffs of her donation 
 busied many a monastic sewing party with their 
 adaptation after they had first been dyed a tawny 
 yellow to mimic the dust-heap rags of more fervid 
 days. But there was perceptible in her attitude 
 toward the doctrine and discipline a certain defi 
 ciency of enthusiasm, a tacit failure of whole-hearted 
 approval, which suggested that, if she had broken 
 the fetters of present worldly desire, she was wil 
 fully wearing those of memory. 
 
 Of his father, who had died before the beginning 
 of Revato s recollection, she spoke not, but the 
 faint revelations of her manner when any remark 
 grazed the tabooed subject were like glimpses of a 
 god. The little he knew had been told him by the 
 monks from hearsay, one fact being his father s 
 
 [9] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 early death in some wild adventure. There were 
 many other circumstances that might have excited 
 his curiosity, but having grown up from infancy 
 fixed with the habit of ignorance concerning them, 
 his mind had never chanced to receive an impulse 
 to their discovery. (Our long limitations of thought 
 astound us after we break them, but many we never 
 break. The mental eye is marvelously able to over 
 look its blind spots.) For example, he never had 
 settled his father s caste. His mother s pedigree and 
 his own exceptional lightness of complexion seemed 
 sufficient guarantee, and he failed to realize the 
 reserve in which he was held by some of his more 
 punctilious acquaintances who were aware of the 
 doubt. 
 
 Again, he had never heard his father mentioned 
 by name. As successor to his grandfather, Ajjuko, 
 he had been assumed to adopt the latter s surname 
 Kaccayano, but had acquired a nickname which 
 fully supplanted it. This was Yuvano, meaning 
 Young, the aptness of which was never made clear, 
 since he had always been old beyond his years. 
 Perhaps the epithet was due to occasional ebulli 
 tions of vivacious spirit which, habitually imprisoned, 
 burst forth at times to an ecstasy as of young an 
 imals sporting in the Spring. His gravity and levity 
 intruded each on each most fitfully. He was like 
 the child of a hen which southern merchants once 
 had brought from the eastern country and which 
 had been beloved by a crow; for whenever this 
 chick essayed to crow like a cock he would say 
 "caw, caw," and whenever he tried to utter the 
 voice of a crow he would call "cock-a-doodle-doo." 
 
 Revato "Yuvano s" playmates, from which his 
 nickname had come, were fond of pronouncing it so 
 that it sounded like Yavano, which is the same with 
 Yonako, Ionian, Foreign as if they felt the pres 
 ence of some strange element. 
 
 The personal name Revato, which he bore, 
 though suggested by his birth in the nakkhatta, or 
 asterism, of Revati, was also an heirloom encrusted 
 with many previous memories from the hands 
 through which it had passed. First of all, if the 
 legends were credible, it had belonged, in long-ago 
 eternities, to a former Buddho. The inspiration 
 which he should derive from this fact, his teachers 
 were ever impressing upon him, but he himself 
 found more to awaken enthusiasm in thoughts of 
 Revato Khadiravaniyo, the Forest Habitant, and 
 Kanka-Revato, the Victorious One, true, living 
 men of his name, who only two or three hundred 
 rainy seasons before had looked in the face of the 
 Blessed One, had heard his compassionate words 
 and had followed him through the years of footsore 
 wandering. One of these famous apostles Revato 
 had been our Revato s uncle, many generations 
 removed. 
 
 Then again, something like halfway between 
 that time and his own, came the celebrated Elder 
 Revato of Soreyya, near Takkasila, who had 
 presided at the Council of Vesali, where the lati- 
 
 tudinarian heresy was condemned, and which 
 marked the great schism. A man of prodigious 
 learning, who knew by heart almost the entire 
 Canon of Scripture, he was "intelligent and wise, 
 modest, conscientious and devoted to the precepts." 
 At Vesali, he was a guest of that Polycarp in apos 
 tolic succession, Sabbakami, who had been a pupil 
 of the disciple Anando and who had lived to become 
 the oldest thera in the world. These two patriarchs 
 communed in their cell of the causes which had pro 
 longed their lives in vigor (for Revato after his 
 journey required neither sleep nor rest). "They 
 say, beloved one," spake Sabbakami, "that you have 
 continued thus long by ease of life, and this indeed 
 is a life of ease, the continuance in love." "Even 
 of yore, when I was a layman, Sir," answered 
 Revato, "much love was laid up in my heart; there 
 fore it is that I now live much in the sense of love 
 and I have long since attained the Goal of Peace. 
 And you, by what manner of life have you now lived 
 these many years?" "By abiding in the sense of 
 emptiness of worldly things, beloved one, I have 
 lived these many years." 
 
 The Venerable Bharadvajo, when a novice, had 
 been told by his superior that, while the latter was a 
 very young child, an ancient monk had stopped at 
 his mother s door and she had given the lad a sweet 
 cake to drop in the bowl, bidding him to remember 
 always how he had made an offering to the famous 
 Revato of Soreyya. But vastly more than this, it 
 was that self-same bowl an iron one which 
 Bhavadvajo now carried, he having received it 
 through several generations of superiors and pupils 
 under the canon law of heredity by personal service. 
 Bharadvajo still lived in hope that this bowl would 
 one day pass to Revato Yuvano. 
 
 The previously mentioned remote uncle of Revato 
 Yuvano was reputed as the author of a certain 
 hymn among those in the Thera-Theri-Gatha, a 
 numerous collection attributed to early Elders and 
 Elderesses who had lived in the days when doctrine 
 was simple, piety fervid and the joy of salvation a 
 real experience. These gathas ran as follows: 
 
 "When, household life renouncing, 
 
 To homeless ways I turned, 
 The lore of guile and malice 
 
 I straightaway unlearned. 
 
 "I counsel not to injure 
 
 The living high or low. 
 Their pain is not my pleasure; 
 
 A wiser plan I know. 
 
 "For I have learned that friendship, 
 
 That rich, impartial good 
 Which grows in swift progression 
 
 As Buddho told it would. 
 
 "Of all I am a comrade, 
 
 To all a brother true. 
 With each that feels and quivers 
 
 I feel and quiver too. 
 
 [10] 
 
THE 
 
 LAYMAN 
 
 R E V A T O 
 
 "I train my thoughts to ponder 
 
 On amity and peace 
 And wait that perfect Respite 
 
 When suffering shall cease. 
 
 "Unmoved and never yielding, 
 
 My soul hath rare delights, 
 Intent on holy musings 
 
 Abhorred of wicked wights. 
 
 "For in the true disciple 
 
 Of him so clear and high, 
 A noble stillness enters 
 
 When thoughts of evil fly. 
 
 "Like admantine mountains 
 
 Firm in their stable bed, 
 That monk no more shall tremble 
 
 In whom is folly dead. 
 
 "They who stand pure by purging 
 
 Are jealous for the clean; 
 No hair-tip mote of evil 
 
 Can hover long unseen. 
 
 "Just as a guarded city 
 
 Is watched on every side, 
 Without and in keep vigil 
 
 Nor let the moments glide. 
 
 "In life is not my pleasure 
 
 Nor death is my desire; 
 I, like the stolid worker, 
 
 Await my promised hire. 
 
 "Not eager for departure 
 
 Nor yet with life elate, 
 Attentive, understanding, 
 
 I mark the time and wait. 
 
 "I ve done the Buddho s bidding, 
 
 The Teacher s rule employed; 
 My heavy burden s fallen, 
 
 My craving is destroyed. 
 
 "That cause for which, renouncing, 
 
 I wandered forth at first 
 Is now the vital reason 
 
 That all my fetters burst. 
 
 "Achieve ye then by vigil 
 
 As I have done before, 
 Now perfect in salvation 
 
 And soon to be no more." 
 
 Such were the homely, earnest lines which Revato 
 had been taught from infancy as a guide and inspira 
 tion for his life. They had been woven into the text 
 ure of his growing mind and, if their familiarity to 
 him had bred contempt, they were nevertheless a 
 part of himself. The amiability, the peace, the 
 perfection of this Revato Thero he had failed to 
 develop, T)ut there is no doubt that much in him of 
 scruple, much of inoffensiveness, much of strong, if 
 misapplied, moral power, was due to this ancient 
 namesake, this patron saint. 
 
 The morbidly conscientious strain in Revato 
 Yuvano was derived, like his worldly possessions, 
 not from his mother but through her from his grand 
 father, the Venerable Ajjuko, who had died twenty 
 years before. Ajjuko had in his old age left the 
 household life for the homeless one, transferring his 
 
 [II 
 
 lands and cattle to his young grandson, as one civilly 
 dead. 
 
 Thereafter he had tenanted one of the old cave 
 parivenas, cells, on the Vulture s Peak and had never 
 again entered his home. Revato remembered him 
 silently standing at the door that had once been his 
 own, taking his bowl from his sling and holding it 
 out to await a pinda, a morsel, of rice and vegetable 
 curry from his daughter s hands, yet tremulous lest 
 filial piety should shorten the begging round. 
 
 That impulse to self-mortification which led the 
 Brahmin hermits to excesses carried Ajjuko into 
 macerations of hardly less severity through the 
 ingenious difficulties which he read into Buddho s 
 clear, mild precepts. Between ancestor and grand 
 son there was, however, this difference, that, whereas 
 Revato reasoned from first principles, Ajjuko s 
 casuistry had never peered behind traditional rules, 
 but only was concerned with their interpretation. 
 For example, five trades have been denounced by 
 Gotamo as wrong, even for a layman commerce 
 in slaves, meat, weapons, liquors and poisons. 
 
 "If these practices be evil for one who has not 
 yet entered the consecrated life," argued Ajjuko, 
 "how much more is it the duty of a samana to 
 remove any implication of sin!" Bond servants he 
 no longer held; during his worldly life he had repeat 
 edly offered to release them from that mild servitude 
 which stood in Magadha for slavery, and they had 
 declined freedom. But there were present issues in 
 rejecting every morsel of meat curry from his bowl; 
 in avoiding to touch any sharp-edged instrument, 
 even a knife with which to cut a mango fruit; in 
 refusing the narcotic drinks and noxious herbs 
 which were presented to him in sickness. These 
 over zealous scruples had not lessened the haughti 
 ness of the lady Sundari toward the Order and the 
 Doctrine. 
 
 It was by Venerable Ajjuko that the child Revato 
 had been brought under special notice of the Society. 
 When the old man died he had left to Venerable 
 Bharadvajo, in particular, a religious guardianship, 
 which office had rested well on the appointee. 
 
 Revato s most familiar comrades from infancy 
 had been the monks, upon whom he might almost 
 have thereby fixed the guilt of kulasamatthadosa 
 the offence of associating with the laity. Corre 
 spondingly, his intimacy with his worldly neighbors 
 was weak. The various removal in estate and con 
 dition already mentioned typified his relations with 
 them. A certain aloofness had always existed, 
 hardly hostile or depreciatory on either side, an 
 elusive distinction. It might reasonably have been 
 attributed to a multiplicity of minute outward 
 unlikenesses but an astute observer would have 
 sought the cause of Revato s ungenial singularity in 
 that inward isolation which enhanced those slight 
 idiosyncrasies of person and status. His was one of 
 those natures born to aloneness, who may be called 
 in a spiritual sense sunnagaragato, solitude-gone, 
 established in isolation of heart. 
 
THE 
 
 LAYMAN 
 
 R E V A T O 
 
 Perhaps no human element of his environment 
 had contributed so much to formation of what was 
 best in his character as the reminiscent influences of 
 his home town, Rajagaha. It was a place more 
 than any other in the world pervaded by suggestions 
 of that gentle philosophy which is for souls in whom 
 clenches the anguish of the world. This was the 
 region which Gotamo Buddho, during his fifty-one 
 years of homeless life, had most nearly called a home. 
 The four sites whereon he had passed his great 
 crises birth, attainment, proclamation and death 
 might be more sacred for monuments and pilgrim 
 ages, but here among the hills which sheltered 
 Giribbaja, was hardly a rock or a tree where he had 
 not at some time rested from his wanderings and 
 spoken words of release from despair. 
 
 MEMORIES TATHAGATO, THE LIKEWISE GOER 
 
 When from his birthland, under the brow of 
 Himacala Mountains in the far Northwest, driven 
 forth by the madness of vicarious misery, the still 
 youthful Gotamo had strayed to Rajagaha. Accord 
 ing to the psalm-story, his highborn dignity shining 
 through his beggarly attire as he rested by the 
 rocky side of Pandava had brought King Bimbisaro 
 to proffer him honor. Successively he sat at the 
 feet of the pandits Alaro and Uddako, seeking for 
 saving truth, but soon he found that they were no 
 wiser then he, and lower in their aspirations. Al 
 ready too he may be imagined as questioning the 
 Brahmin theory which later he so ardently opposed. 
 "Nought is real but soul," it affirmed, "retire into 
 yourself and realize your isolation from all evil." 
 "What is this soul?" he must have objected. "Such 
 an independent, self-sufficient soul is a fatuous 
 notion. The only soul that we have is a complex 
 product of life and though it be renewed and culti 
 vated through endless lives, it can never be freed 
 from the conditions of living which are disappoint 
 ment and pain." 
 
 What deep inquirer ever got a satisfactory human 
 answer? Forth again went Gotamo into the forest, 
 this time to spend six fanatical years in the macera 
 tions of self-martyrdom. One day, fallen faint with 
 fasting, he accepted a bowl of rice milk from the 
 herdsman s daughter Sujata, ^and by it came that 
 glad physical reaction which inverted the direction 
 of his mind, ushering him into a state of calm reflec 
 tion and ultimate triumph. 
 
 The trwth, as he saw it, found the root of suffering 
 is egoism, for self in the Brahmin sense did not exist. 
 "There is no being perpetual nor are the sangkharas 
 the Properties of being eternal," he affirmed. 
 "They are produced and these elements successively 
 disappear." The soul, he decided, is a part of life, 
 born, dying and reborn therewith, and so though 
 by way of successorship rather than identity per 
 petually held down to suffering existence. 
 
 Thus did Gotamo, arguing in a philosophy which 
 would have made other men deny future life, find 
 a way for a firm belief therein, tragic though he 
 
 deemed it, and earnestly though he sought a way 
 of escape from it. His principles pointed him to an 
 application. Other seers, by contrary principles, 
 have been guided toward a like application. His 
 beneficent influence upon the world was due less to 
 his theory than to his practical constructiveness. 
 As a means to destroy that desire, that craving of 
 self, which keeps one in the wheel of transmigration, 
 he outlined, and during the forty-five remaining 
 years of his life he proclaimed, a far more compre 
 hensive system of right living than Ariya Land 
 had known. Every wayward thought was to be 
 recalled, every oblique motive rectified, every latent 
 reservation exposed. No contingency of life was so 
 unusual that a helpful rule could not be framed to 
 anticipate it, no evil desire so deep that it could not 
 be probed, no living thing so despicable that it could 
 not be treated in tenderness. 
 
 From the time the light had dawned upon him 
 and he had fortified his soul with his seven times 
 seven days of struggle against temptation by the 
 river Neranjara, until the end of his life, no wavering 
 of confidence troubled him and no unclean sentiment 
 soiled his counsels of perfection. 
 
 The new altruism came to be expressed in terms of 
 calculating selfishness and men did good for the 
 explicit purpose of writing the Deed Kamma to 
 their own account. Thus, perverted religion has 
 always been prone to emphasize less a recipient s 
 distress than the giver s placation of some Power by 
 the alms-deed as if such were the motive to service 
 which the Power requires! As if the eye of man 
 should dwell most intently upon Divinity and not 
 rather, like Divinity, upon suffering humanity! 
 Keen is the irony against souls lost in self-saving. 
 Ultimate surprise in store equally for them and for 
 those who, through spontaneous acts of pity toward 
 the least of creatures, are ministering to the unsus 
 pected Eternal. But the commercial spirit in good 
 ness was not from the beginning, for it presupposes 
 a time when kind deeds were done for pity s sake 
 and the doers learned that they were blessed therein. 
 Thus grew up the doctrine that spiritual peace is a 
 commodity purchasable by charity. But who can 
 imagine that men such as the single-hearted Bharad- 
 vajo were merely self-interested? 
 
 Likewise, in the old days, mrcy to animals may 
 have been motived, not by theories about their place 
 in the Wheel of Existence, but by compassion for 
 their dumb helplessness, and the theories (ever less 
 a factor than supposed) grew up to meet the demand 
 for them. 
 
 But, after all, it cannot be true that conscious self- 
 saving is entirely wrong, for how trivial are any 
 sufferings in this world compared with our own 
 possible ones in other worlds! To Gotamo Buddho s 
 genuine altruism, witness enough is found in his 
 years of pitying service after he had no longer need 
 to strive on his own behalf; but it was a prudent 
 altruism, which regarded for others chiefly their 
 eternal welfare. "There are two forms of kindliness," 
 
 12] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 he said, "material and spiritual, and the spiritual 
 is the higher." 
 
 In Salvation by Merit we may suspect a perversion 
 from Salvation by Character (a nobler idea, however 
 insufficient when tested by human weakness.) 
 Though Kamma means Deed, Act, the subjective 
 value of the Deed was originally seen to lie in its 
 self-disciplinary power, and the state of mind behind 
 the Deed counted for more than the overt act. 
 
 In spite of the fact that Gotamo s philosophy 
 rested on a denial of the old self-soul, it replaced it 
 by a very efficient soul in the form of this same 
 Kamma, a force by which the individual, so long as 
 tainted with evil, was renewed in the hereafter, thus 
 precluding excape from punishment by the expedient 
 of death. Kamma was therefore a seed planted to 
 germinate anew. 
 
 It was pre-eminently the believing patronage of 
 King Bimbisaro that disposed the Master to pass 
 so many of his rainy seasons at the Magadhese 
 Capital, whither his journeys reciprocated from Sa- 
 vatthi, chief city of the Kosala Kingdom. Some 
 times he traveled eastward through Baranasi, on the 
 Ganges, sometimes northward to the edge of the 
 Great Wood, to Vesali of the Vajjian Licchavls, 
 strong among the free clans in their resistance to 
 encroaching monarchies. 
 
 During his first season of ministry at Giribbaja, 
 Buddho had encamped in the Latthivana Grove, 
 southwest of town, by the road leading up from 
 Uruvela. As a preferable place of residence, the 
 Veluvana was soon bestowed upon him and his 
 disciples by the King. Here, again and again, he 
 passed his Lenten seasons of rest and preaching. 
 Sometimes for retirement and meditation, he would 
 retreat to the caves on Gijjhakuto, while companies 
 of the bhikkhus raised temporary grass huts on the 
 slopes of Isigili or other mountains. 
 
 Many folk resorted to him at the Bambu pleas- 
 aunce to dispute with him until they could no longer 
 resist his gracious words. There came among others 
 the brilliant young court physician, Jivako Komara- 
 bhacco, of ignoble birth but royal adoption, who had 
 studied his profession in the great university town 
 of Takkasila, far in the mountainous Northwest. By 
 him, as a token of his devotion to the Enlightened 
 One, and to meet the needs of the growing Sangha, 
 was given the Mango Grove, which he further en 
 dowed with a preaching hall, and which since has 
 borne his name. He it was who also healed Gotamo 
 of a disease acquired, evidently, by wearing patch 
 work robes of offcast rags found in cemeteries and 
 on dust-heaps. By his tactfulness the Tathagato 
 was led to discard this custom for a fashion of attire 
 more sanitary and more consistent with his own 
 policy of moderation. 
 
 Considerate indeed was the Dhamma s Lord of 
 his disciples comfort and impartial in his regulations, 
 for he allowed to all a thickness of clothing gauged 
 by the needs of the most sensitive. From his sump- 
 
 [13 
 
 tuary laws sickness wrought a liberal dispensation. 
 A general rule permitting use of weavers looms he 
 had made in consideration of a nervous invalid 
 brother whose mind craved absorption in a handi 
 craft. 
 
 Such incidents touched Revato with the gentle 
 human reasonableness of the Blessed One. Narrow 
 religionists might contend for an unswerving omni 
 science in the Master, which their cherished tradi 
 tions belied, but for Revato such a belief would have 
 destroyed half the confidence in that wise leadership. 
 The Layman preferred to recognize Bhagava s open- 
 mindedness, his discreet opportunism, even; his 
 supreme devotion to truth although it might prove 
 his own fallibility; his implied consent to readjust 
 ments of opinion which future knowledge might 
 demand of others. Did not Gotamo, in his last hours 
 with his disciples, advise that after his departure 
 they should heed the words of any qualified teacher 
 among them, and did he not offer them full permis 
 sion to abolish all the minor precepts? 
 
 Revato could not bring himself to follow blindly, 
 even Sattha, the great Teacher. He acknowledged 
 that every man whose ethics are real must form 
 them for himself, shaped by the specialties of his 
 own conscience, wherein dwells ultimate authority. 
 While he could not avail himself of the distinction 
 between monastic and lay morality, he felt, on the 
 other hand, little bound by what seemed accidental, 
 conventional. An appreciation of a similar candid 
 spirit in the Lord of the Dhamma himself tended to 
 check Revato s centrifugal disposition and hold him 
 to the Faith. Broadminded and humanly flexible, 
 as Revato saw him, was the Tathagato. But there 
 was about him a perfection which seemed super 
 human. Weary and wordy were the old texts, all 
 that puerile taste could do had been done to mar 
 the fair image of the Exalted One. Yet, even in the 
 most grotesque tales, it was impossible to find one 
 smirch upon the purity of his conduct, one wanton 
 ly severe word that had escaped his lips. When 
 reflecting upon the clearness and patience of that 
 character, Revato felt a barrier rise between himself 
 and his own lower nature. To quiet the heart s 
 clamor for indulgence, for laxity in the conditions of 
 salvation, no other means was half so potent as 
 fixing the thoughts upon him. 
 
 Especially was Buddho s freedom for conviction 
 shown when, at the entreaties of his kinswomen 
 aided by the persuasions of Anando (still the saint 
 beloved by women) he first admitted their sex to the 
 company of sanctified ones even if reluctantly. 
 
 In his fifth vassa, spent here at Rajagaha, there 
 came to him from his home city Kapilavatthu the 
 tidings of his father s last sickness and, hastening 
 across the intervening expanse of country, he arrived 
 before the end. It was soon after this that he framed 
 the rule for a female Order into which were admitted 
 his foster-mother PajapatI and Yasodhara that had 
 been his wife. His son Rahulo, while yet a young lad, 
 had followed him among the brethren, later to 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 become a devoted samana. Thus was removed the 
 bitterness of that harsh abandonment (cruel most 
 upon himself) to which his heart had compelled him 
 for the deliverance of humanity. 
 
 For this elevation of woman from her low estate, 
 his breadth of mind might well astound, since he 
 held sex to be wholly evil, and in his time sex and 
 woman were ideas almost inseparable. His achieve 
 ment was to create a new and higher kind of life, 
 wherein would be neither male nor female. 
 
 Even- more willing had the Tathagato been to 
 ignore the differences of vanna, color, and to shame 
 away the injustice of society. The Buddhist move 
 ment was not a mere selfish contest of the powerful 
 and wealthy Khattiyas to gain spiritual lordship 
 as well, for if so, they would not have shared the 
 spoil equally with the despised colors. Pure benevo 
 lence must have actuated Jino the Conqueror 
 Buddho, when, 
 
 "Er zerbrach die Zwingherrnburgen 
 Und zerbrach des Knechtes Joch. " 
 
 A delicate consideration had been shown by the 
 Blessed One even for his enemies, the Nigantha 
 heretics. When Slho, the Licchavi generalissimo, 
 had turned from that religion to his, he had coun 
 seled: "Deem it right, Siho, still to give the Nigan- 
 thas those alms which they have so long received at 
 your house." And yet these false religionists were at 
 that very time fomenting public clamour against 
 him by malicious slanders! 
 
 Revato admired also the scorn with which Gotamo 
 had treated vain display of supernatural powers. 
 Here at Rajagaha was still standing the house of the 
 man whose magically fetched down bowl had occa 
 sioned enactment of one of the canonical disci 
 plinary rules. In the Bambu Grove the teacher 
 had convinced the householder Sigalo that the only 
 charms which can securely guard the six cardinal 
 points of a home are the circumradient potencies of 
 good deeds. 
 
 Here too, at Rajagaha, lingered the pathos of 
 Buddho s old age, beset with many sorrows. His 
 cousin and disciple Devadatto had led a schism from 
 the Society under pretext of demanding a stricter 
 rule and even had attempted his Master s life by 
 rolling down a rock, still pointed out on the moun 
 tain side of the Vulture s Peak. Bimbisaro, who, 
 throughout the long ministry, had been his royal and 
 loyal friend, was succeeded on the throne by the 
 parricide- Ajatasattu. News arrived that the King 
 of Kosala had almost wiped out the Sakiya clan at 
 Kapilavatthu, Gotamo s own people. An attack 
 upon his friends, the free Vajjians, was plotted by 
 Ajatasattu, who had the affrontery to ask his counsel 
 conserning the bloody expedition. "As long as the 
 Vajjians adhere to their ancient virtues," Buddho 
 answered, "so long will they prosper." Then he 
 prepared to depart northward on his last journey 
 by a road which led through the country of the 
 beleaguered Vajjians, and beyond it, toward the 
 devastated home of his childhood. 
 
 From illusions of sense he had been free longer 
 than most men are born to live, yet the love of 
 natural things had never wholly died within him. 
 Calling together in mind the scenes now to be beheld 
 no more, he uttered those cries of human feeling 
 which the monks whom Revato knew still intoned 
 in their recitations: "Ramanlyang Rajagahang, 
 ramaniyo Gijjha-kuto pabbato How pleasant is 
 Rajagaha! how pleasant the Vulture s Peak Moun 
 tain! pleasant the Banyan tree of Gotamo; how 
 pleasant the Robbers Cliff; pleasant the Sattapanni 
 cave on the slope of Mount Vebhara; pleasant the 
 Black Rock on the slope of Mount Isigili; pleasant 
 the mountain cave of the Serpents Pool in the 
 Sitavana Grove; pleasant the Tapoda Grove; pleas 
 ant the Squirrels Feeding Ground in the Bambu 
 Grove; pleasant Jlvako s Mango Grove; pleasant 
 the Deer Forest at Maddakucchi!" 
 
 Dragging himself by slow stages, he crossed Ganga 
 at Patali village where Sunidho and Vassakaro, 
 Ajatasattu s chief ministers, were building against 
 the Vajjians an outpost, destined before Revato s 
 time to become the capital of all India, and com 
 mitted himself to their territory. A precious heri 
 tage of narrative preserves the events of the few 
 following months; his many parting counsels and 
 consolations of his inner friendly circle; his artful 
 reasoning to soothe the feelings of him whose hospi 
 tality was the innocent occasion of his final sickness. 
 
 Northward he labored, following the hot low-lying 
 river banks, till the glistening peaks of Himavanta 
 arose before him and, upon the westward road along 
 its foot-hills, which led to the old home, he began 
 to feel reviving mountain airs. But they came too 
 late. Day by day he felt the power of death more 
 strongly upon him and more welcome was the sur 
 render to it. It had come already to his two chief 
 disciples, for in the month Kattika, when the moon 
 was at the full, the Great Sariputto died and in the 
 dark of the self-same moon the Great Moggallano 
 was clubbed to death by robbers at the instigation 
 of Nigantha ascetics. "I too will pass away in 
 Kusinara," thought Bhagava. 
 
 There was no longer any strength to complete the 
 journey home, and so, as it proved, he fell upon 
 parinibbana in the sala grove of the Mallas at Kus 
 inara, on the further side of the river Hirafifiavati. 
 
 With light reflected from the Perfectly Illumined 
 One, shone many lesser characters of olden Rajagaha, 
 men and women, members of that inner circle of 
 disciples, companions of his weariness, who had 
 abandoned all to follow him. Some of their person 
 alities were nearly as familiar to Revato as those of 
 Bharadvajo and Kondanno. There was Bhagava s 
 most intimate attendant, whose devotion seemed 
 almost worthy of the great compassionate nature 
 which evoked it Anando, whose life was like a 
 Spring day of cloud and sunshine mingled Anando, 
 erring and backward in the Paths (consoling thought 
 for others) yet who alone of all the brethren remained 
 
 [14] 
 
THE 
 
 LAYMAN 
 
 R E V A T O 
 
 beside his Master in the charge of the mad elephant; 
 who, in those last hours at Kusinara, was brought 
 to the bedside from weeping against the lintel of the 
 door; and who in after days looked back with partic 
 ular yearning 
 
 "Through five and twenty rains I served 
 The Blest One while he dwelt apart; 
 
 From works of body never swerved 
 Nor works of word nor works of heart. 
 
 "And when the Buddho wandering walked 
 
 I, shadowing, wandered far as he, 
 I heard his wisdom while he talked, 
 
 The truths he uttered fell to me. 
 
 "Alas, a learner still I stay 
 
 Who full salvation yet must find, 
 And the Teacher now has passed away 
 
 Who so transcendently was kind. 
 
 "When scattered ash my Comrade lies 
 And the Master s life has long an end, 
 
 A charnal, musing exercise 
 
 Becomes my best remaining friend." 
 
 Poor Anando s difficulty in working his way along 
 the Paths of perfection was fortunately not a tribu 
 lation common to all believers. To others the 
 heroic life seemed so easy and its fruition so con 
 sciously assured! Witness Elder Revato, of the old 
 hymn. 
 
 How marvelous the work that the Tathagato had 
 wrought in the world! How many souls in ancient 
 days had found through him that perfect peace 
 which still lived in their rhythmic exultations! How 
 many lives still were softened and illumined by the 
 remembered precepts of the Teacher! 
 
 Into the history of Magadha, yes of entire Jam- 
 budipa, and far among the border lands, all unthink- 
 ably dark with cruelty, he had shone with beams of 
 pity, lighting to mercy the lives whereon they fell. 
 
 It was no wonder that the superstitious were 
 hastening to apotheosize their Deliverer. The con 
 ception of him (however little Revato then under 
 stood this)was already beginning to run a course of 
 changes which, during many centuries, would pass 
 through peculiar phases: 
 
 There was first the man Gotamo, of noble, but 
 not majestic birth, radient in his purity, his pity and 
 in his wisdom to discern the heart s needs. This was 
 the Buddho known to them who saw him face to 
 face and to those of later years who, like Revato, 
 could read between the lines of legend. 
 
 But the Oriental can neither admire without 
 dazzle nor express without hyperbole. Hardly had 
 the sage passed away when he was exalted to royal 
 station and endowed with every transcendent quality 
 of the ideal prince. Not alone was he given the 
 attributes of a contemporary raja, but he was 
 traced to former incarnations as a Great King of 
 Glory, a Universal Monarch of the Golden Age, 
 with possessions manifold those of the most opulent 
 living potentate. 
 
 It was an easy transition from a worshipful king to 
 a worshipped god. Buddho had degraded the Hindu 
 
 deities to impotent demi-gods and had discouraged 
 inquiry concerning a First Cause; the god on whom 
 he taught dependence was that abstract divinity, 
 Law. 
 
 But since men, and women especially, insist on 
 looking to some helpful Personality outside of 
 themselves, and since their enlightened Master em 
 bodied all of such personal helpfulness that they knew, 
 it was inevitable that they should deify him, so 
 amending his doctrines as to prove that he had not 
 yet ceased to exist. This third stage of the Buddho 
 conception was being felt after by some in Revato s 
 time. Thus was the human Buddho transformed 
 into the Royal and into the Divine Buddho. 
 
 The fourth conception if a prophetic anachro 
 nism may be allowed was the metaphysical Buddho 
 to be dreamed of especially in distant Japan an idea 
 farthest of all removed from the historical one, yet 
 elevated above the intervening superstitions to a 
 high philosophical beauty. He is the Reality behind 
 the Ideal universe 
 
 "/ live within material forms of flesh, 
 But when / was not, Self was ever there, 
 For Self is Buddha." 
 
 "Year after year the annual flowers bloom 
 Upon the bush uninterruptedly. 
 Thus Buddha lives unchanged; but we that are 
 But shows and shadows of the Inner Soul 
 Bud, bloom and die as changing years roll on." 
 
 This, however, is not the faith in which mankind 
 will rest. "The human heart is a great glutton"; 
 moreover we are helplessly dependent. There is 
 still another course which the doctrine took, a by 
 path from the main road of development. Some 
 reach out toward a Pure Land, a Western Paradise, 
 where Amida Buddho shall bring unimpaired the 
 souls which entrust themselves to him 
 
 "I take no rope in my unskillful hands 
 Nor labor at the oar to cross the stream. 
 The Boatman whom I trust will row me o er 
 To the safe haven of the Shore Beyond."* 
 
 PRESENCE THE EMPIRE OF PEACE 
 
 But to revert. After the Great Sage s death, 
 his cremation and the distribution of his relics to 
 eight suppliant kings and clans, his disciples returned 
 to Rajagaha where they held the famous first 
 ecumenical council in front of the Sattipanni cave 
 on the slope of Mt. Vebhara, probating, so to speak, 
 his testament, by reciting, as each could remember, 
 the precious legacies of teaching which he had 
 bequeathed. 
 
 The freedom-loving Vajjians eventually suc 
 cumbed to the spread of empire and, within less 
 than a hundred vassas after Buddho s death, their 
 conquered city, Vesali of the Licchavis, succeeded 
 
 *These three stanzas from the Japanese are in the version 
 of the late Rev. Arthur Lloyd. I understand that he attributed 
 the Pure Land cult to early Christian influences. In the 
 Idealistic philosophy we seem to find the Vedanta. 
 
 [IS] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 Rajagaha as the capital of Magadha. Within 
 another reign the throne was moved to Pataliputta, 
 city of the Trumpet Flower Sons. Before the end of 
 the second century, the kingdom had attained truly 
 imperial power in Jambudipa. It was further ex 
 tended by the adventurer Candagutto, who estab 
 lished in dominion the Moriya, Peacock, dynasty. 
 He it was who beat back the fair-skinned Yonas 
 that had settled in the border countries from the 
 days of the invader Alasando and established his 
 own government over their colonies. While he 
 subdued their arms, their arts and sciences continued 
 to creep into his domain but were more than returned 
 in deeper philosophies which they embraced. It was 
 not the proud, active Yavana whose spirit gained the 
 mastery, but the meek, passive Ariya. 
 
 As is always the case, the inhabitants of Jambudipa 
 had to pay well for their pride or acquiescence in 
 imperial magnitude and power. What with heavy 
 land rents, irrigating water rates, tithes on commer 
 cial transactions and other imposts, collected often 
 under penalty of death for dodging, taxes became 
 the chief part of their lives. 
 
 Now the birth of Candagutto s grandson, Asoko 
 Vaddhano, was like the coming of a second Buddho 
 who would be to the social world what Gotamo had 
 been to the world of individuals. His goodness was 
 not by nature, however, for when he came to the 
 throne he was called Asoko the Wicked. In the 
 ninth year of his reign he subjugated the Kalinga 
 countries, on the eastern coast of the south. He 
 did not conduct his campaign according to those 
 most merciful practices of Aryan warfare which 
 might leave the husbandmen tilling their fields 
 unmolested while battle waged around them, but 
 he tore from hermitages even holy samanas. Abuses 
 of this war, with its usages hardly better, wrought 
 in the monarch a remorse which drove him for refuge 
 to the doctrines of the merciful Buddho, and he 
 became thenceforth a King of Peace. While the 
 religion had lost much of its early purity, it had 
 become so diffused among the people as to temper 
 them to a mildness of conduct never before known, 
 and now, when endorsed by the State, its influence 
 for good became incalculable. 
 
 Asoko s long reign, after his conversion, was spent 
 not only in establishing the forms of the Dhamma 
 religion and endowing it with costly edifices and 
 carved stones, but in acting its spirit. He who once, 
 it was sa^d, had maintained a torture chamber to 
 inflict on miserable creatures, human and animal, 
 the torments of hell in similitude, now planted trees 
 and dug roadside wells far and wide for their com 
 fort and fixed dispensaries of medicaments appropri 
 ate to man and beast. If his demands were still large 
 toward those who had, his benevolences were great 
 toward those who had not. Munificent as were his 
 public alms, no one could tell the extent of his 
 bounties, for he was an outspoken advocate of secret 
 charities. His zeal to spread the saving Truth knew 
 no sovereign limitations; "All men," he said, "are 
 
 my children. " His missionaries crossed the southern 
 seas to Tambapannidlpa and passed far beyond 
 Himavanta to the hindermost regions of the world, 
 where the desirous Yonas worship their lustful gods, 
 rear beautiful cities of illusion, and store up bad 
 Kamma against the suffering ages of the future. 
 
 Asoko Sorrowless he might not truly be, for 
 contrition and sympathy were strong in him, but 
 he gave all his heart to following the way that leads 
 to the cessation of sorrow. As Devanam-Piyo 
 Piyadassi Raja The Devas Darling, His Majesty 
 the King he might appear before the world in 
 proud rock-graven edicts, but, being no lukewarm 
 believer, he personally submitted to the laws of a 
 lay disciple and later of an ordained mendicant in the 
 Sangha. 
 
 Asoko s conversion had taken place longer ago 
 than Revato could remember; hence he had always 
 lived in an environment of peace and good will. 
 True, the charities of the royal family were rarely 
 needed to relieve starvation; famines were rare in 
 Magadha, with its twice-yearly harvests. Religious 
 prosecution had been little known among the Ariyas 
 and hardly was a check upon violence now re 
 quired, but Piyadassi went beyond toleration, in 
 spiring the disputing secretaries to mutual esteem. 
 His subjects, whether Buddhist, Brahmin or Jaina, 
 were all recipients of favor, and if he was chiefly 
 zealous for that religion which he believed to be 
 true, he could still dedicate magnificent cave dwell 
 ings to the use of others. At one point, however, he 
 hesitated. The Brahmins, in their festivals to their 
 gods, had been wont to massacre numbers of horses, 
 sheep, goats, swine and other living creatures, per 
 forming their rites not merely with flowers and per 
 fumes, but with gory carcasses. These practices 
 he discouraged, since he would not condone murder 
 under the cloak of religion. Further he minimized 
 the slaughter of animals for food, decreeing for 
 example, that no peacock or antelope should be put 
 to death at the Capital. 
 
 Mutterings of discontent at this tenderness of 
 heart should have been disarmed by knowledge that 
 he had limited the deaths of living creatures for his 
 own table and finally had abandoned that butchery 
 altogether. Along with the slaughter of animals, the 
 King had suppressed a certain offensive holiday 
 feast at Pataliputta, and though he was not opposed 
 to public gaities of the right sort, yet the popular 
 amusements were generally attended with so many 
 evils that his influence acted to curtail their number 
 and license. Among many of his subjects, this 
 restraint bitterly counted for more than all his 
 beneficence. 
 
 A growing disuse of cruel punishments in Jambu 
 dipa was lessening human pain to an inestimable 
 extent. If still torture was employed in criminal 
 process, and corporal penalties imposed, it was only 
 of seeming necessity for the ends of justice, restricted 
 in various ways by Asoko s command, and grievous 
 in any case to his spirit. It was limited to the 
 
 16] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 purlieus of crime, and the quiet citizen, not to 
 mention the monk, dwelt secure from arbitrary 
 molestation. At Rajagaha were old men who, in 
 their prime, had lost hands and feet, noses and ears 
 and lingered as object lessons by which the younger 
 generation might know that the present rarity of 
 such cruelties was not according to the custom of 
 the world. But man is so unreflecting that if, by some 
 contingency, his day be clear and cool, he forgets 
 that stifling rain ever falls or sunshine ever scorches 
 and kills. Only those who, like Revato, cast their 
 thoughts afar told themselves that the life around 
 them 
 
 "Griin das Gefilde, fruchtbar; Mensch und Herde 
 Sogleich behaglich auf der neusten Erde" 
 
 was just a paradisian dream in the world s night. 
 
 THE CREEPER OF CRAVING 
 
 As the guards that had surrounded the happy 
 home of the young Gotamo had been powerless to 
 exclude sorrow, so, in the delicate immunities of 
 Revato s surroundings, was no effective barrier to 
 gloom and fear. 
 
 A minor note truly was resonant in the hushed 
 sounds of Rajagaha. With regal glories gone afar, 
 it had sunken into a mellow decadence. While its 
 environs were increasingly populous with holy men 
 and women intent on discipline and contemplation, 
 the chief secular inhabitants were old families like 
 that of Revato s mother, reduced, but still tacitly 
 proud and clinging to their ground like seamed 
 weather-worn rocks on the mountain side. In many 
 of them might have been traced a particular sequence 
 of character development down the generations. 
 With abilities inherited from ancient, rough, liberty- 
 loving clansmen, the vassals of the Serpent Kings 
 in Gotamo s day had become successful and luxur 
 ious men of the world. Thus, from vigor had grown 
 culture, refining if divitalizing. As royalty passed 
 away and the new puritanic religion spread, culture 
 was chastened into modest dignity, self-restraint and 
 stern virtue. There were moral giants in those days. 
 But harsh parents make kind children; the oncoming 
 generations were subdued in spirit, and, while clear 
 in conduct as their fathers had been, they were 
 tempered with exquisite mildness and tolerance. 
 The old stocks were then near to running out. Bud- 
 dho s principles, hostile to fecundity, operated not in 
 the monastic order alone. The Paths pointed to by 
 his precepts tended, even in the household life, to 
 racial Nibbana, Surcease. Whether the reason be 
 physical or spiritual, in-so-far as the soul outgrows 
 its brutal partner, the body, prolificness wanes, and 
 this may be a merciful provision of nature, since 
 when the mind becomes most highly organized and 
 sensitive, its balance of pain counterweighs beyond 
 endurance. This stage of dying agony in the genera 
 tions, to which the phase of calm gentleness gives 
 place, had fully been reached in the heart of Revato. 
 From the strong and wise and upright and amiable 
 
 men that had preceded him at Giribbaja, he had 
 received in heirship all of their sorrows, few of their 
 joys. The keen, restless mind was his in that he 
 might not be their inferior and his delicacy, if not 
 consistency, of motive was a refinement upon their 
 honest instincts. He knew that he was weak in 
 will, in the achieving will, yet fain he would console 
 himself with a belief in his power to resist whatsoever 
 might shame the noble-hearted line that ended in 
 him. 
 
 That he was to be the end, had intuitively become 
 a conviction which every year grew firmer. In this 
 reflection there was to him a pensive and perhaps 
 unwholesome fondness, not entirely due to Buddistic 
 considerations, but arising in his artistic sensibility. 
 It harmonized with the moribund solemnity of 
 Rajagaha a solemnity like the gloom within the 
 aisles of a great spreading banyan whereunder, on 
 its rich, black soil of decay, gorgeous plants languish 
 to death as the shade more densely enshrouds. 
 
 There was a story that one of Asoko s younger 
 brothers (not Mahindo), as he followed the chase one 
 day and watched the sporting of the deer in the 
 forest, had thought: "Why should not the well- 
 housed monks also amuse themselves?" Thereupon 
 Piyadassi vested him with the sovereignty for seven 
 days, saying "At the end of that time thou shalt 
 die." Then, when the period had elapsed, "Why 
 art thou so ematiated?" "From horror of death," 
 was the answer. "My child," said Asoko, "this 
 hath taught thee that for them whose mind is con 
 tinually upon death there can be no diversion." 
 
 In such a memento mori was grounded the mind 
 of Revato. And yet there were occasions, rare in 
 deed, when it could skim the ground lightly and 
 airily as a deer escaped from a snare. 
 
 Revato had gotten his education from the monks 
 at Giribbaja and at the great University of Nalanda, 
 so conveniently near his home city. At first his 
 mother had objected to his studies. 
 
 "If he learns writing," she had protested, "it will 
 make his fingers sore; if arithmetic, his breast will 
 become diseased by much thinking; if money 
 changing, his eyes will suffer." 
 
 "But he is delicately nurtured," Bharadvajo had 
 pleaded. "Unless he devotes himself to study he 
 will be unable to acquire new riches or augment the 
 riches he possesses. Only thus can he live a life of 
 ease and without pain." 
 
 Of course the arguments for learning had prevailed, 
 when supported by Revato s own inclinations. 
 Once started, there had been little check upon 
 Revato s mental acquisitions and his studies had 
 been elective. 
 
 When very young he had developed his memory 
 by learning long suttas from the sacred recitations. 
 Few friars could repeat as large a proportion of the 
 Canon as he. There was at this time a new move 
 ment which advocated the commission of the Ti- 
 pitika the Three Baskets of sacred lore to writing; 
 but that art, however useful for inscriptive and 
 
 [17] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 commercial purposes, seemed ill-adapted to preserv 
 ing extensive works of literature in their purity. 
 The most careful scribe would make mistakes, to 
 avoid which nothing seemed so reliable as the 
 trained memory when constantly verified by a 
 consensus of oral scholarship. 
 
 Revato had soon learned to read and write and to 
 use figures. He had also dipped into many higher 
 studies, such as Poetry, Music, Medicine, Astron 
 omy, Magic, Causation, Law, Conveyancing and 
 Commerce, with monks who before their pabbajja 
 had been secular scholars. One of these happened 
 to know Navigation and Revato had dallied even 
 with this, for the love of acquisition, however useless 
 to him. His linguistic knowledge was considerable, 
 although limited to the related dialects of the Ariyas. 
 Beside the Magadhese he could speak one or two 
 other vernaculars, was necessarily proficient in Pali, 
 the literary language of his religion, and understood 
 Sanskrit in its Vedic and Brahmanic, as well as its 
 current forms. 
 
 Opposition on the part of narrow mentors like 
 Kondanno had excluded him not from the classics 
 of the false old religion, neither from its epic 
 ballads, nor yet from its variant philosophical sys 
 tems. All these, like the fifty-two heresies of his own 
 sect lately confuted in the great work of Archbishop 
 Tisso, he had found intensely interesting, but gen 
 erally barren and unsettling. They proved nothing, 
 but the habit of pondering them loosened one s hold 
 on one s own faith. It is declared among the 
 "Enunciations" of Buddho that, 
 
 "There be contentious, quibbling samanas 
 Who see the matter only on one side," 
 
 but Revato had brought himself to the point where 
 he saw every matter on at least two sides, to the 
 disadvantage of both. This disposition had, no 
 doubt, been born in him, but it had grown by indul 
 gence. His conscience was not clear in that regard. 
 But Revato s gluttonous mind had craved that 
 mysterious wisdom to be found nowhere short of 
 Gandhara. The first major disappointment of his 
 life had been the denial of his desire to attend the 
 famous schools at Takkasila in that far northwestern 
 
 Province which had for some time been held by the 
 r onakas and was still filled with their wonderful, 
 mysterious learning. The disappointment had 
 remained in him a root of bitterness and had grown 
 up into an habitual yearning toward Yonaloka with 
 its marvellous knowledge. However laudable an 
 ambition this might seem in itself, it became in him 
 a source of morbid discontent, the bane of which he 
 realized. This was why, when later he was free to 
 go and once had actually set out for Takkasila, he 
 turned back after a day or two of brooding and 
 struggle with himself in the loneliness of the crowded 
 road. The craving in that direction however was not 
 destroyed and was the underlying reason why he had 
 sought the custom-house appointment. Outwardly, 
 that event was brought about as follows: 
 
 While Revato was an infant, the glorious zealot 
 Mahindo, younger brother of Asoko, had come to 
 dwell as a hermit in that selfsame cavern on Gijjha- 
 kuto once occupied by Gotamo. Here he had been 
 in near fellowship with the Venerable Ajjuko, 
 Revato s grandfather, and had stooped to kindly 
 notice of the child on more than one occasion, now 
 faintly remembered. Subsequently, the eremitic 
 prince had removed to Pataliputta and lived in an 
 artificial cell on a stone hill, which his royal brother 
 built for him to resemble the Vulture s Peak. Not 
 long after that, the great Church Council at Patali 
 putta had commissioned him to preach the Sad- 
 dhamma on Tambapannidipa, the far distant Island 
 of Lanka, and he had sailed forth upon the great ocean 
 to be followed later by Asoko s daughter Sangha- 
 mitta bearing a slip from the sacred Wisdom Tree 
 at Uruvela. Before leaving Magadha he had 
 secured from his royal brother a promise of future 
 preferment for Ajjuko s grandson, Revato. 
 
 Now the peace and liberality of Asoko s reign had 
 wrought no general reduction of taxation, but only 
 an attempt to check its abuses and to apply its pro 
 ceeds to good ends. Of old times, before the little 
 states of Jambudlpa had been consolidated, their 
 foreign customs were an important source of revenue. 
 With the obliteration of boundary lines and far 
 removal of frontiers, internal revenues, such as land 
 taxes and tithes on trade, had risen to paramount 
 importance. Still, the old custom house at Rajagaha 
 was kept open to take toll of passing caravans. Its 
 receipts were small compared with those in the days 
 when that city was still metropolis and capital, and 
 competition for the receivership was not so sharp as 
 of yore. Travelers through Rajagaha now were 
 mostly pilgrims to Uruvela or friars whose holy 
 poverty exempted them from demand and search 
 an immunity which had been abused in certain 
 cases as the Canon Law recorded. By reason, how 
 ever, of the occasional foreign caravans which still 
 halted at the office, it was a point of informatory 
 contact between Rajagaha and Yonaloka. This 
 was the insidious thought which came to Revato when 
 he learned that the long-time incumbent of the 
 office was about to retire and assume the yellow 
 robe. He strove to banish the thought, but suc 
 ceeded only in obscuring it by other considerations. 
 So he nerved himself to solicit a redemption of the 
 king s ancient pledge. It is doubtful if Revato 
 would actually have gone to Pataliputta for the 
 purpose, but it occurred (in retribution for his 
 yielding to desire in some former life, he afterwards 
 thought) that about this time Asoko came on a 
 pilgrimage to Giribbaja. Revato arranged to be in 
 waiting with his friends on the Vulture s Peak where 
 he could present himself in audience under easy and 
 favorable conditions. 
 
 With whatever embarrassment Revato entered 
 Piyadassi s presence, it was immediately transformed 
 from the cringing before Majesty to a spiritual awe 
 
 [18] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 before Holiness. At first the Darling of the Devas 
 failed to recall his promise. 
 
 "Now we, friend," he said, "who be called kings, 
 are very busy and have many duties. If we had 
 promised we could not remember. Pray refresh our 
 memory." 
 
 Here the Venerable Bharadvajo interposed with 
 details which he could supply as Revato could not 
 and which gave the necessary clue. 
 
 "I remember that which my lord hath indicated," 
 answered Asoko and immediately granted Revato s 
 petition, bidding him arrange matters at pleasure. 
 In the manner of bestowal there was a shadowy 
 quality of pitying unsympathy, as from one whose 
 mind is occupied with business of a deeper nature, 
 and Revato felt shame. 
 
 Thus at the start his air castles were thinned, and 
 they were soon to be dissolved. His concealed desire 
 to look into the imagined rich life of the Yonaka 
 peoples miserably failed, for he found the language 
 of commerce inadequate to exchange other than the 
 most sordid ideas with the foreign merchants that 
 stopped to pay duty, if indeed they were cognizant 
 of higher things, which their deportment failed to 
 reveal. In various ways, this enlargement of Reva 
 to s life, instead of brightening the world for him, 
 
 only increased his opportunities of unhappiness. 
 Four years now had elapsed since the appointment 
 and every day his burden had been growing heavier. 
 The culminating detail of his distress was that which 
 he had just revealed to the monks on the Vulture s 
 Peak. 
 
 The lady Sundarl, who awaited Revato s return 
 that evening, knew of his intended journey to Patali- 
 putta, though she did not know the reason. Before 
 he retired for the night, she handed him a little 
 gem-like object which he had never seen before, 
 saying: 
 
 "This would be yours some day, Revato, and 
 while we are apart it is safer in your possession than 
 mine, for your life is younger and more secure. Take 
 it as a talisman if you will, and see where it guides 
 you." 
 
 When Revato lighted a lamp and examined the 
 gem, he found it to be made of dark stone with relief 
 work carved from white stone, and seemingly all in 
 one piece. It was of foreign workmanship, beyond 
 the skill of any lapidary in Magadha, clever as they 
 were, and it showed a woman, in flowing robes, 
 holding a small stringed musical instrument, some 
 thing like a parivadini lute. 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF BUDDHO 
 
 FELLOW TRAVELERS 
 
 The morning on which Revato set out for the 
 Capital to do the thing that seemed to him just fell 
 in the season of dry air which follows the oppressive 
 Autumn rains. The ploughmen and sowers worked 
 lustily and even the washermen beating their clothes 
 on flat stones in the brooks thumped with unusual 
 alacrity as they chewed their betel-nut. The hills 
 that Revato left behind him were covered with sere 
 leaves torn off by the storms Buddho s own symbol 
 of the excommunicated brother who has committed 
 the mortal sin of dishonesty but fresh greenage had 
 already usurped their places and the roadside was 
 voluptuous with blossoms. 
 
 Revato traveled in an unpretentious wagon drawn 
 by a yoke of bullocks from his farm, which were 
 driven by a retainer Pilindavaccho, of the Sudda 
 color. His spirit favored this happy mean between 
 a pretentious hired elephant and the self-locomotion 
 of the mendicants. When, on rare occasions, he 
 had himself conveyed the customs receipts to the 
 royal treasury, he had provided a more elaborate 
 outfit, but now he preferred to typify that renuncia 
 tion which in his mind was already a fact accom 
 plished. Incidentally, the plainer his equipage the 
 less his hazard of highwaymen who still infested 
 certain forests through which the road passed. 
 
 They were worthy successors to robber Angulimalo, 
 of Buddho s time, who, as implied by this acquired 
 name, wore a necklace of knuckle joints, even after 
 his conversion and ordination, until required to put 
 off that ornament, owing to the alarm which it 
 aroused. 
 
 After passing, almost at the outset, through the 
 new city of Rajagaha, Revato continued northward 
 along the great highway hallowed by the last journey 
 of the Tathagato. The foothills and upland fell off 
 toward the lowlands of Ganga valley where the 
 jungle was cleared up into fields of paddy, barley, 
 sugar-cane and pot herbs, irrigated by extensive 
 reservoir and canal systems, now overflowing. 
 Water was no luxury at this season and the fords of 
 the swollen rivers were precarious. 
 
 Revato soon overtook a caravan of three hundred 
 ox-carts stretching as far as the eye could reach along 
 the road. They were jolting forward about half as 
 fast as a man could walk, and he soon passed them. 
 He had had official dealings with them the day 
 before and the leading trader greeted him with a 
 sullen face. The merchants in another caravan, 
 which he met traveling southward, extended a 
 friendlier recognition. 
 
 Numerous were the religious men of all cults 
 Deva-worshipping Brahmin pandits, versed in the 
 
 19] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 three Vedas, and various sects of Paribbajakas, 
 Wanderers, whether orthodox Brahminists or hereti 
 cal Ajivakas, Nigantha yatis and Sakiyaputtiya 
 samanas. These last-mentioned, the Buddhist 
 friars, were many of them pilgrims to or from 
 Uruvela, the site of Gotamo s Salvation, whereto 
 one of the main roads led southwestward through 
 Rajagaha. 
 
 He had not ridden more than an hour when he 
 espied ahead of him the woven mat sunshades of his 
 two clerical friends, the Venerable Bharadvajo and 
 Kondanno who had made an earlier start than he. 
 After a peripatetic and wholesome life, Venerable 
 Bharadvajo s eighty years were little obstacle to his 
 progress as a traveler. These gamiko bhikkhus, 
 traveling mendicants, were little hampered by 
 impedimenta though carrying with them, beside 
 the parasols, their entire individual possessions, the 
 three robes, girdle, bowl, razor, needle and water- 
 strainer. Withal, the decency of their attire might 
 have put to shame many of the other wandering 
 ascetics. 
 
 Revato dismounted respectfully from his wagon 
 saying: "Kldisang bhavanta How are you, sirs?" 
 
 "So after a night s rest, avuso," said Bharadvajo 
 sadly, "you have risen no wiser, but are determined 
 to go to Pataliputta!" 
 
 "Yes bhante, I must follow the Dhamma. And 
 what is the Dhamma is for me? I must be a lamp 
 unto myself." 
 
 "There can be no true Dhamma," said Kondanno, 
 "but what is found in the recitations the Vinaya, 
 the Sutta and the Abhidhamma, nor is anything 
 there lacking." 
 
 "You filled your bowls early, bhavanta," re 
 marked Revato, to the friars. 
 
 "They have not yet been filled," answered Venera 
 ble Bharadvajo; "we shall reach Nalanda in time to 
 gather the meal and eat it before the midday sun 
 casts a shadow." 
 
 "Will you not get in and ride with me, bhavanta?" 
 
 Venerable Kondanno looked compliant, but was 
 forced to smother his chagrin when Venerable 
 Bharadvajo answered: 
 
 "Nay, it is unlawful, as thou knowest, for samanas 
 to ride in a vehicle when they are not ill." 
 
 "Then I will walk along with you," said Revato, 
 but as the old man quietly forbade it, he remounted 
 the wagon and let Pilindavaccho take advantage of 
 a smooth spot in the road by urging the oxen into a 
 trot. Not^ar behind, followed the mendicants with 
 a mechanical, swinging stride acquired by long 
 wanderings. 
 
 After a little while, Revato overtook two other 
 wandering ascetics. They were ill-looking creatures; 
 their skin showed where their hair had been violently 
 pulled out and their appearance was like dry wood 
 on the river bank. These were yatis, as the ascetics 
 of the Nigantha, or Jaina order were called. He 
 invited them to ride with him and they manifested 
 by silence their consent. 
 
 As they told him, they were called Digho and 
 Nathaputto, famous names from his point of view, 
 being the same borne by two old-time members of 
 their order, whose defeat in a controversy with 
 Gotamo is a part of church history. Themselves 
 were inveterate wranglers and soon they involved 
 Revato in polemic from which temperamentally he 
 was not averse. 
 
 "Tata my dear fellow" inquired Digho, "how 
 do you adherents of the Samana Gotamo classify 
 the various punishments?" 
 
 "Reverend Sir," answered Revato, "we who fol 
 low the Dhamma are not accustomed to speak of 
 punishments as the basis of our system; we proceed 
 rather from the idea of Kamma deed, conduct, 
 character, though perhaps this leads to the same 
 thing, for conduct is the warrant of penalty. So I 
 will not quarrel with you about it, although our 
 system seems to be better expressed." 
 
 "Well then," rejoined Digho, "how many ways do 
 you recognize of performing bad deeds." 
 
 "We recognize," said Revato, "three ways by 
 act, speech, and thought." 
 
 "Which kind of bad deeds do you consider the 
 worst," asked Nathaputto, "those of the body, the 
 tongue or the mind?" 
 
 "Those of the mind," Revato answered promptly. 
 
 "There you are in error," replied Nathaputto, and 
 he added many words to prove it. 
 
 "Which form of punishment, bhante, do you 
 regard as the most severe?" asked Revato by way of 
 counter-interrogatory, "chastisement of the body, 
 chastisement by word or chastisement of the mind?" 
 
 "Chastisement of the body," answered Nathaput 
 to, "Which do you, avuso?" 
 
 "Frankly, I cannot tell," said Revato, "for I lack 
 experience by which to compare them. Of mental 
 suffering I know much, but of physical suffering 
 little. The former I have proven that I can bear; 
 there are degrees of the latter which I do not see how 
 I could endure. But he alone that has borne them 
 both to the uttermost has the right to judge the 
 question." 
 
 Perceiving how fair-mindedly Revato discussed 
 the differences between him and them, the Niganthas 
 were dampened in their controversial ardor and 
 turned to lighter subjects of remark. They were 
 bound for Pataliputta, they told him, to attend 
 upon the Prince Dasaratho, grandson of Piyadassi 
 and heir to the throne. Against the king they railed 
 with virulence. 
 
 "He orders us disciples of Maha-viro the Jino and 
 you Sakiyaputtlyas to love each other," snarled 
 Digho, "but you receive the favors. He builds 
 abbeys for you with the confiscatory taxes that we 
 
 Eay, while we have to build our own. Even the 
 inatical Ajivakas get some of his largesse, but we 
 nothing. After his perversion to your Dhamma by 
 Upagutto, whom he made pontiff, he placed himself 
 at that rascal s beck and call to squander vast sums 
 in building monumental thupas over the charred 
 
 [20] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 bones of your arahats. The king in his dotage is 
 crazier than ever. He continues to crave his own 
 praises on pillars and to scratch every roadside 
 rock with fussy laws on matters with which a secular 
 ruler has no concern. Have Niganthas then no 
 rights? Was power wrested from the Brahmins for 
 Sakiyaputtiyas above all others? But this will not 
 last forever. We will not always be dispised out- 
 castes." The last words were uttered in a canny tone. 
 
 "It is only truth that wounds." Revato was 
 aware that, in this diatribe, exaggerated though it 
 was, against that majestic person whom he revered 
 next to the Blessed One, the weaknesses of an other 
 wise strong character were skillfully exposed. The 
 layman was angry and he retorted: 
 
 "Dubbimta you villians! What you squirm 
 under is Piyadassi s censorship of morals. You 
 Niganthas in old time murdered the Venerable Maha 
 Moggallano and now I dare say you lie in wait to 
 assassinate the King because his goodness puts to 
 shame your depravity. Come now, tell me why you 
 are on the road toward the Capital." 
 
 However little of this accusation Revato meant, or 
 assumed to mean, it strained his diplomatic relations 
 with the Jainas beyond the yield-point. Muttering, 
 the two wanderers quitted his carriage and his 
 company. 
 
 At Nalanda, where Revato soon arrived, the 
 Blessed One had tarried on his final wandering, in 
 the Pavarika mango grove. Here he had repeated 
 those vital words which, as he went from place to 
 place, he uttered with the repetition of old age: 
 "Fruitful is reason if it be girt with revery, fruitful 
 is revery if it be girt with righteousness. Reason 
 thus guarded can destroy the great evils lust and 
 self, delusion and ignorance." 
 
 Not far from here the Thera Sariputto had been 
 born and here he had passed out of the world. 
 A magnificent thupa now marked the spot where 
 his body had gone up in flames. A large and ornate 
 abbey had lately been erected here by Asoko who 
 had convoked to it a thousand of the most learned 
 Buddhist sages. Their fame was attracting disciples 
 from far and near, so that this was becoming a 
 university rivalling Takkasila and second to none 
 for instruction in sacred literature. 
 
 At one of Piyadassi s pleasant, shady rest houses 
 near the town gate, Revato stopped, intending to 
 wait while Pilindavaccho prepared a meal with the 
 kitchen facilities provided there by hospitable 
 citizens. It was not long before he espied arriving 
 the comrade friars, Venerable Bharadvajo and Ven 
 erable Kondanno. 
 
 They intended to visit the sangharama where 
 Kondanno had in mind to expound the Law to the 
 erudite doctors and convince them thus and so by 
 his reasoning. First, however, our two pilgrims 
 must collect their day s meal from the local house 
 holders, then, without delay, they would proceed to 
 the monastery and finish eating it before noon. 
 Kondanno suggested that they avail themselves of 
 
 the supply of rice provided for travelers at the rest 
 house, but Bharadvajo discouraged this lazy method. 
 
 "Through which side of the town will you pass 
 for alms, bhante?" asked Kondanno of Bharadvajo. 
 "The well-to-do people, you know, inhabit the 
 eastern part." 
 
 "Then I will take the western," answered Bharad 
 vajo. "The Blessed One instructed us not to dis 
 criminate between the gifts of rich and poor, so 
 when one or the other must be chosen it should be 
 the worse." 
 
 "Since you so prefer," answered Kondanno with 
 resignation, "I will consent to follow the east side." 
 
 It was decided that the monks, instead of pro 
 ceeding with their meal to the monastery grounds, 
 should return to eat it in company with Revato. 
 Straightway each removed his sandals and, after 
 knocking off the dust, slung them in a bag over his 
 shoulder; thus prepared, they entered the town. 
 
 Ere long, each came in with his pindapata of food. 
 Kondanno s bowl was heaped with sweet rice, fruit 
 curry, cucumbers and delicious honied meal cake, 
 while in Bharadvajo s was only some sour husk 
 porridge in which swam a little bran loaf and much 
 dirt. 
 
 The suggestion came from Revato that all three 
 should divide their lunch, share and share alike, 
 the partition plan being quite in accord with custom 
 among the monks. Bharadvajo would not agree to 
 it, though when Kondanno, not to be outdone in 
 generosity, offered him one of the meal cakes, he 
 accepted so as not to seem churlish. 
 
 The diners squatted cross-legged on broad, low 
 chairs provided for the purpose, placing on stools in 
 front of them their bowls with water jars and a few 
 loose mangoes which, being damaged, were per 
 mitted food. The brethren found themselves with 
 out a water strainer suitable to avert the destruction 
 of precious insect life, for Venerable Bharadvajo s 
 utensil had been lost on the way and Kondanno s 
 had sprung a leak. But by the providential foresight 
 of the Discipline they were permitted in this con 
 tingency to use as strainers the corners of their upper 
 robes. 
 
 It was edifying to see the Venerable Kondanno 
 eat, punctiliously complying with all Buddho s 
 rules of sacred etiquette. Neither did he press down 
 his victuals in the bowl from the top to pick or 
 choose one morsel before another, nor did he make 
 his food into too large balls, nor open the door of his 
 mouth till the billet was brought close to it, nor put 
 his whole hand into his mouth, nor toss the food in, 
 nor nibble it, nor stuff his cheeks, nor scatter the 
 rice, nor put his tongue out, nor smack his lips, nor 
 make a hissing sound, nor lick his fingers, nor lick 
 his bowl, nor touch the water jar with food-soiled 
 hand. It may have been that the Venerable Bha 
 radvajo likewise observed these table precepts, but 
 his manners were so inconspicuous that he lost the 
 credit for them. He ate the husk porridge and all 
 its nameless accidental condiments with as perfect 
 
 [21] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 a relish as one could show who tasted it no more 
 than did the spoon. Verily the abnegation of appe 
 tite hath its compensations! Thus it was that the 
 Buddho s disciple, the Great Kassapo, having 
 entered a village for alms, once waited at the door 
 of a leper. When, with decaying hand, the house 
 holder was preparing a morsel for him, there crum 
 bled off a rotten finger which dropped into the 
 bowl. "Seated at the base of the wall," declared 
 Maha Kassapo, "I ate that morsel, and as I ate I 
 felt no disgust whatsoever." 
 
 While the party at Nalanda were eating their 
 meal, the sun reached the centre of its course, which 
 warned the monks that the appropriate season for 
 their solid food that day had passed. With a sigh, 
 Kondanno forewent the consumption of his choicest 
 cake. The compassionate Bharadvajo suggested 
 that it might not be wrong to avail of the indulgence 
 claimed by the monks of the Great Council and 
 continue eating until the afternoon shadow reached 
 a breadth of two fingers. Kondanno, however, 
 spurned this heretical temptation, with a sharp 
 rebuke to his elder comrade. 
 
 After their meal at the rest house, the three 
 friends again parted. While the bhikkhus tarried 
 behind for their visit at the sangharama, Revato 
 ordered Pilindavaccho to yoke up his steers and was 
 soon jogging along the highway northward of 
 Nalanda. 
 
 THE ANTELOPE 
 
 All that afternoon and the next day Revato 
 traveled on without exciting incident. His cart and 
 oxen were ferried across one or two rivers, the fords 
 being impassible. He spent the first night out at a 
 roadside rest house, beside which Asoko had dug a 
 delightful well and into the windows of which 
 drifted the odors from a surrounding grove of mango 
 trees planted by the same human providence. The 
 next evening he fell in with a caravan of friendly 
 merchants whose carts were drawn up in circular 
 laager, and encamped within their protecting 
 curtilage. The third day differed little from the 
 first two except that the country through which he 
 passed was lower and marshier and hotter; makasas, 
 dangsas, sucimukhas gnats, gad-flies, needle-faced 
 mosquitoes abounded there, and the phanindas 
 cobras wore a still more sullen aspect than those of 
 the hill country. 
 
 Late that afternoon, when Revato had come 
 almost within a yojana of the great capital city, one 
 of his cattle went lame and, rather than cause the 
 beast to suffer, he put up his rig at a little village, 
 leaving it in charge of Pilindavaccho to abide the 
 event, while alone he pushed forward to finish the 
 journey on foot. Soon he came to the bank of 
 a considerable nadi and took ferriage to the western 
 side, along which the road continued. He was walk 
 ing still through the open country when darkness 
 fell. 
 
 By and by he saw, in what seemed to be a paddy 
 field near the road, the glare of a fire about which a 
 great throng of people moved and filled the air with 
 low but voluminous sound. Above their voices, 
 shrill though faint, rose a single shriek, convulsively 
 renewed with the outgo of each breath, and express 
 ing such an abandonment to agony as in all his life 
 among mankind and animals he had never heard 
 before. 
 
 The road he found to be blocked with a crowd of 
 halted elephants and horses. 
 
 "King nam etang What s the meaning of 
 this?" inquired Revato of the nearest by-stander. 
 The man failed to understand his language, so he 
 repeated the question to another. 
 
 "Eneyyakang! enneyyakang! The antelope! the 
 antelope!" came a tremulous whispered answer. 
 
 The Antelope? At first that term was meaningless 
 to Revato. Then there stole into his memory a 
 passage of the sacred recitations wherein, for spir 
 itual warning, the varieties of judicially inflicted 
 pain are enumerated with all the hideous unreserve 
 that a few pregnant names can compass. He pushed 
 through the crowd and came close to the fire. 
 
 A man was lying nailed to the ground by iron pins 
 driven through the joints of his elbows and knees. 
 These tapered spikes had spread open the bony 
 sockets, tearing the ligaments from their roots. 
 Flames adroitly spaced licked his limbs, making them 
 hiss and charring them to a blackness perceptible in 
 the glare. Repeatedly had his tormentors with 
 drawn the stakes and set him on his protruding 
 shank and arm bones, only to impale him again in 
 his prone position with further distention and rending 
 of the joints. 
 
 When Revato reached the fire the victim was 
 making no more sound except a spasmodic snorting 
 and a gurgling in his throat. His shrieks had been 
 hushed by a red-hot stone in his mouth. 
 
 A small dog was fidgeting about him, tail between 
 legs, whining perplexedly, fearful to come near him 
 yet occasionally venturing to tongue his raw mem 
 bers. 
 
 "Pour hot tela oil in its ear," suggested somebody 
 in stupid reference to an irrelevant Brahmin super 
 stition; for they say that if you fill a dog s ear with 
 boiling oil he will howl to Indo, who will take away 
 the agony. No heed to the suggestion was paid by 
 anyone, nor did the little being wait to undergo the 
 experiment, however valuable it might have proven to 
 Science. He slunk away among the legs of the 
 crowd. After he had gone, there became evident a 
 fact which he had detected immediately, that his 
 master was now passed out of pain. 
 
 Revato stayed till he was sure that the sufferer 
 could feel no longer; then he sought among the 
 by-standers for someone to tell him what it meant. 
 
 "The unbelieving King of the Three Kalingas is 
 returning from a visit of tribute to Piyadassi," 
 explained an intelligent old man of the Brahmin 
 color. "While in Pataliputta one of his own servants 
 
 [22] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 made love to a lady of the Kalinga harem and he 
 could scarce wait till he got clear of the city before 
 dealing out punishment. What will Piyadassi say 
 when this matter is told him? It is many years 
 since such cruelty has been seen in Magadha, but I 
 can recollect the time when one might come upon 
 such a sight at any crossroad." 
 
 Faint and dizzy, Revato threaded his way among 
 the jam of lavishly equipped, fretful elephants and 
 strange, barbarous slaves of the Southern country, 
 passing through them as if they were a jungle of 
 trees, and plodded on to solitude upon the dark 
 highway. 
 
 Before long, he felt something brush against his 
 foot and he made the leap instinctive to one native 
 in a serpent land. The object, however, proved 
 itself by its voice to be a dog, no doubt the "Ante 
 lope s," which by some acuteness of canine selection 
 had singled him out as a new guardian. 
 
 "Icchitang te vada, tata speak thy desire, little 
 friend. Kissa hi nama me vang pitthito pitthito 
 anubhandasi Why on earth dost thou follow thus 
 after, after me? Ahang na te samikang homi I am 
 not thy master." 
 
 The dog cried and jumped to touch his sensate 
 hand with its dry nose. 
 
 "Very well then," answered Revato with indiffer 
 ence, "I will be thy lord if thou desirest it so much. 
 Thou shalt follow me forever and thy name shall be 
 Dukkho, Anguish." 
 
 He passed on without further parley, the dog after 
 him, and as he went he hummed to himself with the 
 reiteration of an unconcentrate mind which craved 
 the lulling monotone of the rhythm: 
 
 "Tato nang dukkhang anveti 
 Cakkang va vahato padang." 
 
 "Thenceforth as he goes he is followed by pain 
 
 Like the foot of the ox with the wheel in its train." 
 
 RATIVADDHANA- 
 
 HE GARDEN OF INCREASING 
 DELIGHT 
 
 As the two travelers trudged along, the dim village 
 outlines became more numerous. The road was 
 increasingly wet and in one place was flooded so that 
 they found it necessary to make a detour through the 
 fields. At this point a warning growl from one of 
 them broke the other s lethargy and enabled him to 
 avoid what probably was a snake. Such walking was 
 hazardous of venom but this now disturbed Revato 
 little. Moreover, he was already at the outskirts of 
 Pataliputta, the lamps whereof glimmered in aqueous 
 reflection on the meadows flooded by Hiranriabahu 
 just before it merges into Ganga. The moon now 
 came up and fell across the ornamented domes of 
 five thupas beyond which towered the Great one 
 with its relics of the Tathagato radiating through the 
 heavy masonry their sacred memories. Revato 
 passed beside many grand buildings, with high 
 gateways, railings and ornamental pillars filmily 
 outlined with their scroll work and graven figures. 
 
 He reflected only that it was yet some distance to 
 the walled city. 
 
 Far in the east were lights which, he needed not 
 to be told, were burning in the huge cruciform 
 Kukkutarama the Cock Garden Monastery 
 which Asoko had erected to shelter a thousand 
 bhikkhus. From that day when the holy Thera 
 Upagutto Tisso had first incited Piyadassi to endur 
 ing works, the monarch had been covering all Patali 
 putta yes all Jambudipa with religious memorial 
 and residential piles. Where formerly only grass 
 and earth and wood and brick had been used for 
 building, he was content with nothing less enduring 
 than hewn stone, to fashion and adorn which he 
 commissioned skilful craftsmen to explore the mys 
 teries of Yonaloka. Grand structures though they 
 were, and magnified by the crepuscle of night, 
 Revato now saw them with the apathy of a beast. 
 He sensed them but hardly perceived them. His 
 mind was in the condition of a wounded body when 
 the shock of the blow still staves off feeling and 
 inflammation has not yet set in. 
 
 Mechanically, he directed his course to the 
 northwest, crossing bridges and winding among 
 lagoons, passing the Fiery Well, which yet in thought 
 burned red with blood from the slaughter house of 
 Asoko s unregenerate days. On the left, against the 
 walled town, was the vast palace precinct of the 
 Moriya dynasty, a fortified city in itself, where 
 Candagutto had encamped his legions of archers and 
 horsemen and elephants; which also he had adorned 
 with magnificence unsurpassed on earth. On a 
 visit to Pataliputta, long before, Revato had in 
 spected these gardens and pools filled with rare and 
 beautiful living things which grew from the ground 
 and flew in the air or swam in the water. He had 
 seen beside them their inanimate similitude golden 
 vines twining upon tall pillars, birds delicately 
 feathered by the silver-smith. 
 
 Asoko, during his reign, had enriched the palace 
 grounds with many an edifice of peace and piety, 
 but the trappings of personal pomp were allowed to 
 grow shabby. The grand exterior of the palace 
 housed the mean appointments of a mendicant. 
 
 Most of the buildings now looked dark and 
 deserted, although the royal family and courtiers 
 were not bound by the rules to which His Majesty 
 had subjected himself. In a low house near the gate, 
 a light was burning and toward it was directed a line 
 of people, some apparently of rank, others mean and 
 wretched. This was the audience chamber which 
 the King held open to the lowliest of his subjects, 
 having promised to receive them, with whatsoever 
 petition, at any hour of the day or night. 
 
 Far back from the road, on the side of the palace 
 toward the town, shone in the moonlight a graven 
 lion which stood on a sandstone pillar as tall as ten 
 men. It marked the site of the hell-mimicking 
 torture chamber of Asoko s evil days. Some distance 
 ahead, rose the city palisade of sala logs placed so 
 close together that not even a cat could have 
 
 23] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 squeezed through, with its 64 gates and 570 towers; 
 towers which not a bowman had needed to climb 
 this many a year and gates which stood open to all 
 comers. 
 
 While still passing the palace curtilage, Revato 
 began to hear from a spot within it a sound of music, 
 a measure undulating in soft, voluptuous tones. 
 The approach being unobstructed, he turned inside 
 toward the place whence it emanated and came to a 
 tree-planted enclosure lit up by numerous oil lamps 
 which swung from the boughs. It was the Rati- 
 vaddhana park "The Garden of Increasing De 
 light." There were tanks filled with lotus flowers 
 now open to the moonlight, and, on the edges of the 
 pools, stone terraces and porches with carved 
 balustrades. Odors of candana, or sandal-wood, of 
 campaka and sweet unknown perfumes drifted be 
 yond the pale of the grove. One of the tree trunks 
 was dressed up in robes and mask as a bearded 
 giant. A festal crowd was watching the sinuosities 
 of natakis, dancing girls, whose dangling trinkets 
 flashed in the lights, while the surge of the musical 
 instruments, to which they moved, lute and pipe, 
 drum and cymbal, was overtoned by the breezy 
 tinkle of bells which hung from the branches. Some 
 of the spectators were evidently rich men of the 
 city, but others of light complexion were clad in 
 foreign simplicity with full robes but few ornaments 
 other than crowns of ivy leaves and flowers. All of 
 these strangers were dressed in a similar style, very 
 womanish as it appeared, though most of them wore 
 full beards. There were, however, two or three 
 whose figures and flowing hair proclaimed them to 
 be really women women mingling with men at a 
 public revel! 
 
 Anon the tender music ceased, and, as the dark 
 dancing girls rested, the fair Yonas, men and women, 
 sprang forth cavorting wildly, flourishing long rods 
 and shouting "Evoe!" "Evoe!" Then in full, loud 
 chorus, they raised a song of their own in an unknown 
 tongue, moving the while in no set figure of dance, 
 but with free and rising expression of their madness. 
 Quick and light sometimes was the chorus, then it 
 swelled in vociferous ucca sounds, tumultuously: 
 
 " Pef Se ydXaKTt. ireSov, pel 5 o lvy, pel de fi.e\i<T<ra,v 
 \iftdvov /coirvij." 
 
 HO.K- 
 
 Again it speeded and, broken upon by shrill notes 
 from the pipes, it came along like river waves beat 
 ing the shoje in a monsoon: 
 
 " <3 ire 
 T>\OV 
 M^\7rere rbv Aibvvffov 
 Papvf3p6/J.ti}v inrb TVfjnravuv " 
 
 Thus on, and on with increasing frenzy. 
 
 In Revato this song produced the feeling of an 
 elusive memory. Not the strange words, but the 
 mental odor of feeling which the music carried, 
 related itself to some blissful hour before the begin 
 ning of present consciousness. Perhaps it was on a 
 
 morning in the heavenly garden of Nandana in 
 some former birth at all events the memory evaded 
 his efforts to fix it. 
 
 He was aroused by the voice of Dukkho barking 
 at the carousers. Whatever disapproval Revato 
 might have felt concerning the wantonness of this 
 festival wantonness at least as judged by the 
 Buddho s standard was swallowed up by indigna 
 tion at its heartlessness. The power of pain was 
 strong upon him; the clash of this orgy against the 
 evening s cruel tragedy made him sick and desperate. 
 
 *"Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma Sam- 
 buddhassa!" he cried under his breath. 
 
 The words thus profanely spoken were no less than 
 the sacred Gloria, the highest of all adoring ascrip 
 tions to his blessed Master. 
 
 The instinct of a brain frantic, whether in morti 
 fication or despair, is to apply upon itself a counter- 
 irritant. A shriek of blasphemy uttered in such 
 condition is no vulgar presumption, but springs 
 from an inexorable demand of the mind to embrace 
 whatever it holds most in abhorrence. Remorseful 
 reaction usually follows at once. 
 
 In this case, however, the momentum of despair 
 did not instantly spend its force. By the lightning 
 movement of his brain, Revato sought for a further 
 self-martyrdom. There came to him a thought of the 
 gem which his mother had given him, with the graven 
 veniki lute-girl. It seemed to symbolize this 
 uncontrite, uncompassionate festivity and he was 
 impelled to throw it away. Thus, however, to 
 treat the keepsake so highly prized by its giver 
 would, he realized, be a contemptible act, and it was 
 precisely for that reason, in order to fasten upon 
 himself a shame at which he shuddered, that the 
 impulse became irresistible. This train of reflection 
 passed in the time of a heart beat, and before he 
 could bring his saner judgment to bear, with a 
 spasmodic motion like the recoil from a serpent s 
 stroke, he had flung the pretty pebble into a lotus 
 tank. 
 
 In the quick premeditation of the act, he had 
 reflected that the stone possessed little intrinsic 
 value. If it had been a merchantable asset, convert 
 ible for the relief of suffering, he even then might 
 have preserved it. His destructive impulse was 
 spiritual rather than material in object. 
 
 Bitter repentance followed the act. It dissolved, 
 however, in a whirl of confused emotions which took 
 new shapes from moment to moment as he pro 
 ceeded on his way. Revato now crossed the moat 
 and entered the town proper. He walked through 
 the city like a somnambulist, turning into the wind 
 ing market thoroughfare, which he followed from 
 end to end. The dark narrow ways were packed with 
 closely-built dwellings, rising story above story, 
 each house tenanted by many families. They were 
 mostly of wood, some of brick and plaster, a few 
 
 *"Honor to that Blessed, Sainted, Fully, Perfectly Enlightened 
 Buddho." 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 modern edifices of stone. In the better districts 
 they were of grand architecture, having tiered arches 
 above the doorways, bay windows, lofty balconies 
 and belvederes. Their stuccoed walls bore a pro 
 fusion of cornices and fretwork moulded with relief 
 images and cut with lettered inscriptions. Of these 
 mansions he took no heed, but the misery of the 
 poor tenements found a welcome in his thoughts. 
 
 He passed near a hill of hewn stones, huge and 
 high, piled as if by giant hands, and gullied at the 
 top like the approach to Buddo s cave on Gijjha- 
 kuta. This was the hermitage where the royal 
 Elder Mahindo had, for some years after quitting 
 Giribbaja, continued to subdue his heart in seclu 
 sion before entering upon his mission to men. 
 
 By this time Revato had almost crossed the town 
 diagonally and was approaching the northern wall, 
 which lies toward the river Ganga, but a by-way 
 brought him to his destination. It was a private 
 house where he had lodged before, and where he 
 was sure of admittance even at this late hour. 
 
 After making himself known he, with his dumb 
 follower, was shown up two flights of dark stairs 
 to the apartment where he must remain till morn 
 ing. He returned anon to procure a bowl of rice 
 milk for Dukkho who, after lapping it, fell asleep. 
 For the master, sleep was not to be entertained even 
 as an elusive hope. The fever of his wounded spirit 
 was now supervening. It compelled him to medita 
 tion upon yatana, torment, and karana, agony. 
 
 THE COMMUNITY OF PAIN 
 
 Revato strove to reproduce in his mind the feel" 
 ings of the Black Antelope, summoning before his 
 memory the severest hurts of which his own ex 
 perience afforded a knowledge, whether by crushed 
 finger or sprained limb or brief contact with fire. 
 Could these be multiplied intensively a thousand 
 fold, they might approach the anguish of this victim; 
 but such abstract knowledge, he was aware, brought 
 no truly sympathetic sense of the actuality. 
 
 Most persons who had never been put to torture 
 treated it as a light matter in the world, just as the 
 spectator of death turns away and goes about his 
 business with eyes that have not pierced the veil of 
 the tragedy. Torment was supportable by those 
 who never had felt it; who assumed it to be like 
 other discomforts of life; who did not know that the 
 limit of endurance is often reached at its very 
 beginning, and that during the ensuing hours or 
 days of it, it keeps on beyond all endurance, beyond 
 all words. 
 
 Revato took note that torture had always been the 
 practice of strong men toward weak men the world 
 over, and that it was so still, in spite of much 
 clemency and mitigation where Asoko s good will 
 controlled; that during every moment of time, 
 in many places, numerous victims were contorted 
 in dolorous ecstasy. The agonies thus voluntarily 
 inflicted by human caprice and sagaciously con 
 trived to wrest the keenest of protracted pain from 
 
 [25 
 
 the bodily regions of most exquisite feeling such 
 pain as rarely is approached in the quick, clumsy 
 knocks of chance must far exceed in sum of anguish 
 all the ills that come by desease and accident. So 
 much for the pains of this life; of sufferings in other 
 worlds, the heart s forebodings, or perhaps its 
 memories, might testify. 
 
 For a moment the spirit of Revato yielded to its 
 instinct to cry out for revenge upon the makers of 
 pain everywhere, but his judgment soon told him 
 how much worse than useless this would be, for it 
 would merely add to the sufferings of the victims 
 those of the persecutors, who would feel just as 
 acutely and who were no better able to bear it. Was 
 not torment itself due to revenge? If two wrongs 
 did not make a right, why should three wrongs? 
 
 He tried to think of pain that had been endured in 
 the past as no longer valid, because it has ceased; but 
 although unable to explain how, he was sure that 
 this consoling temporal philosophy was in some way 
 fallacious. 
 
 Revato had never before perceived so clearly as 
 now the relative paltriness of his own identity. He 
 felt himself melted in the huge cauldron of animate 
 things. Suffering is suffering and of no less conse 
 quence whoever the sufferer may be. Only through 
 illusion could he ever have been contented while 
 another agonized. What is pain, he asked, but some 
 violation of law, some discord in the harmony of 
 Nature? Suffering, then, is the effect of such a 
 discord upon an intelligence which perceives it. 
 Few minds are equipped or willing to realize anything 
 outside of their own bodies, but if they had perfect 
 knowledge they would have perfect sympathy, and 
 pain would reach them equally through whatsoever 
 body it was received. Phassa, touch, produces 
 vedana, feeling, but does not the real suffering take 
 place in sannd, the corresponding perception? Only 
 because of its better connection with the region of 
 disturbance, is our sanna irritated by the contacts 
 of our body rather than with those which befall 
 another. But in-so-far as we possess vinndna, 
 reason, our minds can overleap physical limitations, 
 and suffering, wherever in the universe it occurs, 
 becomes equally our own. 
 
 Dukkho was lying by Revato s bed, whining at 
 the separation from his former master, not without 
 some sad, doggish memory of its awful significance. 
 Suddenly he gave a yelp. 
 
 "Ko nu avuso How now, friend?" said Revato. 
 "Art thou dreaming that they are treating thee as 
 they did thy master?" 
 
 The dog had been stung in the foot by a satapada, 
 a centipede. 
 
 "If I were truly wise, his hurt would be just as 
 much mine, " thought Revato. Because of the 
 better communication between his paw and his mind 
 than between his paw and my mind, he feels it more 
 than I. Had I perfect insight like the Buddho, I 
 should receive the dolorous intelligence equally with 
 Dukkho." 
 
THE 
 
 LAYMAN 
 
 R E V A T O 
 
 There arose in his recollection certain gathas from 
 the hymn which the Blessed One addressed to the 
 sage Asito: 
 
 "Toward the living void of wrong, 
 Whether feeble, whether strong. 
 Just as I am, so are you; 
 Just as you are, I am too. 
 Thinking thou art such as they, 
 Do not slay nor cause to slay." 
 
 "As one would be happy in a dear, only son," 
 said another of old, "so in all beings everywhere, let 
 him be happy." 
 
 And if he cannot, like the cheerful-minded saint, 
 feel that happiness is the lot of all beings, nor in 
 the long run, even of a few, must he not share their 
 travail ? 
 
 Thus began Revato to learn the meaning of 
 Sabbatattd, cunctus ego, identification of all creatures 
 with one s self. His own individual troubles shrank 
 to the vanishing point. So far as his limited mind 
 was capable, he bore in it the sorrows of the Cosmos, 
 not as distinct from it, but as a molten part and 
 parcel of that infinite community of suffering. 
 
 The revelation was tinged with no exaltation nor 
 spiritual pride, but was filled with a sense of unspeak 
 able horror, with ravings upon the reality of earthly 
 and hellish tortures which cast him into fever and 
 sweat and violent chills that caused his teeth to 
 chatter like the rattling of bambu stalks in a gale. 
 
 So was Revato submerged in despair. But the 
 drowning man will clutch at a straw which, in his 
 delirium, will seem to him a great buoyant timber. 
 After hours of sleepless tossing had dragged on, 
 while Revato s successive moods of gloom evolved 
 like lurid images in closed eyes and his lucubrations 
 had fatigued themselves to incoherence, he found at 
 last the straw, which he grasped like a dying man. 
 
 That straw was a memory of the festival in the 
 Rativaddhana pleasuance, whose clinging music 
 played itself over and over in his head. To speak 
 critically, this was a revolt of his selfish corporeal 
 nature against the stern altruism of judgment such 
 a revolt as will come when intellectual frankness is 
 carried too far a rebound against the narrow con 
 fines of mental endurance. 
 
 He formed a wish to walk once more through the 
 pleasure garden, and in that trivial prospect he felt a 
 
 thrill of joyful expectancy, for when the eyes have 
 grown used to darkness, a slender beam of light 
 makes a brilliant illumination. 
 
 "How lightly is my body tossed 
 
 When lifting joy assails, 
 And airily, like cotton down, 
 
 Goes drifting on the gales!" 
 
 Quickly his conscience smote him and accused him 
 of the desire as an evil. Self-examination convinced 
 him that had there been no ladies in the party he 
 would be regarding the Rativaddhana stolidly. 
 Sophistry essayed to coerce this plain truth by 
 representing that he was merely projecting a stroll 
 in the dewy morn among the quiet trees and pools 
 which their nymphs must long since have deserted. 
 
 "How are we to behave, Lord, toward woman 
 kind?" the gentle Anando had once asked his 
 Master. "Don t see them, Anando." "But if we 
 should see them, what are we to do?" Don t speak 
 to them, Anando." "But if they should speak to 
 us, Lord, what are we to do?" "Keep wide awake, 
 Anando." 
 
 "I will act according to the precept of the Blessed 
 One," thought Revato, "and if I do, there is no 
 reason why I should not visit the grove." 
 
 Immediately after this thought has passed through 
 his head he regretted thus having made what 
 might be construed as a vow to bind his conscience. 
 He was ever making what he subsequently regarded 
 as vows, hampering his future freedom of choice, 
 and the more he strove against the habit the more he 
 betrayed himself into them. 
 
 But even with the fiction of such a safeguard 
 against the dangers of his proposed ramble, he 
 failed to deceive himself, or to avoid a consciousness 
 that he wanted less to enjoy the park itself than to 
 revive its associations. The stern Buddhist criterion 
 was not in error, and his desire to go was its own 
 condemnation. 
 
 Dawn was already looking in at the window. Striv 
 ing to transfix one of the elusive moments when his 
 conscience gave the ghost of an approval, Revato 
 sprang up, cast his garments about him, dashed 
 down the stairs and out of the house, breaking loose 
 from deliberation and keeping free by bodily momen 
 tum. 
 
 Dukkho stayed in the room and whined. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 PROTE 
 
 The misty air of early morning which, after 
 Revato s restless night, felt at first depressing in its 
 chilliness, soon restored his animation and, by a 
 rapid transition, the sorrows of the old day gave 
 place to the exhilaration of the new. 
 
 Strolling, he retraced his way to the palace grounds 
 and the Rativaddhana pleasuance, wherein he 
 sauntered. The transparent ponds were matted 
 with water lilies and loti, white and yellow and 
 blue, interspersed with red blossoms fallen from the 
 
 [26] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 palasa trees, which together with fruitful mangoes 
 cast on the pools their shade. He recognized the 
 tree that had been dressed up as a giant with bearded 
 mask, its upper branches spreading above the head 
 and a little altar placed near for incense and offerings. 
 On the trunk now hung musical instruments, 
 scented tresses and other votive relics of the orgy, 
 while on the ground were debris of wassail. How 
 like was this in some ways to the tree worship of the 
 village folk! Yet where they drew from their 
 superstitions lessons of goodness, charity and respect 
 for the simple gifts of the poor, these impious 
 foreigners preverted religion to purposes of de 
 bauchery. 
 
 A turn of the path among the trees brought him 
 face to face with a woman. He recoiled in amaze 
 ment, for it seemed to him that the trinket which 
 he had flung away the night before was taking 
 human life and stature. She was a young lady, 
 hardly more than a girl, dressed in a straight full 
 skirt with an ungirt upper garment hanging loose 
 over it from her shoulders. It was the costume of 
 Yonakis; Yonaka pallor possessed her face and arms. 
 She held against her breast a little golden harp 
 shaped like the one on the cameo. 
 
 "Don t see them, Anando!" The Master s first 
 injunction had already been shattered. 
 
 "Don t speak to them, Anando!" This contingent 
 precept was yet inviolate, and Revato quite intended 
 to keep it so. He had always been more or less in 
 awe of the sex, partly from inculcated distrust, 
 partly from the quite contrary tendency of un 
 sophisticated youth to suppose all women filled with 
 contempt and resentive dignity toward that vermin 
 ous biped, man. However, to avoid occasion of 
 speech, Revato might have made more haste to 
 pass along than in fact he did. 
 
 "Bho sappurisa" it was the nymph addressing 
 Revato with condescending speech in correct Pali 
 prettily timbred by her foreign tongue. "Bho 
 sappurisa O my good fellow do you see that little 
 black and white object which lies in yonder lotus 
 blossom? Ingha tvang, nang me ahara Won t you 
 please fetch it to me?" 
 
 "Bhadde tvang ka nama Who are you, fair 
 lady?" he cried as if in doubt of her earth-born 
 nature. 
 
 "Manusi ahangasmi Human I am, "she answered 
 reassuringly. 
 
 Revato stood irresolute. 
 
 "Ehi vigahehi bala, Come plunge in, you simple 
 ton," she encouraged. "Don t you see what I 
 want? I m not asking you to pluck a blossom. Are 
 you afraid that you will be changed into one yourself 
 like Dryope when she ravished away the home of 
 the nymph Lotis. Take courage, tata, no lotus flower 
 will you ever become." 
 
 Finding no plausible excuse, Revato waded into 
 the shallow water and recovered from its flowery 
 place of lodgment the gem that, a few hours before, he 
 had tossed away. The pretty imaged lutist had 
 
 rested among the lotus petals like the Blessed One 
 in popular fancy. (Om mani padume horn Amen! 
 The jewel in the lotus Amen!) 
 
 Having been discarded, she now belonged to her 
 living antitype by right of discovery. So at least, 
 Revato inferred from certain precedents in that 
 sacred law commentary, the Sutta Vibhanga. Even 
 had he asserted his older title, the claim would have 
 been unprovable. He therefore meekly fetched the 
 trinket to land like a retrieving dog and drippingly 
 delivered it to her who waited for it on the bank. 
 
 The YonakI had prepared to offer him money for 
 his trouble, two or three masakas, perhaps, or a 
 pada; but as he approached she drew back the coins. 
 She had changed her opinion of his social station 
 and perceived that the disorder of his travel-stained 
 clothes was not due to mean quality, for she thanked 
 him with less contemptuous speech than she had 
 used in her request. As she scrutinized the graven 
 gem, her eyes sparkled and then moistened. 
 
 "My country woman!" she exclaimed. "I was 
 born on the very island where she had lived." 
 
 The girl had now lost all of her supercilious imper 
 tinence. She seemed, however, to possess little of 
 the reserve expected in a stranger. Throwing her 
 little lute against her breast, she began to sing to its 
 accompaniment, in her alien tongue, a song sweet 
 as the music of a GandhabbI a celestial musician 
 yet of a quality incontestably her own. 
 
 "What are you singing?" interrupted Revato 
 with rudeness which his conscience dictated. 
 
 "Ah, it is unfair to you; you cannot understand 
 me," she answered. "If I could, I would translate 
 it into your own language for you, but as easily 
 could I change myself into an Ariya. Although you 
 must admit that I do fairly well with your barbarian 
 Pali, for I studied under the best masters while we 
 tarried in Taxila. Let me sing it as it is, and I will 
 interpret the meaning as I go along; thus you shall 
 have both the sound and the sense." 
 
 Cleverly, in this way, with explanatory breaks 
 here and there, she rendered for Revato her song: 
 
 ("Long of old time, Atthis, I grew to love thee.") 
 
 "Atthis now cometh no more to me. 
 
 Yea, for death yearn I unfeignedly. 
 
 Yet, with tears, parting, protested she: 
 
 Woe, our plight, Sappho, is piteous; 
 
 Hark, I swear, haste I unwillingly 
 
 Forth from thee. Fondly I answered her: 
 
 Go thy way, joyfully treasuring 
 
 All my love. Dims in thy memory 
 
 Soon our soft, beautiful indolence? 
 
 Many a rose mingled with violets 
 
 Curbed thy wild hair, which it garlanded. 
 
 Many a wrought, floreal catena 
 
 Bound thy neck, delicate prisoner. 
 
 Many a myrrh jar unbegrudgingly 
 
 Soothed thy mild skin, and exquisitely, 
 
 Oftentimes, lounging, we surfeited, 
 
 Taste uncloyed, scorning satiety. 
 
 ("Hateful now, Atthis, grown is thy recollection, 
 Fickle my child, flitting to seek Andromeda; 
 Cyprus holds thee Panormos yet or Paphos?) 
 
 [2 7 ] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 "Nay, in proud Sardis she glisteneth, 
 Mid the bright ladies of Lydia, 
 Like the full moon after sun-setting 
 Rising, rose-fingered and magical 
 Ancient lights merged in effulgency, 
 Starry eyes blurred to obscurity, 
 Vague, with salt ocean and pasturage 
 Whereon, dream-tinted, indefinite, 
 Roses wild-nurtured, with anthryscas, 
 Clover-blooms honey-secretory, 
 Drink the earth dews to their quickening. 
 How she still sometimes in revery 
 Starts with keen pain to an utterance, 
 Calls us, calls Dika to come to her 
 Dika thou whom, for thy melody 
 Praising, not falsely she deified 
 Thou and I know from an eavesdropper, 
 Many-eared Night, who is resonant 
 O er the trenched waters of severing. " 
 
 "Madhurassaro vata bho ayya Oh how very 
 sweet a sound, lady!" cried Revato, quite forgetting 
 himself. "Tatha hi madhuravacanang Yea, verily, 
 a sweet voice!" 
 
 "It was my sister townswoman who first sang that 
 song," she continued, "the girl engraven on this 
 stone." 
 
 "Are you then Atthis?" inquired Revato. 
 
 "Oh no. Atthis and Dika and she lived hundreds 
 of years ago. Often at evening I have stood on the 
 mountain side looking across the olive groves upon 
 the lights of the town and I have remembered her as 
 she felt that she would be remembered in the 
 hereafter." 
 
 "It was a long time for an island to remain," said 
 Revato. "Yours of Yonaloka must be unlike ours 
 that are formed by the sands of the Ganga and 
 Yamuna transitory as are we poor folk, who 
 inhabit them." 
 
 "Our islands," she answered, "are great moun 
 tains of rock clad with cool verdure and washed by 
 the white waves of the blue. sea where ships ever ply 
 to bring us the merchandise of the rich mainland 
 cities and all the marvels of the world." 
 
 "Do the women who live there go about and de 
 port themselves boldly like men?" enquired Revato, 
 trying to prove to himself that he was keeping wide 
 awake. 
 
 "Some have too greatly that reputation but no, 
 there is decorum in Hellas as well as in Jambudipa. 
 You must not judge us by the way we act here. 
 When one has traveled with a few companions for 
 months and years over seas and deserts and moun 
 tains, among barbarian peoples, the conventions of 
 home society are forgotten. Where women share 
 alike with men in hardships and dangers, they soon 
 acquire freedom of speech and action. And when a 
 woman has once tasted of liberty she will not readily 
 return to slavery." 
 
 "Women are as instable as the buds which float 
 in air; but tell me, bhoti Madam did you bring 
 that golden instrument all the way with you?" 
 
 "Yes, to keep me in memory of Apollo, whom I left 
 behind me when I entrusted myself to the guidance 
 of the kind, if capricious, Pan. This was made in 
 
 similitude of a lute which hangs in Apollo s temple 
 on my island where it was brought by Poseidon 
 together with the head of Orpheus after he had been 
 torn to pieces by the Bacchantes of the Thracian 
 mountains." 
 
 "I do not know the persons of whom you speak, 
 but since you mention a temple, I presume they are 
 the gods taught in your dhamma. I hope that you 
 have not led any of them to Jambusando, for I 
 assure you that we have plenty. The Brahmins 
 can supply you with a hundred million, all equally 
 worthy creatures!" 
 
 "I did not lead them; they led me," she answered. 
 "I am ever in the protection of my foster fathers, the 
 Sea God and the Earth God, who have conducted me 
 bluffly but safely. Why should I forsake them when 
 they have been so faithful to me? You what no 
 tions have you of the vastness and perils that lie 
 between my home and yours?" 
 
 "If it be situate upon the Aparagoyana, that 
 great Moon-shaped, green-tinted Western Island, 
 you must indeed have had a rough voyage, for they 
 say that no man ever crossed stormy Samudaya, 
 the sea which lies between." 
 
 "Aparagoyana," she rejoined, "is not greener 
 than my island, nor is Samudaya a more tempes 
 tuous sea than that which I crossed. Listen: We 
 embarked on board a hollow black ship with mast 
 and sails placed in order; the rowers sat on their 
 benches and smote the hoary waves with their oars. 
 After we had last seen the smoke leaping from our 
 own town we wandered far over the compact wave 
 among water-circled rocks and groves towards the 
 lands of Boreas, until we had passed out through the 
 narrow straits as did Jason of old in the equal ship 
 Argos. On that wide-wayed sea the Southeast and 
 the South rushed together and the hard-blowing 
 West and the cold producing North and the waves of 
 Amphitrite swelled like mountains and night arose 
 from heaven. Then was my heart smitten with old 
 legends and I feared to be driven upon the shores of 
 the Cimmerians, who dwell near to Hades. But 
 above us, like the sea-gulls, followed blue-eyed 
 Athene, who subdued for us the shrill winds, so 
 that when rosy-fingered dawn appeared the sea grew 
 calm. Thus it went on for many days; I thought 
 that we should sail over the edge of the world, but 
 we came safely upon a rocky, mountainous shore 
 where we left the blue sea to roll against the land 
 and committed ourselves to the protection of the 
 Earth God. We traveled with great hardship, some 
 times over steep, snowy mountains, sometimes across 
 wheat-producing plains, through lands of hostile, 
 barbarous people from whom we were in much 
 danger. I had not believed that the whole earth 
 measured the extent of those countries. Once and 
 again we dared pernicious fate on trackless plains of 
 sand so fine that it slipped through one s fingers. 
 By day the ground became hot as a bed of coals, 
 wherefore we could not walk on it, but must encamp 
 under awnings till after sun-down. Oh! how we 
 
 28] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 wished ourselves back on the moist, fishy ways! Our 
 desert pilot forgot his knowledge of the stars; thirst 
 subdued the throat, and hunger the belly; our 
 camels dropped by the way and some of our barba 
 rian servants died, as did two of our own people. 
 But still the gods hovered on high. We came at 
 last to the shores of a great river, which we followed 
 to lands of men. I will not tell you of the sore trials 
 yet to be encountered in passing the tall mountains, 
 where desire of grief again overtook us, nor of the 
 joy whenever we entered the cities, no longer bar 
 barians, but of lonians. And finally, in spacious 
 carts, we passed on to the land of the Prasioi, your 
 Magadha. 
 
 "Do you tell me then," she concluded, "that I 
 should neglect the bright gods who have never 
 neglected me? Some day my Pan will bear me home 
 and lay me to rest on the grassy base of my own 
 island Olympus by the heavy-booning wave of the 
 ^Egean where Poseidon shall forever shed salt tears 
 over my grave and his voice shall mingle with my 
 dreams." 
 
 "Where is your Pan now?" sneered Revato; 
 "lurking about your door-step like a Sudda porter?" 
 
 "No indeed!" exclaimed she without taking 
 offence. "He would never quit his haunts among 
 the lonely hills and valleys to dwell in a large city. 
 The god who attends on me here is familiar to the 
 soil, a sojourner here ages ago, perhaps a native. 
 It was from Jambudipa that he came to us over the 
 sunburnt plains of Persia, forbidding Media and 
 happy Araby, across the golden fields of Lydia and 
 Phrygia, reaching at last our Hellenic Thebes. He 
 is a god of mirth and light-heartedness. In this 
 bright, warm land whom could I worship with 
 better grace? In our colder country we celebrate 
 his revival with the Spring or his rich maturity with 
 the harvest of the vine. Here it is fitting that we 
 perform his rites when the steaming rains are 
 ended and earth renews her freshness under the 
 clear skies of approaching winter. Yes, you have 
 really two Springtimes, so we may well hold two 
 Greater Dionysia. Only last night we paid the god 
 his tribute of joy." 
 
 "Was that what I saw and heard when I passed 
 by here? No, it cannot be possible that you would 
 have taken part in such debauchery!" 
 
 "It was only innocent mirth," she said. "Among 
 the mountains in the north of my country, the 
 feast sometimes runs to wantonness, but my friends 
 and I conform to the moderate manners of the re 
 fined South." 
 
 "Would you be willing to repeat for me a few 
 lines of the song you sang?" asked Revato. 
 
 "Gladly," she answered, "but you would tire in 
 hearing them all. I will begin however." 
 
 She commenced to recite the dithyrambic in her 
 strange tongue, her voice quickening with excite 
 ment as she proceeded. When she reached the 
 words " Pet 8< yoAaKTi Trc Sov," he stopped her. 
 
 "Yes, that is what I was waiting for. Can you 
 not explain to me what it means." 
 
 Then, by her method of song in the original, 
 broken with interpretations, which clumsily done 
 would have spoiled the whole, but which under her 
 skill made it clear and graceful, she rendered the 
 lines. 
 
 "Flowing with milk is the ground, and with wine it is flowing, 
 and flowing 
 
 Nectar of bees; and a smoke as of incense of Araby soars; 
 
 And the Bacchanal, lifting the flame of the brand of the pine 
 ruddy-glowing, 
 
 Waveth it wide, and with shouts, from the point of the wand as 
 it pours, 
 
 Challenges revellers straying, on-racing, on-dancing, and throwing 
 
 Loose to the breezes his curls, while clear through the chorus that 
 roars 
 
 Cleaveth his shout, On, Bacchanal rout, 
 
 On, Bacchanal maidens, ye glory of Tmolus the hill gold-welling, 
 
 Blend the acclaim of your chaunt with the timbrels thunder- 
 knelling, 
 
 Glad-pealing the glad God s praises out 
 
 With Phrygian cries and the voice of singing, 
 
 When upsoareth the sound of the melody-fountain 
 
 Of the hallowed ringing of flutes far-flinging 
 
 The notes that chime with the feet that climb 
 
 The pilgrim path to the mountain! 
 
 And with rapture the Bacchanal onward racing, 
 
 With gambollings fleet . 
 
 As of foals round the mares in the meads that are grazing, 
 
 Speedeth her feet. " 
 
 "There is nothing astonishing in that," said Re 
 vato, "although some names which are new to me." 
 
 "Did you expect anything astonishing?" 
 
 "I thought that there must be something wonder 
 ful in it," he answered, "but let that pass, for it 
 was a whim." 
 
 "Beauty is no friend of surprise," she rejoined, 
 "and beauty is the air that the Immortals breath. 
 
 "Amma madam" said Revato after a pause, 
 "I have attended to you thus far as you have talked 
 of your gods. Now pray listen to a word yourself. 
 Are you not aware that they have no power to help 
 you, and that they will not even help themselves, 
 because they are dazzled by illusion, like you and 
 me. To-day they are sowing to the senses, ex 
 periencing what they think to be happiness, but 
 to-morrow they may be hurled down into torments 
 such as you and I shall also undergo. How will you 
 enjoy lying for hundreds of thousands of eternities 
 licked by encircling flames with your tender joints 
 all burst asunder by thick wedges?" These words 
 he spake with the earnest of fresh reminiscence. 
 
 The girl showed a slight tremor at his graphic 
 details but quickly took means to banish the painful 
 imagery. With a stroke of her fingers across the 
 strings of the lute, she burst out into another song: 
 
 "Unborn, on the olden aeons, drifted immortal plasms, 
 
 Moribund prey to aversion, scattered apart in the whirl-pool. 
 
 Kypris moved on the vortex, filling desire in its atoms, 
 
 Stirring all things with a will to draw nigh to each other. 
 
 Thus, on eternal chaos, eternal love was laboring; 
 
 And the froward paths turned toward and the separate rushed to 
 
 mingle; 
 
 Forth from their deathless deadness, a mortal life came flowing 
 Myriad manifold creatures, variant, peculiar of purpose, 
 
 [2 9 ] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 All that have been, or are now, or that grope in the fogs of the 
 
 future 
 Trees that form lodgment of air-fowl, grasses that grow in their 
 
 shadow, 
 Fishes which drink of the sea-brine, beasts that find food in the 
 
 woodland, 
 
 Women and men, strong-limbed, fertile in skill and invention, 
 Yea, and the glistening gods of sky-bound, starry Olympus- 
 All are the deed of desire and of love and of sweet Aphrodite. " 
 
 "How can your sages teach you such an absurd 
 and abominable doctrine?" cried Revato. "How 
 can they be shrewd enough to discover that desire 
 is what keeps us all in the Wheel, and yet such fools 
 or such knaves as to applaud it just as if they 
 wanted to stay here?" 
 
 "Most of us do want to stay here," replied she. 
 
 "Not the clearly seeing," answered Revato. "Not 
 those of whom the Blessed One declares: 
 
 " The wheel is broken, craving now is dead; 
 Nor flows the river on its dried-up bed. 
 Ne er shall the shattered wheel roll on again, 
 And so is reached the Perfect End of Pain. " 
 
 "Yes, it is true, lady, that from craving all things 
 proceed and by clinging they persist; 
 
 " Mind-resulting, such our fate, 
 Mind-conditioned, mind-create. " 
 
 "We fabricate," he continued, "each our own 
 world of pleasure and ambition, in which are the 
 occasions of our grief. The more diversified and 
 lofty our interests become, the more numerous and 
 poignant our sorrows. These, our realms, are like 
 the poetry composed in a dream, mellifluous and 
 ravishing at the time but commonplace trash if 
 remembered after awaking. It is for such despicable 
 baubles that we undergo torments. But just as, 
 when asleep, we are half conscious that our dreams 
 are unreal, yet because they are so delightful we re 
 frain from breaking them off, so it is with the 
 illusion of self. Even when it hurts us we still adhere 
 to it, as if a kitten be biting its tail painfully yet 
 continue to do so because the little tuft is so attract 
 ive. At last we become so enwrapped with our 
 craving that we can no more rid ourselves of it than 
 a sala tree can shake off a long creeper that is 
 coiled about its trunk. As the tree is destroyed, 
 thus are we." 
 
 "So there then no rightful place for joy in life?" 
 asked she. "It is wrong to wish to be happy?" 
 
 "For worldly happiness," answered Revato, "I 
 can see np room unless it be that which comes 
 unsought and gratuitously after we have completely 
 renounced it and ceased to expect it. But all our 
 selfish emotions must be dried up, our anxious 
 projects abandoned, for these are streamlets tribu 
 tary to the River of Life which continually flows 
 into the Ocean of Sangsara. You have heard how 
 when the grandson of the devout lady Visakha died 
 she went at unseasonable hours with tear-wet 
 hands and hair to declare to the Blessed One her 
 grief. Do you not find, Visakha, that there are 
 sons and grandsons in proportion to the number of 
 
 men in SavatthI? Yea, Sire. And how many 
 of SavatthI die daily? Sometimes, Sire, ten of 
 SavatthI die daily, sometimes nine, eight, seven, six, 
 five, four, three, two, and sometimes only one. Of 
 those who die daily in SavatthI, Sire, there is no 
 lack. What think you, Visakha, have you found 
 at any house those whose garments and hair have 
 been unwetted by tears? Not so, Sire; how is that 
 possible with so many sons and grandsons? 
 Those, Visakha, who have a hundred dear ones have 
 a hundred sorrows, those who have one dear one 
 have one sorrow. For those who have no dear ones, 
 there is no sorrow. 
 
 "Whatso of sorrow, what of pain and sighing 
 Pervades the earth, it from attachment springs; 
 Where craving is, there also grief undying; 
 No trouble follows him who never clings. " 
 
 "I still will cling," said the girl, "to the memory 
 of my island home. My life, be it long or short, shall 
 be spent in the sunshine, in the busy walks of life, 
 surrounded by the beautiful things which the gods 
 have made and which they have taught men to con 
 trive. They of Olympus dwell not in solitudes, nor 
 would they have us to do so. It comforts us to 
 think how much they resemble us in our frailties, 
 but it must inspire us to reflect how we may grow 
 like them in their splendor. We do so when we 
 make the world glorious and magnificent. That 
 can come only by cultivating with the finest training 
 our desires and longings." Throwing her fingers 
 recklessly across the strings of her lute, she trilled: 
 
 "Sweeter than harp, more golden than gold the sunlight; 
 Golden earth-fruits ripen in far-off Hesper; 
 To my warm soul delicate thoughts are welcome 
 Seeking and yearning. 
 
 "From the hard hills, gloomy with flying shadows, 
 Comes a keen wind rattling the rusty oak leaves; 
 Trembles my soul thus in the gale of Eros, 
 Sweet-bitter fellow. 
 
 "What if unprized maidenhood always hold me? 
 What if elude me ever the garden islands? 
 Strip, ye strong gales, all of my brown repining 
 All but my yearning." 
 
 "Itthi, ka hi nama tvang? Woman, who are 
 you?" exclaimed Revato when she had finished. 
 
 "My name is Prote, and yours, pray?" 
 
 "Revato. I am called the Layman Revato 
 Yuvano." 
 
 "But why did you ask my name so abruptly?" 
 she inquired for information. 
 
 "Because I thought it must be Tanha-Rati- 
 Arati." 
 
 "Lust, Folly and 111- Will, my good Sir, the three 
 daughters of Maro all rolled into one. Behold how 
 learned I am in your philosophy!" 
 
 "It is no laughing matter, Lady. We, all of us 
 who have not reached the Blessed Condition, are 
 prone to yield to the desires of our hearts, strive 
 against them as we may; we do so because those 
 desires, bitter as they really are, seem sweet to our 
 
 30] 
 
THE 
 
 LAYMAN 
 
 R E V A T O 
 
 perverted taste, and we feel we cannot resist them. 
 But deliberately to cultivate such craving is a 
 suicidal presumption which I would not charge upon 
 the very devils in the hells." 
 
 Prote listened to this remark with exhausted pa 
 tience and took it as favorable opportunity to close the 
 interview by departing her own way. Before leaving, 
 she restored to his hand the gem lady, saying: 
 
 "You braved the terrors of the deep to rescue 
 her and she shall be yours." 
 
 Before he could make up his mind whether to 
 accept or reject the gift, he stood alone. Another 
 foreign woman, her maid-servant or slave, had 
 appeared and, thus attended, she vanished from the 
 Rativaddhana park. 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 A DAY IN TOWN 
 
 THE FLOWER SCAVENGER 
 
 Hardly had the voice of Prote ceased in his ear 
 when Revato heard near him a song in another key 
 the shrill croak of a broken-voiced old man. He 
 was a pupphachaddaka, a flower scavenger, one of 
 those miserable creatures of the Pukkasa caste, 
 despised even by Suddas, who try to maintain life 
 by clearing away the wilted garlands which have 
 served their brief day in god-houses or elsewhere, 
 and perhaps realizing something on the second-hand 
 stock. 
 
 To-day he was happy as a Khattiya prince; 
 having risen early from the river bank where he had 
 slept, he had come to collect the debris of last 
 night s festival treasure trove rich to him as a 
 buried crock of gold. No wonder he was frantically 
 endeavoring to sing the hymn of old Elder Sunlto: 
 
 "Of lowly parents I was born; 
 
 Scant profits of the world were ours; 
 My work was wretched and forlorn, 
 
 I gathered refuse wilted flowers 
 
 "A lowly caste which men of worth 
 Leave on the left when passing by. 
 
 I groveled ever on the earth, 
 Since few there were so low as I. 
 
 "I saw betimes, as near he drew 
 
 To Rajagaha s opening gates, 
 That Being Altogether True, 
 
 On whom the Band of Brethren waits. 
 
 "My burden staff I dropped aground; 
 
 To reverence him, I ventured near. 
 Compassionate, he turned around, 
 
 That One Supernally Made Clear. 
 
 "Whom sentient worlds account sublime, 
 To him I crept with plaudits meet; 
 
 My sordid life of earlier time 
 I laid renouncing at his feet. 
 
 "The Perfect Lord of Sympathy, 
 
 Whose pity reaches everywhere, 
 Come Brother, gently said to me 
 
 And fully thus ordained me there. 
 
 "Deep sunken in untiring thought, 
 In woodland glades, alone and still, 
 
 I led the life the Teacher taught 
 And carried out the Conqueror s will. 
 
 "By night s first watch I saw the sign 
 A birth came back from long ago; 
 
 The middle watch, with eye divine, 
 I marked the systems ebb and flow; 
 
 Till, e er the watch of morning-shine, 
 My darkness fled forevermo . 
 
 "And when the sun was near to rise, 
 Two chieftains of the angel bands 
 
 Appeared before my wondering eyes 
 
 And worshipped me with clasped hands: 
 
 " All hail, thou man of noble race! 
 
 All hail, who art a prince indeed! 
 Whose taints are purged beyond a trace, 
 
 Be votive offerings now thy meed. 
 
 "When so the Master saw me there, 
 
 With angel cohorts at my feet 
 And glory filling all the air, 
 
 He spake these words I now repeat: 
 
 " Where fervent striving, self-command, 
 Where faith and goodness disenthral, 
 
 See there a twice-born Brahmin stand, 
 The highest Brahmin of them all. " 
 
 Such had been the emancipation wrought by the 
 Lord of the Dhamma. Poor creatures who, in the 
 Brahmin days, might have had their ears filled with 
 molten wax or their tongues torn out for meddling 
 with high religion, were now accounted worthy of 
 attainment to the most exalted estate. True, this 
 particular outcaste had never complied with the 
 conditions of enfranchisement, perhaps he was 
 contingently ineligible by reason of slavery or 
 debt but the consciousness of his recognized 
 natural qualification must have been to him a deal of 
 comfort. He saw reflected upon him a gleam, at 
 least, of the glory which shone from the Thera 
 Sunlto of the song, who, while still in his own de 
 spised condition, had been received not only into 
 fellowship with the Brethren, but had been selected 
 for the rare honor of immediate presbyterial 
 ordination, passing over the diaconate. When the 
 mean estate of the singer was considered, his boast 
 ful language became magnificent. 
 
 With less influencial preoccupations on Revato s 
 part, the flower gatherer s allusions to him who 
 probes the spirit would have brought him to his 
 senses, contrite; but so strongly was he then con- 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 trolled by the buoyant reaction of the morning, 
 with its vision of new life, that, for the time being, he 
 heard only the cheerful note in this anthem of con 
 secration. 
 
 After passing through the park, he walked on 
 under stress of an energy which clamoured to be 
 converted into rapid motion. The ten saddas, or ur 
 ban noises, which ordinarily jarred on his nerves, 
 now stimulated them. He passed through the monu- 
 mented suburbs near the palace, viewing with rapture, 
 in the glow of the dawn, those edifices which by 
 moonlight he had beheld with apathy. Before he 
 realized it he was out on the country road among 
 the wet paddy fields. 
 
 About the hour when the townspeople were 
 opening their shops and beginning their day s 
 work, and the monks from the viharas were coming 
 into the residential streets to fill their breakfast 
 bowls, Revato caught sight of his own cart jolting 
 toward him, with Pilindavaccho in command. The 
 ox that had been lame was now going with scarcely 
 a limp. This arrival provided the owner with a 
 desirable change of clothing. Having secured his 
 baggage, he resorted to a barber for a shave and to a 
 public bathhouse where he might remove the smut 
 and sweat of his journey. After an exhilarating 
 plunge in a tank of cold water, and after being 
 smeared with powder and clay, steamed in a hot-air 
 chamber and vigorously massaged, he put on his 
 fresh garments, including a sataka, or cloak, of 
 fine Benares cloth, which he had just purchased in 
 the metropolitan shops. The physical purification 
 did not fail of a sympathetic mental effect, and he 
 returned to his lodging feeling like a man who has 
 been promoted to a celestial Sagga after a term in 
 theTapana hell. 
 
 When Revato entered his room, he was greeted 
 with a whine from Dukkho who had patiently re 
 mained there awaiting him. His first act was to go 
 in search for some food and drink for the dog and 
 also for himself. After the meal he rested and was 
 visited by reflections which burst the bubble of his 
 happiness. 
 
 The lamentable failure of his last night s resolu 
 tions reproached him and he felt the almost ludicrous 
 way in which successive safeguards to conduct 
 precautions of sight, speech and discretion when 
 the first in line is upset, tumble down like a row of 
 poised bricks. The prime mover had been desire. 
 His broken resolution, however, worried him not so 
 much because of its late infraction, which was a 
 matter of the past, as because he felt it still to be 
 binding upon him. Habitually, his anxieties related 
 to his future conduct. He must now undo, as far as 
 possible, the wrong he had done, by avoiding 
 another encounter with Prote and forever banishing 
 from his thoughts all that she was or represented. 
 The questionable strength of his obligation made it 
 worse than if his duty had been more certain, his 
 mind being thereafter constantly strained with the 
 worry of doubt and indecision. His disposition to 
 
 self-argument had always taken advantage of his 
 racial quietism to produce irresolution. At times 
 there had sprung within him high exotic impulses to 
 achieving endeavor which augmented his mental 
 turmoil; with the result, usually, that he did nothing. 
 That safety resides with inaction, was his philosophy, 
 pusillanimous in sound, but complicated by difficult 
 ethical considerations. May cowardice be charged 
 against moral resistance and inward striving? Is 
 not the truest exertion padhana that of the mind 
 which Bhagava performed when, emaciate and 
 motionless, by the river Neranjara, he withstood the 
 assaults of the tempter Maro and steadfastly con 
 tinued until he found the infinite rest? Deeds have 
 different meaning and value in the physical and 
 spiritual world. 
 
 Be the judgment thereupon what it may, Revato 
 began to show hesitancy about carrying out the 
 purpose for which he had come to Pataliputta, that 
 of resigning his lucrative office. The reason for such 
 a change of heart may be suspected to reside in 
 certain very obvious ambitions connected with 
 Prote. There is a scintilla of truth in this, for he was 
 human, but the explanation comes far short of 
 fathoming his self-tantalizing ingenuity. The only 
 shadow of chance, as he saw it, to be free and live as 
 others did, was not in availing himself of his present 
 business connections, but of cutting loose from 
 them before they drew him any deeper into what he 
 regarded as the indebtedness which tended to 
 smother his life in a futile attempt at restitution. 
 The decision to resign had cost a hard struggle and, 
 after it had been reached, he, according to a habit, 
 had philosophically striven to accommodate himself 
 to the new condition. In this way, particularly now 
 after meeting Prote, he had adduced those reasons 
 which made him really anxious to be clear of his 
 office. But as soon as inclination had been dragooned 
 into line with duty, duty swung around to the 
 opposite side. His conscience was like a weather 
 vane which infallibly points against the wind. In 
 his private, as in his traditional philosophy, desire 
 was a sure criterion of wrong. 
 
 Reason for his shifting of opinion as to duty was 
 found in the conflict of strict ethical ideals on one 
 side and sane, practical morals on the other. At 
 one time he might feel compunction to cast the 
 deciding vote in accordance with his own rigorous 
 logic, at another time to renounce his rectitude and 
 defer to what he knew would be the opinion of most 
 good men. So it was, that while preference deserted 
 the side of retaining his office, his inward monitor 
 veered to that direction. By no means, however, 
 did he feel that he would be relieved from the final 
 accounting required by perfect logic. To speak 
 plainly, his conscience demanded that he do an 
 injustice and finally repair it at the complete sacri 
 fice of himself. So his situation became worse than 
 ever. Thus, though doubtfully and falteringly, came 
 forward a negative policy tending to hesitation and 
 procrastination. It did not immediately check his 
 
 [32] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 attempts to execute his plans, but every step was 
 with self-reproach. 
 
 THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF RELIGION 
 
 According to his original project, Revato called 
 that afternoon within the palace enclosure to see his 
 friend Dabbo Kumaputto, a Dhammayutta, or 
 Assistant Secretary in the Holy Law, subordinate 
 under Migalandiko the Dhamma-mahamatta, or 
 High Minister of Religion. The functions of this 
 governmental department were varied. It was con 
 cerned with ecclesiastical affairs proper; with the 
 administration of royal alms; it supervised the fe 
 male establishments of the King s relatives; enter 
 tained appeals in criminal cases of wrongful imprison 
 ment or chastisement and could grant relief where 
 men had large families or were advanced in years; 
 it exercised, moreover, powers of intervention in 
 other departments in cases savoring of a religious 
 nature. In short, this bureau was the moral Censor 
 and Court of Equity of the realm. 
 
 From natural hesitation to reveal his mind to 
 Dabbo, Revato opened the interview with general 
 topics of remark. The conversation drifted upon the 
 buildings which the old king was erecting for sacred 
 uses with more zeal than ever and upon the crafts 
 manship that he had imported for this purpose from 
 distant lands. 
 
 Theretofore, the public edifices when of material 
 more enduring than wood, had commonly been made 
 of brick finely overlaid with chunam plaster on which 
 were frescoed graceful devices of wreath and creeper, 
 of ribbon or dragon s tooth and perchance a pic 
 tured scene from hallowed story. Asoko had sub 
 stituted massive stone, no less elaborately, if more 
 arduously and enduringly, adorned with carving. 
 New forms of architecture and art began to appear; 
 his builders returning from studienreisen to Takkasila, 
 Sagala, Persepolis and other regions of the nearer 
 Yonalokas, executed in timid bas-relief designs of 
 column and capital that were strange to Magadha. 
 
 Dabbo gave particulars of a subject already 
 vaguely known to Revato, that the Emperor was 
 now seeking to copy foreign architecture more per 
 fectly by imparting artisans from its native countries. 
 His was not the arrogance of his father, Bindusaro 
 Amittaghato, who has sought to buy from the 
 Yonaka king Antlyako, wine, figs and a sophist, 
 only to be informed that the sophist was not for 
 sale. With the respect due to a high contracting 
 party, Asoko had secured the services of a skilled 
 architect, Diyomedo by name, from the far-off true 
 Yonaloka, and he had come bringing with him a 
 staff of sculptors and master workmen. For so long 
 a time they had been at work already, that their 
 first great enterprise was well under way. This 
 was a new sangharama, or "society garden," on an 
 island in Ganga, opposite the city, near the place of 
 Buddho s miraculous crossing, in commemoration of 
 which event it was to be called the Parayana Sangha 
 rama, the Monastery of the Way to the Further 
 
 Shore." It was to comprise two large quadrangles of 
 cells, an elaborate service hall, and a grand thupa 
 wherein would be enshrined the water pot and oil 
 lamp which had served during Buddho s discourse in 
 the rest house of Patali village. The design of the 
 service hall, now nearing completion, had been much 
 admired and criticized, the latter chiefly owing to the 
 simplicity of its lines. As a reluctant concession to 
 the wishes of his royal employer, who objected to a 
 style wholly beyond popular appreciation, Diyomedo 
 had consented to carve around it a frieze represent 
 ing scenes in the Jataka fables, stipulating, however, 
 that they should be arranged according to his own 
 taste. His Majesty was so much interested in the 
 work that he frequently visited the island to observe 
 its progress. Dabbo suggested to Revato that he go 
 there himself and take a look at it. 
 
 Up to this time Revato had been promising him 
 self that he would gradually lead the conversation 
 around to the subject of his call on Dabbo. Having 
 failed to do so, he now availed of a lull in the dis 
 cussion by making a plunge into the dreadful case. 
 When once started, it was easy for him to talk 
 easier than for Dabbo to listen but he insisted on 
 finishing his story to the bitter end. His conclusion 
 was that Dabbo should transmit his appeal to the 
 Dhamma-mahamatta, or at least introduce him 
 gracefully to that dignitary. 
 
 "Why, tata," sneered Dabbo, "the Mahamatta 
 (Great Minister) would help you merely by turning 
 you out of your job. He would accuse you of rivalry 
 with himself, seeing you are so mahamatta (such a 
 big fool)." 
 
 This stupid pun and a parting, "Bhaddang 
 bhavato hotu Good luck to you," were the only 
 consolation Revato could get from Dabbo s quarter. 
 He was thrown back upon the miserable support of 
 his own resources. He must approach the High 
 Minister, if at all, upon his own responsibility, 
 but the chief s attitude was already hopelessly 
 forcasted by his underling. 
 
 There remained the course of appeal to the King, 
 who surely would not reject the petition flippantly, 
 and whose door was always open to suppliants. This 
 method was clear and plain, yet not too simple for 
 Revato to discover some difficulty that he could 
 raise in objection. He suggested to himself that the 
 regular audiences were crowded and that he was 
 sure he could not explain the intricacies of his case 
 on such an occasion. He must arrange to meet 
 Piyadassi when more at liberty and would not the 
 Parayana sangharama be a likely place for such an 
 encounter? Both pros and cons of this project were 
 numerous; the reasons underlying them were mixed 
 and subtile. Since these motives were yet evasive in 
 Revato s mind, it would be precipitate to define them 
 here, but they will come to their own with the sequel. 
 
 LAMPS UNTO ANOTHER 
 
 That same afternoon Revato fell in with his old 
 companions, Venerable Bharadvajo and Venerable 
 
 [33 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 Kondanno, who had just arrived in Pataliputta. 
 The latter was much perturbed. 
 
 "This morning," Kondanno exclaimed in a tone 
 which suggested that his fetter of patigha, vindictive- 
 ness, had not been completely severed," we met a great 
 troop of people on the road with horses and elephants 
 and armed guards a royal march it seemed" 
 
 "The Ex-king of Kalinga," supplied Revato. 
 
 "And his myrmidons beat us with sticks," con 
 tinued Kondanno, "they lamed Bharadvajo s wrist 
 and cracked my bowl!" 
 
 "But it does not hurt much now, bhante," inter 
 posed Bharadvajo, condoningly. 
 
 "It is astounding, bhante," cried Revato, "that 
 the servants of any vassal monarch in the empire 
 should not respect the person of a Sakiyaputtiya 
 ascetic. The Maharaja of Kalinga can be no loyal 
 subject of Piyadassi, no more than he is a walker in 
 the Holy Law; let me tell you what I know about 
 him." And Revato proceeded to relate the story of 
 the Antelope. 
 
 The monks listened with no emotional expression, 
 Kondanno probably owing to his slight power of 
 sympathy and Bharadvajo because of an equanimity 
 which had long ago discounted the travail of the 
 world. By way of reply he intoned a gatha: 
 
 "Unless your predelection be for pain, 
 From open or occult misdeed abstain. 
 If such a deed you re doing or will do, 
 There s no escaping of the pain for you." 
 
 "Kira tis rumored" said Kondanno, "that 
 the object of the Kalingissaro s visit to Pataliputta 
 is less well known to Piyadassi than to Prince 
 Dasaratho. The latter has never shown any great 
 affection for our Order, so far as his gifts are con 
 cerned. They say that he turns mendicants away 
 from his door without a morsel. He is incensed at 
 his grandfather s expenditures for charity and for 
 the buildings which the Yonakas are foisting upon 
 the old King. It is secretly believed that but why 
 should I repeat all that I hear?" 
 
 "Against the Kalingas Piyadasi committed the 
 great sin of his unconverted days," said Bharadvajo 
 reflectively, and he murmured: 
 
 "Not in the highest air nor ocean s hollow 
 Nor dark in some deep cave s perpetual night 
 Nor any earthly where shall cease to follow 
 The present power of a past unright. " 
 
 In spite of their misadventure, for which, perhaps, 
 compensation lay in the gossip that it supplied, 
 Kondanno was far from disconsolate. He was in 
 good humor over his sermons preached during the 
 journey and especially his disputations with the 
 professors at Nalanda. 
 
 He assumed great scorn of Pataliputta city with 
 its ephemeral glories, as he declaimed in the words 
 of an old-time saint: 
 
 "I fall when others rise, 
 
 I rise when others fall; 
 
 I will not dwell where others dwell 
 
 Nor share their joys at all." 
 
 Revato had never noticed in Venerable Kondanno 
 such independence of spirit as these words would 
 indicate, but he held his peace. Venerable Bha 
 radvajo, however, administered a gentle rebuke to 
 his comrade by recalling to mind Elder Laludayi, 
 also of old time. That worthy had a knack of 
 croaking at a wedding, "Without your walls, where 
 cross-roads meet, the foemen lurk," or at a funeral, 
 "Oh, may you see a thousand such glad days"; but 
 the Blessed One characterized him as deficient in 
 common sense. 
 
 Such approval by the highest authority of a 
 worldly, temporizing policy could not be unwel 
 come to a certain mood in Revato which now was 
 on the alert for any argument or holy warrant in its 
 behalf. 
 
 "Have you done the business for which you came 
 here, Layman?" inquired Kondanno of Revato with 
 a painful dryness. 
 
 "Not yet, bhante, I have somewhat changed my 
 mind about it." 
 
 "Sadhu, sadhu! Good, good!" exclaimed Ven 
 erable Bharadvajo in a cheery tone. "I was con 
 fident that time would bring a cure. And now to 
 change the subject, have you been to see the Para- 
 yana sangharama, the navakamma new work 
 which the foreign mechanics are building for Piya 
 dassi? They say its architect is the equal of Maha- 
 Govindo." 
 
 "I have not visited it, bhante; have you?" 
 
 "Not thus far, tata. First must come a night s 
 rest with the brotherhood at the Kukkutarama; 
 then we shall make the round for our pindapata and 
 must eat it as our bhatta breakfast. After that, 
 we shall certainly take a good look at the new vihara 
 of which all the friars on the road are talking. But 
 after all, these new scenes can never be so gratifying 
 as the old ones. That house over yonder stands on 
 the site of the one where the Buddho last dined with 
 the High Ministers of Magadha, and the location of 
 old rest house where he preached cannot be far from 
 here." 
 
 "What is your opinion of the Yonakas, bhante?" 
 inquired Revato. 
 
 "They are like all other living creatures, still 
 shackled by the fetters," answered Bharadvajo, 
 "and destined to toss forever in the ocean of sang- 
 sara, rebirth, unless they grasp the blessed Dhamma 
 taught by Bhagava and thus attain a foot-hold on 
 the Further Shore." 
 
 "Let me tell you of one whom I met this day," 
 and Revato described his meeting with Prote. 
 "Now what have you to say about her, bhavanta?" 
 
 "Is she beautiful?" asked Kondanno. 
 
 "Beautiful as the daughters of Maro when they 
 came to tempt Bodhisatto by the river Neranjara. 
 But her physical beauty is nothing compared with 
 her beauty of mind, or in turn, with the universal 
 beauty which she reflects! I am well aware that 
 most of this is the mere illusion of evil; yet there are 
 certain elements in her discourse which have appealed 
 
 [34] 
 
THE 
 
 LAYMAN 
 
 R E V A T O 
 
 to me so plausibly that I cannot think them wholly 
 bad. If only it were possible to separate the true 
 from the false!" 
 
 "Avuso, Friend," said Bharadvajo solemnly, 
 "your purpose is good, but you know nothing of the 
 world s ways. You attribute to this girl and her 
 whims a dignity which is wholly imaginary. Her 
 freedom of manner proves that she is no decent 
 woman. She is a mere ganika, a vesiya, a vannadasi, 
 a rupupajivini a woman of the same sort as 
 Ambapali 
 
 "Whose invitation to dine was accepted by the 
 Blessed One," interrupted Revato for the sake of 
 argument. 
 
 "The Blessed One," replied Bharadvajo, "took 
 his disciples with him and he taught her the way of 
 deliverance. Let us hope that your new acquaint 
 ance may reach as saintly an old age in the cloister 
 as did that lady Amba." 
 
 "Adhivasetha excuse me bhante, but I think 
 you quite fail to understand her. You declare that 
 I know nothing of the world s ways, but she belongs 
 to a world of which you know nothing, and its ways 
 may be different from those of our own. Now, 
 bhante, let me ask your advice upon another ques 
 
 tion. Would it be well for me to visit the new 
 sangharama?" 
 
 "And why not?" 
 
 "Because it is being built by the Yonas." 
 
 "Not by a Yonaki girl. You cannot avoid her 
 race in these days while at Pataliputta. It would 
 be wrong to deny yourself this opportunity for 
 observation, since knowledge is beneficial to us if it 
 be the right sort." 
 
 We should belie Revato s astuteness were we to 
 dissimulate that he recognized in the mention of 
 Yonakas and their works a temptation. There is, 
 however, no great difficulty in stealing a march on 
 conscience when the overt act is to be immediate 
 or no hours of darkness and deliberation must first 
 be wrestled through. His chance of meeting the 
 King at the new abbey was supplemented by other 
 plausible considerations, as, namely that he ought 
 dutifully to acquaint himself with all that pertained 
 to his religion. So it was that Revato set out that 
 same afternoon for the Parayana sangharama. The 
 searching eye of Buddho, had it been in Pataliputta 
 rather than in Nibbana, might have detected a 
 certain celerity in his movements, as if he appre 
 hended that delay would change his mind. 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 THE PARAYANA SANGHARAMA 
 
 THE CHAPTER HOUSE 
 
 Thus of yore spake the Venerable Pingiyo to the 
 Brahmin Bavari: 
 
 I will tell the way which tendeth 
 To that Fair and Further Isle. 
 As he saw it, so he told it 
 Sapient, without defile, 
 Passionless, desireless Master 
 Wherefore would he speak with guile? 
 
 Doubt-dispelling, deep discerning, 
 Everywhere his eye can see. 
 World-revealing, all-prevailing, 
 Pure and painless, calm and free. 
 He, the true, the glorious Buddho, 
 Came, O Brahmana, to me. 
 
 As the wood-bird finds the forest 
 
 From her bush-entangled nide, 
 
 As the wild-fowl quits the marshes 
 
 For the ocean, deep and wide, 
 
 I have left my trifling comrades 
 
 And have reached the Boundless Tide. 
 
 There is one alone unchanging, 
 From whose face the darkness flies, 
 High-born, luminously beaming, 
 Uncompared, beyond comprise 
 Gotamo, the far-perceiving, 
 Gotamo, the very wise. 
 
 Vigilant, with eye of sprit, 
 I behold him night and day 
 Clear, O Brahmana, behold him 
 So I do not think I stray. 
 All the night I spend adoring; 
 Can he then be far away? 
 
 Though my flesh be worn and wasted, 
 Though my carnal eye be dim, 
 Though my body cannot follow, 
 For I totter, weak of limb. 
 Forth in mind and thought I travel 
 And my heart is joined to him. 
 
 In the mire of old I struggled, 
 None to save or to redeem, 
 Frantic leapt from isle to island 
 Then I saw Sambuddho s gleam, 
 Who has broken loose from passion 
 And has crossed beyond the stream. 
 
 The Blessed One (appearing in splendor) 
 
 Vakkali by faith crossed over, 
 
 Alavi-Gotamo just as he, 
 
 And Bhadravudho the Brahmin; 
 
 So shall faith deliver thee; 
 
 Where the Further Shore is waiting, 
 
 From the Death-land thou shalt flee. 
 
 Pingiyo: 
 
 I have heard the voice of Buddho; 
 Happily his word I hail. 
 He, the Perfectly Enlightened, 
 Has removed the darkening veil. 
 Never yet he spake unkindly 
 And his wisdom cannot fail. 
 
 There is nowhere in the god-world 
 That his reason has not been, 
 Not a fact whereof the Master 
 Has not pierced the origin, 
 He will end the doubters questions 
 If they will but let him in. 
 
 [35] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 To the Matchless, to the Changeless, 
 Straight my voyage lies before; 
 I will surely reach the Refuge 
 Where my doubting will be o er 
 And relinquish all returnings 
 On that formless Further Shore. 
 
 On the north of the city of Pataliputta is a gate in 
 its high sala-wood wall known as Gotamo s Gate, 
 and beyond it a landing on Ganga riverside called 
 Gotamo s Ferry. By this route, the Buddho pro 
 ceeded to Vesali and still northward to his final 
 resting place at Kusinara. In the allegory, while 
 others sought for boats and for rafts of wood or 
 basket-work, he vanished from this side of the river 
 and reappeared on that. As he crossed, he broke 
 forth into this song of triumph: 
 
 Ye taranti annavang sarang setum katvana visajja pallalani 
 Kullang hi jano bandhati tinna medvavino jana. 
 
 (Treading o er the fields of water, vast and vague, of Trans 
 migration 
 
 Basket floats while fools are building so the wise attain 
 Salvation.) 
 
 Through Gotamo s Gate Revato went down to the 
 river bank at Gotamo s Ferry. On an island in 
 mid-stream, some distance below, he descried the 
 Parayana sangharama. The water of the recent 
 rains, now coming down from up country, had 
 swollen the mother of rivers quite to a kakapeyya, 
 "crow-drinking," stage, whereat any sombre bird 
 might quench his thirst from the very top of her 
 bank. Her waves almost lapped the white walls of 
 the buildings, whose rigorous lines were shattered 
 by reflection in the rapid, swirling water. One high 
 rectangular structure could be seen above the others 
 of the group. 
 
 Revato found a Sudda boatman, Naditariko, 
 willing to ferry him across for the tarika, or fare, of 
 a kahapana, which was claimed to be only reasonable 
 in view of the abnormal current. Revato bid one- 
 tenth of that sum two masakas. A bargain was 
 struck on a pada and a half, a pada being equal to 
 five masakas. 
 
 They allowed themselves to drift with the current 
 to the upper end of the island and landed on a wharf 
 much encumbered with building materials, as was 
 the ground everywhere. Conforming to the shape of 
 the land, the sangharama was laid out on the plan 
 of two elongated rectangles adjoining end for end. 
 The first, and smaller one, Revato entered at an 
 opening which would probably be the great gate. 
 On either^ side of the entrance were pillars sur 
 mounted by mayura birds, peacocks, in honor of the 
 Moriya dynasty; singularly inappropriate here, 
 they seemed to him. He found himself in a court 
 surrounded on all sides by solid rows of viharas or 
 parivenas, cells for individual monks, each with its 
 door opening to the enclosure. Instead of brick or 
 rough-dressed stone set in mortar and ornately 
 plastered with sudha, stucco, these viharas were 
 built of smooth marble blocks, neatly fitted and with 
 simple adornments, which seemed merely a develop 
 
 ment of the structural plan. The roofs of the several 
 cells were not domed or arched with flat-laid stones, 
 but formed low gables of slabs laid on rafters. 
 Each doorway broadened toward the bottom. In 
 spite of their unpretentiousness, the long glistening 
 white lines of masonry were delightful to gaze upon. 
 Around the monastery close, and lining the rows of 
 cells, was intended to run a cloistered walk bordered 
 by fluted columns, a few of which were already 
 in place. This porch would, no doubt, be used as 
 a cangkana, or promenade, for fervent meditations. 
 
 Not all of the rooms, however, were for individual 
 dwelling purposes. Some larger ones were obviously 
 designed for the necessary communal offices of the 
 chapter. Such were the salakagga, or office for dis 
 tributing food checks; the bhattagga, refectory; the 
 kotthaka, or cellary for provisions; the jantaghara, or 
 bathhouse, with its dressing room; the khuragga, 
 or hall of tonsure; the bhandagara, or store room, 
 and the shops for dyeing and tailoring of robes. The 
 aggisala, fire room or kitchen, was, according to 
 Buddho s commandment, or a quibble concerning it, 
 set apart from the other buildings. 
 
 In the center of this enclosure had been built a 
 massive platform of masonry reached by flights of 
 steps, on which foundation was beginning to arise 
 the great thupa to enshrine the Buddho relics. 
 Sculptured blocks now lying on the ground testified 
 that it would be constructed of the same immaculate 
 material as the parivenas. Beside the thupa was a 
 huge block of granite newly chiseled with a colossal 
 footprint, northward pointed, which symbolized the 
 memorable crossing of Buddho to the Further Shore. 
 
 There were as yet no signs of the great pictorially 
 carved railing which would be erected in front of the 
 thupa if it followed the precedent of such monuments 
 elsewhere. But precedents of Jambudipa were being 
 recklessly disregarded in the architecture of this 
 sangharama. 
 
 A gateway at the further end of the first quad 
 rangle admitted to a still larger area enclosed, though 
 as yet only in part, by cellular walls similar to the 
 former. Here Revato encountered the greatest 
 innovation, not only of style but of general arrange 
 ment. The middle of this court was usurped by a 
 large, tall building standing isolated from all others. 
 It was the one which he had noticed, from the city, 
 towering above the viharas and he had been puzzled 
 to determine its purpose. 
 
 From Buddho s own time a necessary part of all 
 monasteries had been the places where the chapter 
 held its conventicles. Under the name Sabbath 
 House, it served for the solemn assemblies of the 
 brethren on days of the full and new moon to recite 
 the Commandments and make confession of inno- 
 cency. Known as the Hall of Truth, it was used for 
 exposition purposes, while its appellations, Session 
 Room, Service Hall, or simply Sala, Hall, indicated 
 that it formed the general rallying place of the 
 monastic chapter. It had been considered available 
 even for use as a dining room, so that the associa- 
 
 [36] 
 
THE 
 
 LAYMAN 
 
 R E V A T O 
 
 tions of the building were eminently practical and 
 there was little awe connected with it. Architec 
 turally, it had not been prominently distinguished, 
 but was often built as a wing to the vihara quad 
 rangle. 
 
 Naturally, Revato presumed the building in the 
 middle of the court to be such a sala, a conjecture 
 which later was confirmed. But its glorification was 
 puzzling, not to say suspicious. At any rate, this 
 structure was now being treated by its builders as 
 the chief work of the monastery, barring perhaps the 
 unfinished relic thupa, and its exterior challenged 
 attention. The building extended to a length of 
 about fifteen dhanus, bow-lengths, with a width of 
 perhaps ten bows, and a height of thirty cubits. It 
 was surrounded by a peristyle of fluted marble 
 pillars which supported the overhanging obtuse, 
 gabled roof. When close to these columns, so that 
 he could run his eye along them, Revato noticed that 
 they were not straight, but bulged out in the middle, 
 an error which must be condoned by the otherwise 
 faultless design. The ghatakas, "pots," forming 
 the column heads were wrought around with embrac 
 ing leaves of the padumaka, the lotus pattern; a 
 familiar and appropriate emblem novelly applied. 
 
 As a crowning feature, the pediments and wide 
 belts under the eaves above the architraves formed 
 a cittagara, picture gallery, being carved with de 
 signs in low relief, which ran as a chain of imagery 
 around the building. The white figures high in air 
 stood out from a background stained red as an 
 indagopaka bug, and they were embellished here 
 and there with metal mountings which constituted 
 parts of the pictorial design. There was, however, 
 a peculiar absence of those redundant details and 
 ornaments which crowded the background in native 
 mural sculptures; and, as defined upon their colored 
 setting, the forms looked meagre. This crudity was 
 forgotten as the eye became accustomed to it, and 
 the excellences of the method constantly grew upon 
 the beholder. How unrelated were the figures here 
 sculptured to the familiar ones based on the old 
 wood-carving style and still wooden in their articu 
 lations! These groups were not boxed in as medal 
 lions nor separated by vine work, but flowed on 
 continuously, in bold, graceful, vivacious lines. 
 They did not look like images at all, but like real 
 men and animals and trees which had been reborn in 
 miniature with the pure white Ariya color. They 
 appeared to be alive and in motion, so that one 
 fancied he could follow their movements, and when 
 he glanced away, he was surprised to find, upon 
 restoring his look, that their limbs were still in the 
 same position as before. Revato happened to notice 
 that the lower part of the frieze was carved in less 
 relief than the upper, whether due to convenience or 
 negligence on the part of the sculptor, but it did not 
 harm the general eflect unless one were thinking 
 about it. 
 
 The decorated meeting house thus bore such a 
 wealth of imagery as, of old, Vissakammo had 
 
 [37] 
 
 wrought upon the enchanted car of Ravano. It 
 was not frivolous ornamentation, but replete with 
 story and instruction. Reaching around the great 
 edifice it embodied long histories of manifold inci 
 dent and spirit. The groups formed a procession so 
 skillfully arranged that through all the transitions of 
 scene ran a pictorial unity. 
 
 Less mystery attached to the symbolism of the 
 carvings than might have been the case had not 
 Revato come prepared to interpret them. They 
 were representations of Jataka, or Birth tales, that 
 vast collection of old marvel stories, dear to the 
 heart of every Buddhist, who has learned them as a 
 child, which depict the wanderings of Bodhisatto, 
 the pre-incarnate lord, in manifold epiphanies on 
 his long road to Buddhahood. 
 
 THE JATAKA FRIEZE 
 
 A royal stag lays his head on the slayer s block to save the life 
 of doe. 
 
 A lion and bull are fighting, watched by a jackal who has 
 brought it about by slanderous report to each of the other s 
 sentiments. 
 
 Some monkeys deputed by a gardener to water young trees 
 are economizing the water by first pulling up the trees to observe 
 the size of the roots. 
 
 A murderous, giant crab lets go of a captured elephant s foot 
 because entranced by the sweet feminine song of the mate. 
 
 A deer by the pool-side, snared in a noose which cuts him to 
 the bone yet refrains from crying out until his fellows shall have 
 slaked their thirst. 
 
 A cat, licking the gore of poultry on her chops, sits at the foot 
 of a tree making amorous eyes at a coy and wary cock perched on 
 a limb. Diplomatically he pleads his disapproval of miscegena 
 tion. 
 
 Monkeys are escaping from tree to tree on a bridge built by 
 one of their number, and of which he forms a part; but a traitor 
 among them, the pre-incarnate Devadatto, leaps on his back to 
 destroy him. 
 
 A garlanded elephant stands weeping. In the forest he saved 
 the life of a forester, who subsequently betrayed him; whereupon 
 suppressing his anger he submitted without resistance to the 
 hunters. But in his gilded captivity he remembers that his poor 
 blind mother will now have no one to bring her the sweet wild 
 fruit. 
 
 Men with clubs are slaughtering poor lean dogs, while sleek 
 dogs in golden collars look on. The king s hounds have gnawed 
 his chariot harness, and, unsuspecting the real culprits, he has 
 decreed slaughter of all the canines in the city. 
 
 An injudicious lad is engaged with an axe in killing a mosquito 
 which had settled on his father s bald head. 
 
 A monk is eating scraps left by a dog, and a woman who was 
 his wife in his worldly days, stands by reproaching him; he replies 
 that any food honestly obtained is right to feed on. 
 
 A ram, with head lowered, is about to charge a monk who 
 stands delighted at the reverent obeisance. "In the whole world, 
 this ram alone recognizes my merits." 
 
 An ascetic is lamenting over the dead body of a young elephant, 
 though he has lived down regret for his relinquished wife and 
 children. 
 
 Workmen with saws are cutting off the ends of a stake thrust 
 through a monk s body. He was condemned on a mistaken 
 charge of theft, in moral retribution for impaling a fly in a former 
 life, but by his freedom from resentment while writhing in his 
 torture he has led the king to release him, and since the officers 
 cannot get the stake out of him, they are making it as convenient 
 for him as possible. Henceforth he will be known as "Mandavyo 
 of the Peg. " 
 
 A wretch impaled on a stake for stealing flowers, that his wife 
 might be adorned for a festival, is sad of countenance because she 
 must miss the party. 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 A foolish mourning widower is gazing down at a maggot, his 
 former wife, who in company with her new husband, tells him how 
 happy she has become. 
 
 A barber finds a gray hair in the head of a king, which betokens 
 the time that he shall renounce the world and prepare for death. 
 
 Here sits a man with his eyeball bulging from its socket while a 
 surgeon applies a sharp drug to make it protrude farther and 
 prepares with a lancet to sever the tendon. It is King Sivi giving 
 his eyes to a poor, blind Brahmin. Revato knows the harrowing 
 details of the long-drawn-out operation and the friendly remon 
 strances meanwhile which Sivi overcomes by his determination. 
 
 A young prince is seated with drooping head, silent. Those 
 around him are trying in every way to rouse him. The sword- 
 play, the dance, the soft charms of beauty, fail to attract his 
 attention. Even pans of fire do not make him writhe. He 
 remembers the unutterably more agonizing flames of hell wherein 
 he dwelt for ages, and that is the cause of melancholy which has 
 possessed him from infancy. When he hears the king sentence a 
 robber to a thousand strokes with barbed whips, and other felons 
 to various cruel punishments, he reflects: "My father is guilty 
 of a grievous action which brings men to hell." Thus he comes 
 to manhood silent and dead to the world except in-so-far as it 
 concerns eternal agony. 
 
 Such were among the many little histories sug 
 gested in the carvings, whose meagreness of detail 
 Revato s mind could supply. In each of them the 
 Bodhisatto should have figured nobly, not always 
 as the chief actor, but frequently as a wise arbiter, 
 and the sculptor should have brought out the pious, 
 often unexpected moral of the tale. But these 
 religious purposes had often been subordinated to 
 artistic and dramatic effect, so that the pictures 
 were spiritually valuable only as reminders to those 
 who already knew the entire stories. 
 
 So far as Revato had now observed them, the 
 incidents had chiefly been chosen from among the 
 cynical, the sad, and the ascetic narratives of the 
 collection, some of them more after his own heart 
 than, he guessed, after that of the Yonaka artist. 
 But he had been following the line from the rear end 
 of the building; as he approached its front the 
 scenes changed in character. They became more 
 optimistic, more worldly, more voluptuous, more 
 heroic. Such qualities were readily found in the 
 Jatakas by neglecting the moral conclusions and 
 dwelling on episodes, irrespective of context. This, 
 it seemed, must have been the sculptor s deliberate 
 purpose. Preference was given to such stirring 
 incidents as the following: 
 
 A war horse lay pierced by an arrow, and while 
 men attempted to remove his armor of mail, he 
 raised his head in vigorous protest. He had been 
 smitten by a dart after bearing the knight, his rider, 
 to the capture of six kings; and now to attack the 
 seventh. he must be replaced by a hack! His en 
 treaty was destined to prevail; he would carry his 
 rider to victory and would pay for it with his life; 
 and before dying he would prevail upon the knight s 
 royal master to spare the lives of the conquered 
 kings. 
 
 But the plastic interpretation glorified rather 
 the martial spirit of this exploit than its charitable 
 climax. 
 
 Briefly then, as one followed the frieze from rear 
 to front, he read its motive to show a growth and 
 
 exaltation of military virtues, majestic attributes 
 and wordly vanities, rather than of kindness, 
 humility and self-sacrifice. Parallel to the progress 
 of the Bodhisatto, as traced from lower to higher 
 forms of life, the designer had indicated a develop 
 ment of morals from meekness to pride. 
 
 The technical method, however, of reaching a 
 culmination was admirable. In the center of the 
 front pediment stood the Wisdom Tree of Buddho, 
 before which all manner of creatures, human, 
 mundane and supernatural men, elephants, mon 
 keys, birds, fishes, snakes, nagas, yakkhas, maras, 
 devas and brahmas were bowed, adoring. Thus 
 the long procession on each side of the building had 
 been moving toward the goal of Buddhahood a 
 perfect allegory of an old and familiar doctrine. 
 
 THE FALSE BUDDHO 
 
 It was a revelation to Revato that life could be so 
 deceitfully mimicked in the surface of stone. A 
 bright new world opened to him, a world of art, 
 strange but not weird, rather sane and true, yet 
 infinitely removed from the commonplace. In it 
 were realized those ideals whereof the lute girl on 
 the gem had been a shadowy type. 
 
 Despite the novelty of treatment, his familiarity 
 with the manifold subject had enabled him to follow 
 it through its graceful changes along the wall, 
 charmed again and again at the fresh suggestiveness 
 which had been drawn from themes to him so 
 hackneyed. 
 
 Having surveyed the exterior of the sala, Revato 
 passed inside. He found the usual tokens of in- 
 completion, obstructive scaffolding, ropes, levers, 
 tools and debris of marble and mortar. Several 
 Yonaka foremen were impatiently directing the 
 labors of their numerous native helpers or per 
 forming with their own hands those finer works in 
 which their skill could not be delegated. 
 
 "Re! re! Heigh there! Do they allow visitors?" 
 Revato asked of a dark-skinned journeyman. 
 
 "Not if they suit themselves, ayya lord but 
 you can stay until they drive you out." 
 
 The unobtrusive deportment of Revato, however, 
 preserved him from molestation and he wandered 
 about in the building. 
 
 The interior walls were much plainer than the 
 outside. Against the south one stood a stone dias 
 intended for the abbot presiding at the meetings of 
 the chapter. In the middle of the hall rose a higher 
 and grander throne, with its back toward a large 
 central column and facing the East. 
 
 Lo! thereupon sat a marble patima, or image, of 
 Buddho in his favorite posture, with one leg folded 
 on the other, meditative and self-possessed. The 
 effigy was not colossal, but it was modelled to 
 depict the ultimate of man s symmetry and strength. 
 Transcending, however, such merely mortal nature, 
 it wore a mien revealing superhuman power and 
 unapproachable, godlike majesty. This was utterly 
 foreign to the Buddho pictured in the minds of his 
 
 [38] 
 
THE 
 
 LAYMAN 
 
 R E V A T O 
 
 true disciples, a being who, however deep in dis 
 cerning sapiency and unbounded in pitying benig 
 nity, was yet intensely human. Admire as he might 
 this marvel of art, Revato could not but feel an 
 aversion from it, as if it had deprived him of a 
 friend. Then he noticed that the image was set on 
 its lotus-throne like an idol in a temple. This was 
 most incongruous with the purpose of the place. 
 The sculptors of old time had been content to sym 
 bolize the Master by his Wisdom Tree, although 
 that custom did not prove an attempt to depict the 
 lineaments of the Blessed One to be improper. It 
 was especially fitting that in the chamber where his 
 disciples were now to meet in conclave, as their 
 predecessors had so often met with the living Bud 
 dho for their moderator, the likeness of his presence 
 should remain before them in the place of his 
 accustomed seat, a seat which, however, would have 
 been represented by a mat better than by a high 
 throne. Notwithstanding his entry into the ineffable 
 Nibbana, he still lived and breathed for them in the 
 precepts which were their rule and guide of life; 
 perhaps it was right that they should employ a help 
 ful graphical method of realizing the soul resident 
 in the doctrine. But to couple this reverent mind- 
 fulness of their teacher with adoration was an abuse 
 which would have made him sad. 
 
 The Buddho patima was yet unfinished, and one 
 of the skilled Yonas was even then engaged in 
 chipping its lineaments into perfect form. Near by 
 stood another of his race, whom, in spite of rough, 
 dusty clothes, Revato readily singled out as the 
 master. He was a man some few years Revato s 
 senior, of hugh, magnificent build, with full, ruddy 
 face, curly brown hair, and beard, also curly, trimmed 
 round. He scrutinized Revato with a searching 
 look. There seemed to be something in the aspect 
 of the young Magadhan that appealed to him not 
 unfavorably. It may have been the well bred 
 Khattiya s confident bearing or his color, almost as 
 light as the Yonaka s; at any rate the architect 
 elected to greet him with a civil commonplace 
 remark: 
 
 "Do our efforts upon your new chapel meet your 
 approbation?" 
 
 "They are worthy, Sir, of the heavenly architect 
 Vissakammo who built the bridge to Tambapan- 
 nidipa and the splendid city of Lanka; who created 
 also the Palace of Righteousness for the Great King 
 of Glory. But what most have won my admiration 
 are the Jataka images. Since I was taught the 
 stories by the monks as a child, they have been filled 
 for me with living people, but I never before felt 
 their animation so much as to-day." 
 
 "They are alive," answered the architect, pleased 
 with Revato s compliment, "they live as an essential 
 element in your nation from antiquity who knows 
 how great? They are a precious treasure for any 
 race to possess, for by them it proves its true race- 
 hood. You have little idea how long study Aristo- 
 crates, my chief sculptor, and I spent in familiarizing 
 
 [39] 
 
 ourselves with the Jatakas before we attempted to 
 express any of them in stone. The process is vital, 
 not mechanical; the idea must become a part of self 
 and then self reproduces itself." 
 
 "You treat them more seriously than I supposed," 
 said Revato. "The stories are so very simple; 
 besides, few of the scenes that you have selected 
 contain a deep religious significance." 
 
 "You confound religion with philosophy, I fear," 
 replied Diomedes. "Philosophy is labored and 
 individual, Religion is nai ve and racial; for that 
 reason it is the harder to grasp if the form has all 
 one s life been familiar but the spirit has remained 
 a stranger." 
 
 "Is this like your buildings in Yonaloka?" 
 inquired Revato. 
 
 "So far as fitness allows. An exact copy of our 
 style would be absurd. The lotus-leaved capitals, 
 which you may have noticed on the columns of the 
 portico, are of new design. Agreeably to your 
 Eastern taste, I selected our most ornate type, but 
 it was necessary to substitute for the acanthus 
 leaves, which we imitate, some foliage pattern that 
 would be at home in Magadha. How are you 
 pleased with the statue of Buddho?" 
 
 "It is magnificent," Revato answered, "but 
 totally unlike the great Teacher as I have always 
 thought of him. You have made him look like a 
 god." 
 
 "You satisfy me with praise!" exclaimed Di 
 omedes. "It is a god that I have sought to make 
 him." 
 
 "Surely, then, you cannot have given the same 
 attention to the Suttas that you have spent upon 
 the Jatakas, for if you had, you would perceive how 
 alien is the Blessed One from such an imagery." 
 
 "Be assured that I did not lay the corner stone 
 the mangalitthaka, auspicious brick, as you would 
 say of the sangharama before I had made my 
 self adept in all the learning of your religion. Do 
 not I speak your language fairly well? This dex 
 terity was gained chiefly in doctrinal converse with 
 your monks. It is because I have seen and felt for 
 myself the divinity inherent in Gotamo Buddho 
 that I have sought to do him the tardy justice of 
 giving it expression. 
 
 "I fear that you will increase the growing ten 
 dency of the people to worship him," Revato 
 objected. 
 
 "Of course, men beholding this image will be 
 impelled to bow down before it, and they will be 
 inspired to high endeavor." 
 
 "Not height, but lowliness," said Revato, "was 
 taught by the Master. His life was spent in toil 
 some wanderings and humble labors of persuasion. 
 Habitually, he called himself the Tathagato, the 
 Likewise-Goer, he that cometh and passeth away as 
 do other men*." 
 
 *While a doubt of interpretation condones it, I like to retain 
 this favorite old one with the humble self-ascription. 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 "In his mildness there is strength," replied 
 Diomedes, "and in his humility there is the power of 
 a great god. Let his true nature be revealed. You 
 Buddhists must come to your own. You are worse 
 off than the Brahmins, who, whatever be their 
 foolishness, possess great, majestic devas. We 
 Hellenes know what it is to have gods, the noblest 
 of all the world. Have you never heard of Zeus or 
 of Poseidon, of Hera or of Pallas?" 
 
 "It seems to me, Sir, that you are playing with 
 fond ideas. Do you truly believe in the existence 
 of your gods, and if so, why? How can you take 
 for granted those of Jambudipa and even one whom 
 you are imagining and constructing for yourself?" 
 
 "Do I believe in my gods? Ask me whether I 
 believe in my state and in my city. Ask whether I 
 believe in my father and mother, my schoolmasters 
 and my boon friends. Ask me whether I believe in 
 sun and moon, in rain and snow, in winter and 
 harvest! My nation and my nation s deities are 
 inseparable; if one be true, so are both. How then 
 dare I deny the gods which stand likewise in the 
 history of an ancient, noble people such as the 
 Ariyas? How shall I fail to perceive the Divinity 
 who resides in that choicest flower of the Ariyan 
 Land, your Buddhist cult?" 
 
 "We, Buddhists," remarked Revato, "have gods 
 enough and to spare. Have you never learned the 
 nomenclature of our many Brahmalokas and 
 Devalokas with their teeming populations? The 
 Teacher made plain to us, however, that these beings 
 are no more worthy of devotion than ourselves." 
 
 "Yes," replied the builder, "you have purloined 
 the deities of the old religion only to treat them with 
 a contempt that is worse than denial. You alluded, 
 a moment ago, to Vissakammo, the heavenly archi 
 tect and artist. You would never think of praying 
 to him, would you? Now behold how differently 
 you and I look at such matters. Every morning, as I 
 enter this building, before I begin work, I implore 
 his divine will to direct my mind and eye, just as I 
 would seek that of Athene if I were still in Hellas." 
 
 "Then you seek assistance from one who is less 
 able to aid your skill than your meanest Sudda 
 laborer or Candala outcaste." 
 
 "By what power," asked Diomedes, "do you think 
 that my skill is created?" 
 
 "By the power of Kamma, Past Deeds, acting 
 effectively according to the Saddhamma, the Perfect 
 Law, which Buddho perceived and expounded to the 
 world.". 
 
 "Then you assume a law to be ultimate authority 
 that there is nothing behind it to which it owes 
 its existence?" 
 
 "I make no such assumption," answered Revato 
 after hesitation. "But if ever I try to think of the 
 Causal Power that can account for all which exists, 
 I am stupefied by the wonder of the idea which I 
 feel, but cannot grasp. The Blessed One, as you 
 know, disapproved of such speculations. He had 
 seen in our country too many fruitless flowers of 
 
 imagination which run riot in the regions beyond all 
 worlds. Some learned doctors spend their time 
 arguing that the world was self-produced, others 
 that it was produced by a force outside, others that 
 it came without a cause of any sort. The Brahmins, 
 versed in the Three Vedas, point out the way to a 
 state of union with Brahma, whom they neither 
 know nor have seen, who dwells with neither wives 
 nor wealth, who is free from malice, lust and pride, 
 from sloth and weakness. But these same Brahmins, 
 thought they profess a hope to attain unto him, 
 seek after wives and wealth; they are filled with 
 malice, lust and pride. The Teacher said that, 
 If anyone is to attain unto a state of union with 
 Brahma, it will not be he who claims to know all 
 about Brahma, but he who is like Brahma. And 
 again: Suppose a man wounded with a poisoned 
 arrow were to say : " I will not have this arrow drawn 
 until I know the caste of the man who shot it, his 
 stature, color and town; and by what kind of a bow 
 the arrow was impelled, with what sort of bow 
 string, feathered from what bird, bound with thongs 
 of what hide and headed with what manner of 
 point." That, would be just like saying, "I will not 
 lead the religious life under the Blessed One unless 
 he elucidate to me all the problems of metaphysics." 
 Whether the truth about them be this or that, 
 there still remain birth, old age, death, sorrow, 
 lamentation and despair. It is the way of escape 
 from these which the Buddho has made clear to us. 
 He deemed it prudent that instead of passing our 
 time in framing opinions on the nature of things and 
 divinities which we cannot know, we should devote 
 ourselves to cultivating those qualities of which we 
 assuredly know that they tend to a happy result." 
 
 "Well spoken!" exclaimed Diomedes, "and in a 
 sense true enough. We worship the gods, not as far- 
 off concepts of philosophy, but as the helpful friends 
 of our daily avocations, our sowing and our planting, 
 our building and adorning, our festivals and our 
 wars. But tell me, do you look for a state of union 
 with Brahma?" 
 
 "By no means," answered Revato, "since Buddha 
 declared that all brahmas, as well as devas, are 
 transitory creatures like ourselves. Neither believe 
 we in a Paramatta, a constant Soul of the Universe. 
 For we have learned that ourselves contain no atta 
 abiding thus distinct from the body, but that all 
 elements in our personality bear vital co-relations 
 and are dissolved together, though they be repro 
 duced in new births by kamma. With the fresh 
 body is born a fresh soul. Just so, we might imagine 
 an intelligence in the universe, which differs from 
 Paramatta as our mind differs from an atta, and 
 which dissolves and reproduces itself, with all visible 
 things, from kappa to kappa from aeon to aeon. 
 But even this would not lead us back to the Root 
 Cause." 
 
 "Have you ever heard the three Vedas recited?" 
 inquired Diomedes. 
 
 [40] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 "Much of them," Revato answered. "If, in their 
 oceans of falsehood, there is anything worth ponder 
 ing it is not the gods but Tad Ekam That One." 
 
 "To Evs, for Whom some among our philosophers 
 have sought," interjected Diomedes. 
 
 "He at Whom the Vedas hint in the awe of 
 mystery!" Revato continued. "I confess that He 
 has excited my wonder. Perhaps I am transgressing 
 the commandment of Buddho the monks that I 
 know would certainly think so but as I feel the 
 Teacher s spirit I don t think he intended the pre 
 cepts to be taken in a slavish sense we must be 
 slaves to our own conscience but not to any external 
 authority, even to his. Thus, I make bold to 
 cherish, rather than to stifle, my dark suspicions that 
 there is a Source whence all power proceeds." 
 
 "You hold, do you," asked Diomedes, "that 
 concerning the object of man s highest concern 
 he can have no specific knowledge?" 
 
 "I have always been alert for such knowledge," 
 answered Revato with a sigh, "but it has never 
 come my way." 
 
 "Such knowledge," Diomedes answered, "lies 
 ever ready for your taking if you do not expect to see 
 the bodily forms of the gods, but are content to 
 behold their works, to worship and honor them. 
 Attend to the words of a pandit who lived in my 
 country: 
 
 " He that orders and holds together the whole universe, in 
 which are all things beautiful and good, and Who preserves it 
 always unimpaired, undecaying, obeying His will swifter than 
 thought and without irregularity, is Himself manifested only in 
 the performance of His mighty works, but is invisible to us while 
 He regulates them. Consider also the sun, which appears manifest 
 to all, does not allow man to contemplate him too curiously, but 
 if anyone tries to gaze on him steadfastly, deprives him of sight. 
 The instruments of the deities you will find imperceptible. The 
 thunderbolt, though sent from above and working its will with 
 everything in its path, is yet never seen approaching or striking or 
 retreating. The winds too are invisible though their effects are 
 evident. The soul of man, moreover, which partakes of the divine 
 nature, if anything in man does, is clearly perceptible, but unseen. 
 Meditating on these facts, it behooves you not to despise the invis 
 ible gods but, estimating their power from what is done by them, 
 to reverence what is divine. " 
 
 "There is reason in what you say!" exclaimed 
 Revato with animation. "I follow your line of 
 thought. The Cause is known by its fruits. What 
 are the fruits? Are not all things that we behold 
 and perceive? Is not the Blessed Dhamma, the 
 Norm of Truth and holy living? Is not the Buddho 
 himself? Again, an object is wasted without a 
 subject, a fine spectacle without an appreciative 
 witness, sound without a hearer and light without a 
 seer. Does the great spectacle of the universe fall 
 only on blank, sightless space? Thus, while in some 
 ways we know little about Issaro, the great Owner, 
 about Sanang Kumaro, the Ever Young, yet in 
 other ways we know much of Him, since we know 
 what issued from His mind and what comes back to 
 rest there. Surely this is vast knowledge if thought 
 be the chief part of existence. With such knowl 
 edge, whether great or small, we must content our- 
 
 selves until further light shall appear, for the Tad 
 Ekam has so ordained it." 
 
 "You grasp my philosophy well," replied Di 
 omedes, "and your own is not ignoble; but both 
 yours and mine, as I said before, are matters quite 
 other than religion. This I should find it harder to 
 teach you. For religion to become truly a part of 
 one s life, he must have been born in Hellas. But 
 to give you further proof that our religion does not 
 cripple us in philosophy, let me entreat you to 
 come to my house some day when work is done, 
 and to read with me from the books of our sages." 
 
 "With utmost gladness," answered Revato, 
 "though I do not quite understand what it is that 
 you mean by the reading." 
 
 "I mean that the compositions of our munis are 
 preserved by writing them down on prepared skins 
 of animals, or fibres of river flags, from which we 
 read them." 
 
 "Like an edict or a memorial inscription on 
 stone or a business document or a letter?" 
 
 "Even so." 
 
 "And do you not know them all by heart; do not 
 your learned men?" 
 
 "Only such passages as are most often read and 
 may happen to become fixed in memory." 
 
 "I should think that the text would soon grow to 
 be very corrupt," said Revato. "It is only by 
 depending upon the agreement of learned memories 
 that mistakes can be kept out. If a book is written 
 down, errors will creep in, either inadvertently or 
 intentionally, and thus will be perpetuated because 
 no one is wise enough to correct them." 
 
 "Errors or no errors, I will hazard your judgment 
 upon my books as they stand," said Diomedes. 
 
 THE RELIGION OF BEAUTY 
 
 "Tell me," continued the architect after a mo 
 ment s pause, "whether having saturated your sight 
 with the work of our Ionian artists does not make 
 you feel gladder and better than you were before?" 
 
 "I cannot say that it does. Why should it?" 
 
 "Because beauty tends to elevate the soul. Every 
 noble cult expresses itself in stately rites, majestic 
 temples, choice words and sweet music. Religion 
 inspires art and art inspires religion." 
 
 "Quite otherwise, so far as I have observed," 
 answered Revato. "What you say may be true of 
 religion as it was long ago when men were happy 
 through ignorance and first sang the hymns of the 
 Three Vedas, pleasing to the ear but unsatisfying to 
 the thinking mind or the craving heart. Again, 
 there may be an art inspired by an old, degenerate, 
 formal religion, like that of the deva worshippers 
 to-day, fruitful in gorgeous gods houses and cere 
 monies, but powerless to mend the life. Otherwise, 
 with a vital religion, that is to say with our own, or 
 ours as it was in the beginning. Then the souls of 
 men were too earnest to concern themselves with 
 pleasing externals. They spoke in direct unadorned 
 language, anxious not to charm, but to instruct and 
 
 [4i 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 to convert. In the songs they sang was little room 
 for imagery and on their viharas, ornament would 
 have been considered sacrilege. Our forms are 
 becoming elaborate now, I grant you, but that is 
 because our early zeal is dying out and we are striv 
 ing by unworthy means to kindle our emotions. I 
 know little of religions in your country, but will 
 warrant that the same natural laws control as in 
 Jambudipa." 
 
 "If you lived in our country," said Diomedes, "we 
 should class you among those whom we call the 
 skeptics. They treat with contempt our national 
 faith and since they have arisen public morality has 
 seriously declined." 
 
 "I cannot dispute your assertion without knowing 
 the whole story," said Revato. "Are your skeptics 
 of that sort who deny religion altogether, or would 
 they destroy an old form in order to make way for a 
 better? May not the moral weakness of which you 
 speak be chargeable to the old religion itself? No 
 one could be bolder than our Buddho in denying 
 creeds, yet he did so in order that he might intro 
 duce a purer faith one by which public virtue has 
 been incalculably benefited." 
 
 Thus did Revato grope for a universal law which 
 even a broad knowledge of history can imperfectly 
 formulate, but which if framed might pierce the 
 mystery of our modern future: When popular 
 religious opinions are discredited, what is the moral 
 consequence to a race? 
 
 A hiatus in the colloquy ensued, then the elder man 
 spoke: 
 
 "My name, as you may be aware, is Diomedes 
 and yours?" 
 
 "Revato," answered he that bore it, "Revato, a 
 layman, commonly known as Yuvano, collector of 
 Royal revenues at Rajagaha." 
 
 "Ah, you are the acquaintance of all others that 
 I am gratified at having made," said Diomedes 
 good humoredly. "Royal customs are the most 
 important factor in our new building, and of late 
 they have been the most difficult to come by. You 
 know," he went on to explain, "that there is a strong 
 cabal in the palace, directed against the King, and 
 Prince Dasaratho is believed to be its instigator. 
 Since he became heir apparent, he cannot content 
 himself to wait for the death of his grandfather. 
 The disaffected ones are raising the cry of extrava 
 gance and trying to make the people think that 
 Asoko s mind has become too feeble to administer 
 the government. He is well aware of the conspiracy 
 but is meeting it only by conciliation both weak and 
 impolitic. He has yielded by reducing expendi 
 tures, and has begun to do so at the wrong end, in 
 fact, by cutting down the appropriations for com 
 pletion of our work. He intends to go on as usual 
 with his lavish charities for eking out the miser 
 able, useless lives of slaves and vile beasts in his 
 hospitals, and to let the finest artistic and spiritual 
 embodiment in all Magadha be born an incomplete, 
 deformed monster." 
 
 "I rather think," said Revato, "that were I in 
 the King s position I would do the same." 
 
 I can place myself at your point of view," replied 
 Diomedes, "but did you occupy mine, you would 
 see as I do. I could exhaust my powers of mind in 
 pity for the fallen and suffering, but I know that it 
 is better to husband my energies for the accomplish 
 ment of great purposes to elevate those who stand. 
 Our efforts for the good of the world must be applied 
 where they will be most effective, and that is only 
 by encouraging those who are capable of exerting 
 efforts in turn. The great benignant power of this 
 structure, to which I devote the most magnificent 
 thoughts that are in me, you may not clearly per 
 ceive, but let me tell you that it is worth the lives of 
 many human beings of many noble and competent 
 lives, not to mention the mean and impotent and 
 more than all the jackals, elephants, apes and other 
 beasts from Ganga to Himava." 
 
 "Your work on this chapel," remarked Revato, 
 "does not appear to be suffering from lack of funds. 
 Pray, how can you get along so well without them?" 
 
 "We are not getting along without them. But to 
 enter into full explanations would be indiscreet, 
 even with so good a confident as yourself. Suffice it 
 to say, that more than one blind cat and singed 
 monkey and barren hen in the royal asylums is on 
 short rations and that I confess to certain words 
 and acts of a prudent financial wisdom dissimilar 
 from that which philosophical pedagogues recom 
 mend to beardless youth." 
 
 "If such be the case," answered Revato, "I 
 advise that you convert this place into an Ajlvaka 
 or a Nigantha temple rather than complete it as a 
 hall for the Assembly of the Saints." 
 
 "Was ever any great work accomplished," replied 
 Diomedes persuasively, "without disadvantage to 
 some and without straining a point here and there? 
 If we were unwilling to sacrifice or ignore ethical 
 theories when occasion demanded, we could accom 
 plish nothing. In every path of progress we can find 
 plenty of such obstacles if we keep our eyes on the 
 ground rather than steadfastly on the goal ahead. 
 What are we to conclude then? That all efforts 
 must be given up, all hope abandoned? No, rather 
 that something is amiss in our moral notions. And 
 here, if you will have it, is the solution: that things 
 right and wrong cannot be judged apart from their 
 surroundings, but we must ask whether they show 
 symmetry and harmony where they stand, and we 
 must consider the purpose to which they are put. 
 Excellence and evil reside, not in the essence of 
 qualities, but in their proportion and balance; good 
 and bad are those mixtures that are properly or 
 inordinately blended. In this world where justice 
 must have bold defenders, of what use would be a 
 man who was all love and no hate? Virtue is that 
 which promotes the maximum efficiency, and a 
 virtuous act is one that tends to a worthily effective 
 result. If men would not kill how could they ever 
 go to war?" 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 "Why should they go?" asked Revato. 
 
 "Ah, I perceive, you do not believe in war either. 
 But suppose a country were invaded by a hostile army 
 which was burning its cornfields and roofs and put 
 ting its inhabitants to the sword would you not 
 sympathize with the people in their resistance?" 
 
 "In such event," said Revato, "I should sym 
 pathize, though I might not approve. Likewise I 
 would applaud, in emotion, though not in judgment, 
 if an assassin were to strike down an oppressor. In 
 no circumstances could I rightfully take life myself, 
 yet there are conditions under which I might behold 
 another taking life without an effort to prevent. If 
 there were a cruel king accustomed to torture his 
 subjects, it would not be for me to slay him; but if 
 a rising river were about to engulf him, or if a tiger 
 from the forest were about to seize him, I should 
 feel no obligation to warn him of his danger. Simi 
 larly, if desperate men were about to destroy one 
 who lived to inflict pain on others, I should look 
 upon the slayers with gratification as on the element 
 al forces of Nature, which it was not my duty to 
 oppose. Nay, perhaps, I might remonstrate with 
 them, for their own sakes, but I would not lift a 
 finger to defeat their purpose." 
 
 "Your error," said Diomedes suavely, "lies in 
 egotism." "If evil, as you regard it, has to be done in 
 the world, why should you selfishly demand for 
 yourself an immaculacy denied to your fellows?" 
 
 "I understand your words," answered Revato, 
 "and they may be true. To you they seem clear; 
 but they are like the entrance of a great cavern 
 whose dark windings no man can fully explore." 
 
 "Furthermore, friend Revato," said Diomedes, 
 "you err through looking at pain in a wrong light. 
 It is the stuff whereof happiness is made. In travail 
 are brought forth all noble creatures and in anguish 
 are wrought all sublime works. I sometimes wonder 
 if the marble from which we carve our columns and 
 statues does not emit an inaudible groan at every 
 blow of the mallet. But as I watch the workman 
 with a well-aimed stroke drive his chisel into the 
 firm stone, cutting a clear, fair, faultless line, I 
 think: Truly a virtuous act. " 
 
 "A virtuous act must be a kind act," said Revato. 
 
 Diomedes responded by leading him to an alcove 
 where one of his sculptors was engaged in modeling 
 an image of a deer impaled on the stake of a pitfall. 
 Before him, as a pattern, in the same agonizing 
 situation, like a bassia flower on its stalk, quivered a 
 live doe. 
 
 Revato s impulse was to spring forward and re 
 move it from the stake, but Diomedes, anticipat 
 ing the effect of the spectacle upon him, held him 
 firmly by the arm, saying: 
 
 "Tears and blood, my friend, are the sap of 
 civilization s tree. What are the present pains 
 of this creature compared with the exquisite and 
 enobling feelings which her image, wrought out 
 with all its ideal meanings, will bring to the multi 
 tudes who behold it for centuries to come?" 
 
 "Are you a god," cried Revato, "that you pre 
 sume to know the future and, for the sake of a 
 conjectural good, perpetrate certain cruelties?" 
 
 " Pooh ! pooh ! it is only an animal," said Diomedes. 
 
 Then commandingly, he led Revato away from 
 the dumb martyr and back to the Buddho statue. 
 
 The dimming light and a sensation of impatience 
 among the workmen now warned of the day s end. 
 Before quitting for the night, attempt was made 
 to shift the position of the Buddho image in order to 
 get better light for future operations upon it. 
 
 As the men were moving the heavy marble block 
 on its rollers, one of the helpers, a brown Pukkasa 
 outcaste, awkwardly allowed it to slip, and it fell 
 tilting against a column. In so doing, it caught the 
 right arm of a Yonaka sculptor and held him pain 
 fully pinioned. The terrified native grasped a 
 wooden rail and with frantic clumsiness endeavored 
 to right the statue, impeding the efforts of everyone 
 else. 
 
 "My poor Aristocrates!" exclaimed the architect. 
 "The only carver at this end of the world who is able 
 to realize my great conception! That arm is worth 
 a kingdom." 
 
 Moving, as he spoke, calmly but quickly, Diomed 
 es snatched a mallet and with a blow full in the face 
 of the Pukkasa laid him bleeding on the floor. 
 Then, with an adroitly placed lever, he pried up the 
 statue and released the arm of Aristocrates. Most 
 tenderly the architect examined and bandaged his 
 skilled assistant s wound, which upon inspection 
 promised only temporary disuse of the deft member. 
 Meanwhile the other helpers, with sullen looks and 
 mutterings, carried their comrade out of the Sala." 
 
 Revato had witnessed the tragedy silently and 
 with feelings which resolved themselves into a sick 
 heaviness. It was all over in a monemt, and then 
 there was nothing that he could do. With expressive 
 wordlessness, he turned his back on Diomedes and 
 walked with downcast eyes toward the door of the 
 chapel. 
 
 "What holy meditation engulfs the Layman 
 Revato so deeply that he will not notice his friends?" 
 
 At the speaker Revato looked up, and Prote stood 
 before him. Her face was lit by the fire of sunset 
 but it seemed to be her spirit glowing through. 
 Prote of the dawn had become Prote of the dusk. 
 
 "Has he not found cheerful companions this day?" 
 she continued, filling up his void of answer. 
 
 "I have met two monks from my own city who 
 were better than cheerful; they were wise." 
 
 "Pray, what wisdom did you learn from them?" 
 
 "I learned that womenkind are of two different 
 sorts and that of one sort are they who make them 
 selves familiar in their greetings to strangers." 
 
 Prote disdained to answer this remark except by 
 a contemptuous snort; her experience in viewpoints 
 enabled her to let it pass without resentment. 
 
 "You are welcome to the Parayana Sangharama," 
 she continued, after a pause, magnanimously. 
 
 [43] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 "Come, my father will exhibit it to you if he has not 
 done so already," and she led Revato, willy-nilly, 
 back to the statue where Diomedes stood. 
 
 "Well, child, you are late to-night," was his 
 complaisant greeting. Then to Revato. "My 
 daughter often bears me company to the island in the 
 morning or comes thus in the evening to follow me 
 home after the day s work. Her name is Prote 
 The First and truly so, for everything is second to 
 her inimitable grace. Second, not inferior, I hope, 
 will be this younger daughter of mine, this marble 
 Sala," he added. 
 
 "I stopped near Gotamo s Gate," said Prote, 
 "to look at an exhibition given by a man who is 
 traveling about with a panorama; but I did not 
 care to stay for the whole show. It was horrid. 
 What do you suppose, father, was the subject? 
 Why, all sorts of tortures taking place in the Buddh 
 ist hells! Such discomforts may be well enough 
 for those who deserve them, but I m sure that I 
 don t, so why should I distress myself thinking 
 about them?" 
 
 On the ground beside her a pool of blood left by 
 the Pukkasa spread itself trickling over the floor 
 and saturated the heaps of white dust. Would 
 Prote notice it? wondered Revato. Anon her eye 
 fell upon it, and presently, with a long splinter 
 dipped in the viscuous fluid, she began to trace 
 on the marble pavement letters of some foreign 
 character. "She cannot realize what it is," he re 
 flected, "for if she did she would ask questions 
 about it." 
 
 "Let us ferry you back to the town in our boat," 
 said Diomedes to Revato. "Our Hellenic workmen 
 are more adept oarsmen than your people, and 
 though they are tired from the day s work they will 
 give us an exhilarating passage to land." 
 
 "My own boatman awaits me," answered Revato. 
 That was all the reply he intended to make, but after 
 holding his breath, as a locus penitentiae, he affixed 
 a belated sequel: "With your offer before me, I will 
 dismiss him." 
 
 An unheroic spectacle he makes, whoever breaks 
 his resolves, juggles with his conscience and, hesitat 
 ingly weak, yields to temptation. Yet distinguish 
 we must between him who thus enters upon evil 
 when his self-condemnation is reenforced by that 
 of mankind, and him who recedes somewhat from 
 a super-righteous isolation by doing acts that the 
 world approves. The way of the ethical pioneer 
 is lonely and well may cause misgivings. Where 
 questions of conduct are nicely poised, why 
 blame if sometimes they oscillate? That which 
 discredits the will may do praise to the analytical 
 faculty. An ever determined will presupposes a 
 habit of snap judgments. So much in excuse for 
 Revato. 
 
 Across the sounding porch they fared together, 
 and through the courts and gates to the landing 
 place. Here waited a beautiful little boat, built on 
 lines unknov/n to the rivers of Jambudlpa; its prow 
 
 was painted with a name in Yonaka characters and 
 sculptured with the image of a fish-tailed woman 
 who evidently belonged to some Yonka race of 
 water Nagis or Asuris. This craft Diomedes boarded, 
 and Prote and Revato, with two stout lonians to 
 man the oars, while the majority of workmen 
 attended in a heavier vessel. Heading upstream, 
 they pulled against the ragged current. To this 
 hardy exercise the men in the large boat struck 
 up a boisterous song which, in their hoarse 
 voices, hardly seemed to be of the same language 
 as Prote s, but which thrilled, if not informed 
 Revato: 
 
 "Why mix the great bowl, heavily laboring, 
 All day from sunrise wasting in drunkenness? 
 Why spare to launch forth where the sea is waiting us 
 What time the cold morn wind is a-freshing? 
 
 "Aboard! Be quick! Grasp hold on the governail! 
 Cast loose the bow-line! Trim her to windward! 
 Deep water s wine more strong for activity; 
 Light thought is wind-born, making for merriment." 
 
 The opposing water let the boat hold little momen 
 tum and each quick oar-stroke caused a distinct in 
 crement of progress, which was celebrated in the 
 stress of the rhythm. 
 
 Prote sat silently by Diomedes on the stern thwart 
 and Revato forward where he could watch her face 
 lighted by the low, red sun from which she shielded 
 her eyes. 
 
 At Gotamo s Ferry landing a palanquin with 
 bearers was waiting to carry the girl back to the 
 city and her father walked beside her. 
 
 "My house," said Diomedes to Revato, "stands 
 on the fourth street east of the city gate next the 
 palace entrance and on the left as you go toward the 
 market; you may recognize it by the bust of Pallas 
 Athene or by the bronze lion s head knocker on the 
 door, if that is a more familiar image. The third day 
 of the next pakkha fortnight is a holiday when 
 my lonians will do no work, neither shall I after noon. 
 Come then, if it suits you, and I will show you the 
 books of which I spoke, beside other interesting 
 things which will repay your examination." 
 
 "I will come," promised Revato. Then they 
 separated. 
 
 The sinuous way, among the closely-built houses, 
 by which Revato strolled back to his lodging seemed 
 all too short for the joy of walking, and he took a few 
 additional turns before he entered. All the day had 
 become a blank in his memory, up to the time of 
 Prote s appearance in the Sala, and the only scene 
 since then that persistently recurred to him was her 
 mute presence in the boat as it rhythmically ad 
 vanced toward the setting sun. 
 
 When at last, reluctantly, he entered the house 
 for his night s meal and shelter, his poor companion 
 Dukkho was nowhere to be discerned. He failed to 
 notice the loss. 
 
 44] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 EARTH 
 
 I will sing of the Earth, All-Mother, eldest among the Immortals, 
 Who all that fare on the ground, in the sea or the volatile airways 
 Nourisheth well for their need and filleth with food from her 
 
 storehouse. 
 
 Joyful by thee are men in their offspring and happy in harvests 
 Guardian of life till thou takest away the boon thou hast given. 
 Happy the sons whom thy favor hath guerdoned with manifold 
 
 riches, 
 Many which grow in their fields, many which graze on their 
 
 meadows. 
 
 Govern they well in the town, habitation of exquisite women, 
 Laden with honors and wealth but light in the sports of their 
 
 children. 
 
 Gaily their girls bedecked on the floreal swards go dancing. 
 Such are the sons of thy favor whom ageless Immortals call 
 
 Mother. 
 Whatso the song I be singing, still may I keep thee in memory. 
 
 WATER 
 
 It was Prote, the YonakI, who as well as she might 
 in the soft oozing Pali, which cleaves to the tongue, 
 interpreted to Revato this vivacious hymn of her 
 race. 
 
 He had met her at Gotamo s Ferry that morning 
 as she was rowed from the Parayana island by the 
 Yonaka servant in the marvelous little boat whose 
 emblem was the Water Nagi. 
 
 "Kuhing yasi king etang? Where are you going?" 
 she had asked him. 
 
 "I am looking for my dog, who has run away from 
 me," Revato had answered. 
 
 "This is not the place to find him," she retorted 
 pertly. "I doubt that you are very anxious about 
 it, anyway." 
 
 "I assure you that I am," he insisted with stupid 
 hypocrisy. 
 
 "I have a fondness for dogs, too," said Prote 
 relenting. "They are so susceptible of culture; they 
 take such an appreciative interest in everything 
 that goes on." 
 
 "When I was a child," remarked Revato, encour 
 aged, "I loved them most for the sport of hunting 
 fleas in their hair. It is so exciting to discover the 
 slippery little brown insects and pursue them from 
 place to place in the furry jungle, losing track of 
 them at times and then, by a judicious movement 
 in advance, cutting off their retreat. And when 
 you have them captured, what a delightful little snap 
 they give as they burst between your thumb nails! 
 Yes, I confess that I enjoyed this wicked practice 
 when I was a child. Children are by nature cruel, 
 no doubt because of their nearness to the savage or 
 the wild beast which they have been in former 
 births. It is surprising how our dispositions change 
 with years. Not since long ago could I have brought 
 myself to hunt or injure any living creature. But I 
 err in speaking of beasts as characteristically cruel, 
 since they kill for necessary food and to defend them- 
 
 [45 
 
 selves, whereas man often kills and maims from 
 sheer wantonness. Few men, moreover, are so altru 
 istic as most dogs." 
 
 "Did you ever hear of Odysseus dog," asked 
 Prote, " which died from joy for him when he returned 
 home to Ithaca after twenty years war and wander 
 ing? Had that creature lived, I am sure that it would 
 have followed its restless master on that new and last 
 voyage which he made out into the unknown West. 
 For you know that to Odysseus there was no repose 
 in the fulfilment of his life s labors but only a yearn 
 ing after a still worthier attainment that lay beyond." 
 
 "Like the sons of Pandu in the story of the Great 
 Bharato which the Brahmins tell," said Revato. 
 "Have you heard how they forsook the country whose 
 throne they had reclaimed, finding that therein was 
 no abiding satisfaction? How they set forth on foot, 
 to cross Himavanta and the waterless desert in 
 search for Indo s heaven? And how, one by one, 
 they fell in the sand till only the leader and the dog 
 kept on? And then how the master refused to enter 
 Paradise if his brute follower must remain behind? 
 This, I hold to be a rarer example of fidelity than 
 yours of the dog which died for joy, because the 
 parties were reversed." 
 
 "On my way to Jambudlpa," replied Prote, "I 
 passed through the city which Alexander named for 
 his dog Peritas." 
 
 They were reaching the limit of dog stories by this 
 time but Revato thought to mention Suko s white 
 terrier which sat upon its bench, eating from a plate, 
 and barked at Buddho. The Blessed One explained 
 that excessive riches in a former life had brought 
 this animal to its present low estate, whereupon the 
 creature went moping. 
 
 "What a foolish tale!" exclaimed Prote. "But 
 tell me, Layman Revato, what is your dog s name?" 
 
 "He is a melancholy being who followed me on a 
 terrible occasion, and I call him Dukkho, Anguish." 
 
 " By all means then, do not try to find him. Come 
 rather with me and enter the Nereid, my boat, 
 while Nereus, the oarsman, propels us on a little 
 pleasure voyage where the banks are green." 
 
 "What will the people say of us!" exclaimed 
 Revato, aghast. 
 
 "If neither Helen or Penelope would have said 
 aught unkind, I shall not trouble myself about 
 barbarians," retorted Prote. 
 
 Accordingly, they arranged themselves in the skiff, 
 Prote on the stern thwart with her maid, lasis, 
 holding to shade her a white native parasol, while 
 Nereus rowed amidships and Revato sat in the bow 
 to balance. It was an easy drift down-stream on 
 the headstrong Ganga nadi. Lest they should 
 throw too great a burden on the return trip, they 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 branched off into the affluent Hirannabahu the 
 Golden Armed whose ripples sparkled aureate-red 
 with the soils which it had drained. For a long time 
 they were passing the high, far-stretching, many- 
 towered city wall, the vast palace group, the tall 
 monolithic pillars and the massive thupas, by which 
 Revato had come on his night arrival at Pataliputta. 
 
 "The people already say that these gigantic piles 
 must have been heaped up by yakkhas genii," 
 observed Revato. "Have you in Yonaloka anything 
 to compare with them?" 
 
 "Anything in Ionian land to compare with the 
 work of barbarians!" sneered Prote; but she added, 
 "If crude and grotesque, they are at least praise 
 worthy for bigness. A story has reached the Aegean 
 shore, that your Pataliputta is the greatest work of 
 Herakles." 
 
 "Who was Herakles and what was he like?" 
 Revato asked her. 
 
 "What was Herakles like?" echoed Prote. "Oh, 
 he was like the Architect Diomedes." 
 
 Finally, after skirting the town palisade for almost 
 a yojana seven miles they crept out in the open 
 country where the banks of the stream grew fair to 
 behold. 
 
 Along the margin, with its rising hollow bubbles, 
 grew hollow reeds suggestive to Revato of human 
 life and to Prote of Pan flutes; while over them hung 
 an indescribable medley of branch and creeper in the 
 profusion of tropical autumn. Sometimes the shores 
 opened up into pleasant groves containing all manner 
 of trees: the luscious amba, jambu and banana; 
 the flowering mandarava; the red-blossoming palasa 
 or phandana; the stately tala, fan palm; the fragrant 
 candana and campaka; the useful saka, teak; and one 
 bend in the shore disclosed a forest of the segre- 
 garious strong sala with its green-blue bark and 
 lustrous white leaves. Occasionally would appear a 
 massive Nigrodha, banyan, spreading out with his 
 arched avenues of down-dropped saplings, while 
 planted close beside him grew his consort, the As- 
 sattha, Buddho s Wisdom Tree, with her delicate, 
 quivering, sparkling foliage. 
 
 Beneath the trees strutted sundry mayuras, pea 
 cocks, spreading wide their plumage to display those 
 beauty spots which to Revato s instructed fancy 
 were candakas, full moon shapes, but which Prote 
 explained as the eyes of earth-born Argos, implanted 
 there by Hera. All lovely things, the layman warned 
 her, were of the earth, earthy. 
 
 "Attend the strident peacocks while they spring, 
 With gaudy crest and beautiful dark wing; 
 
 In blatant voice they cry. 
 
 Like them this great bright earth with grass bedecked, 
 Its glancing waters, fleecy clusters flecked 
 
 On all-pervading sky." 
 
 Often the branches held straw baskets placed by 
 the villagers as shelter for birds; or there were seen 
 lying ball oblations of food, tokens of a simple ritual 
 devotion to the rukkhadevata, the nymphean 
 denizens of the trees. 
 
 Buddho, by his commandments, had protected 
 vegetation from wanton destruction because it was 
 food for sentient creatures, but his simple disciples 
 found in the still life of the woodland other grounds 
 for respect, investing it with mysteries, hoary by 
 antiquity as the doting old religion which the En 
 lightened One had confuted with scorn. 
 
 His countrymen s childish superstitions put Re 
 vato on the apologetic to Prote apology, it must 
 be admitted, rather to save himself by inviting her 
 derision of them. She, however, saw no reason for 
 contempt, but was interested in their simple druid- 
 ism and encouraged him to tell her stories about 
 the native dryads, the rukkhadevata. 
 
 A sacred mukkhaka tree, as he related, had, in a 
 past eternity, been selected by carpenters for lum 
 ber, but Bodhisatto, shaped as a chameleon, gnawed 
 holes in it which made it appear rotten, thus saving 
 the indwelling fairy and her children. 
 
 Bodhisatto himself was once a sprite in a sala 
 forest of Himavanta and he advised his kinsfolk to 
 inhabit trees that stood close together; some, how 
 ever, neglecting his counsel, chose great solitary 
 trees in the populated open and were destroyed by 
 their unsupported fall in a storm. 
 
 The denizen of a pucimanda or nimba tree under 
 which a robber had taken refuge warned him away 
 lest if he were captured there, a stake on which to 
 impale him should be cut from the tree, to its 
 destruction. 
 
 In a nigrodha lived a dryad to whom the squire 
 of a little village offered a sacrifice of slain crea 
 tures, that he might obtain release from a vow; but 
 this, the angel told him, was not the way to ensure 
 the true Release. 
 
 Villagers, at a festival, were offering to their tree 
 nymphs garlands, odors, perfumes and cakes, but 
 one poor man, bringing to a castor-oil tree only a tiny 
 husk loaf and some water, feared that the deity 
 would disdain it and concluded to eat it himself. 
 "Why rob me of my portion?" she asked him, and 
 favored him by showing where, buried around the 
 trunk, were pots of gold neck to neck. 
 
 All these little histories dated from the ages of 
 the past, but even in modern times, it was said, the 
 tree spirits sometimes manifested their presence to 
 mankind. When the eloquent nun Sukka, a dis 
 ciple of the Buddho, was dwelling in her hermitage 
 near Rajagaha, a rukkhadevata domiciled near her 
 accustomed walk, upon overhearing her words, 
 quitted the tree and entering the town, summoned 
 all men to come and learn from Sukka. 
 
 Sylvan fantasies such as these had indeed for 
 Revato a certain seriousness, because they suggested 
 the extent and community of life in which lay a 
 great mystery. Still he placed so little credence in 
 them that he was astonished to find Prote attending 
 to them as one who believed them. They brought 
 to her mind, moreover, arboreal legends from her 
 own land, which were dear to her and very real. The 
 quiet life of the trees, she said, was the animation of 
 
 [46] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 immortal gods who might be drawn into communion 
 through their particular forest symbols. Thus, the 
 stout oak was upheld by the Sky Father, the laurel 
 had been planted by him who crowns the Muses, 
 among the cultured olive trees dwelt the Wise and 
 Skillful Goddess, while in the demure myrtle lurked 
 the coy Lady of Love. In Prote s country the river 
 banks were lined with tall, melancholy poplars, 
 because they grew so along the stream of the Under 
 World, where the daughter of Demeter had been 
 led as a captive bride. 
 
 Yes, and many of these trees, generically or indi 
 vidually, held their tragic histories of life human or 
 semi-divine, for they were men or women trans 
 formed into such shapes in perpetual retribution or 
 memorial. So Prote went on to tell Revato of 
 Daphne who, to hide from Apollo, was changed 
 into a laurel, her arms its limbs, her hair its leaves; 
 of Cyparissus who, bewailing a sacred stag which his 
 dart had pierced, became a cypress tree that he 
 might mourn forever; of Phillis who, self-hanged 
 through the fickleness of Demophon, revived as an 
 almond tree; of the shepherd Attis who was saved 
 from vengeance for his aspiration to a princess by 
 metamorphosis into a pine; of another shepherd 
 who, mocking and terrifying the nymphs in their 
 haunts, was transfixed as the bitter wild olive; how 
 Clymene s daughters, lamenting their brother Phae 
 ton, who had been hurled into Eridamus, remained 
 standing on its banks as poplars; how Rhoecus, 
 saving an oak tree, won in love its hamadryad but 
 lost her by his inconstancy and his thoughtless 
 injury of her messenger, the bee; how Pyramus, in 
 mistaken grief over Thisbe s lion-rent veil, purpled 
 with his ground-going life-blood the fruit of the 
 mulberry, and how Thisbe, as she slew herself for 
 him, turned it by her prayers to a funereal black. 
 
 At one point on the bank of the stream a column 
 of smoke was ascending and, on coming nearer, the 
 boat party passed a group of Brahmins putting to 
 death a goat in sacrifice to their cruel devas. Per 
 haps it was a feast for departed kinsmen, or per 
 chance to appease the consciences of the wealthy 
 living. 
 
 "To save a life," remarked Revato, "would do 
 more good than to destroy a thousand." 
 
 "You are ignorant," answered Prote, "of the 
 wisdom of the gods, whose will it is that we appeal to 
 them by such means. Are you and I to set our com 
 monplace shrewdness above the mysteries of the 
 Immortals? And if a friend from whom we had 
 received immeasurable kindness all our lives were 
 to come to our house as a guest, should we not esteem 
 it inhospitable, to say the least, if we refused him a 
 banquet? Ah, if you could only know the sacred 
 grandeur amid which we make our offerings to Zeus 
 and to Apollo, you would be lifted where the value 
 of a goat s life is nothing to be considered." 
 
 In another sheltered spot, some men of the lowest 
 class were watching a ram fight and prodding on the 
 two staggering, blood-blinded brutes. 
 
 "Another unlawful cruelty," Revato observed. 
 "In the old days there used to be fights of elephants 
 and all sorts of animals. There were races between 
 them too, which, if less cruel, were more foolish 
 between mixed teams of horses and oxen, for ex 
 ample." 
 
 Prote did not answer his remark; she was too 
 much interested in looking at the duel of the rams. 
 Much to his disgust, she commanded Nereus to 
 slacken on the oars until it should be assured 
 whether the white one or the black one would come 
 
 out victor. 
 
 LAND 
 
 After they had witnessed the sickening finish and 
 pulled on some distance further, Prote thought they 
 had gone far enough, so the party landed near a 
 highway bridge where stood a solitary rest house in 
 the cool of some simbali, silk-cotton trees, whose 
 shadows on the grass looked black against the sun 
 light that sifted down through their leaves. 
 
 There was a sugar factory nearby and beside it 
 men were mixing flour and cane dust with the 
 molasses. Prote commanded Revato to fetch her 
 some of this pasty compound, but it failed to please 
 her taste and she bestowed it upon lasis. 
 
 Revato s eye now fell upon a basket fish trap 
 fastened in the river, and after investigation he set 
 free its captive inmates. "How I envy them their 
 freedom!" he remarked. 
 
 "Is stealing other men s fishes your idea of 
 honesty?" inquired Prote. 
 
 "To liberate them is right if done from a motive 
 of compassion," he replied. "Buddho himself 
 released an ensnared deer. Fortunately this fish 
 trap is a painless one; but have you ever thought of 
 the pitfalls of sharp stakes, and the like, on which, 
 in every forest, numberless innocent animals are 
 caused to suffer for days, condemned to a death such 
 as we shudder to inflict on robbers and men slay 
 ers? When I was a very young lad I made a gin 
 which I set for a rat, and promptly forgot it. Two 
 or three days later I found it with the poor creature 
 caught by its leg, which, under the excruciating 
 pressure, had withered and dried while I was taking 
 my careless ease. Remorse has followed me ever 
 since." 
 
 They now refreshed themselves at a wayfarer s 
 well and plucked fruit from a public amba tree. 
 One particular mango coveted by Prote defied all 
 efforts at its capture. 
 
 "Why is your heart set upon that special fruit?" 
 Revato asked her. 
 
 "Because it is like one you know, sir," she an 
 swered. 
 
 "Far on the branch swings a sweet fruit 
 
 Close to the end. 
 
 Gatherers passed, missing to find 
 
 Missing it not 
 
 Nay, for it hung quite out of reach." 
 
 It was past mid-day, the hot hour when Nature 
 rested. The bee slept in the hollow chamber of the 
 
 [47] 
 
In the third part of the pageant the religious and aca 
 demic aspects of the thirteenth century find their representa 
 tion in scenes where Roger Bacon holds the center of the 
 stage. Had men been asked in Bacon s time to name the 
 greatest figure in the learned world they would not have 
 mentioned the English friar. They would have pointed to 
 Albert the Great, or to Thomas Aquinas. 
 
 It is Thomas, therefore, greatest of the Schoolmen, the 
 recognized philosopher of the Roman Church, who speaks 
 the prologue to the scenes he yields to Bacon. His talent 
 was early apparent in Italy, his home-land; it was disci 
 plined under Albert the Great in Cologne and Paris; it came 
 to its full manifestation in the "Summa" it created for all 
 the world. As a teacher, Thomas not only convinced his 
 hearers, but he stirred them as well. As a writer, he pre 
 sented the articles of his faith, in question and answer, 
 reasoned with all the skill and rigor of the logic of deduc 
 tion, yet he disguised none of the difficulties which its ene 
 mies might suggest; but he had such command of the teach 
 ings of the ancients and of his contemporaries, and so fused 
 them with the spark of his own genius that he overcame his 
 critics, and left behind him the "final construction of the 
 mediaeval Christian scheme." 
 
 4 8 
 
PART III 
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 THOMAS AQUINAS 
 
 Of those who in a troubled age were caught 
 Between two currents of contending truth, 
 I was the reconciler. One way the Church 
 Drew us, the faith delivered to the saints, 
 And one way drove the mind of Aristotle. 
 
 Hither by hands Arabian Avicenna, 
 
 Averroes, came his philosophy, 
 
 A Grecian gift, pleasant and perilous. Then 
 
 Young Abelard, the questioner, who would gauge 
 
 By reason the furthest mysteries of heaven, 
 
 Not in a glass darkly, but face to face 
 
 Daring to look on God. That humble man, 
 
 Peter the Lombard, for a widow s mite 
 
 Then gave to Holy Church the Sentences, 
 
 To lay the reckless seas Abelard raised. 
 
 Albert the Great, that strong intelligence, 
 
 My master, then arose, who greatly toiled 
 
 To show truth single in the universe, 
 
 And the Philosopher, where true at all, 
 
 One with the Fathers and with Holy Writ. 
 
 His task I finished, Thomas of Aquino, 
 
 And wed indissolubly our ancient faith 
 
 Forever with her ancient enemy. 
 
 I showed the power of reason not, like Abelard, 
 
 Making presumptuous mockery of heaven, 
 
 But in its realm ; and where the borders lie 
 
 I showed, between what man himself can know, 
 
 And what is knowable, but not by man, 
 
 And what no man discovers, but receives 
 
 From Power, Wisdom, Love, which three God is. 
 
 Nature and God make nothing vain; all light 
 
 Is to be walked in. Yet illusion oft 
 
 This sin-enchanted world deceives ; not all 
 
 That shining seems, is light. And oft our wills 
 
 Are partisan, less loyal to the truth 
 
 Than to its radiant ministers. Foothills 
 
 Of reason we can climb, therefrom discern 
 
 Mountains unclimbed, and further heights therefrom 
 
 Argue, though not discerned. Reason alone 
 
 Walks lowly ; winged with faith, it guides toward heaven. 
 
 See now a man whose reason guides toward earth, 
 And truth he yearns to worship in this world. 
 
 (Exit) 
 
 49 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 folly to set store by them. Did you never hear the 
 song of the beautiful nun Khema? Listen then: 
 
 " Thou art youthful and fair; I likewise am young and for 
 
 pleasures. 
 Khema, come joy to the five-fold musical measures. 
 
 " There is nothing, she said, for this pestilent carcass but 
 
 spurning. 
 When I think how it rots, my heart is assuaged from its yearning. 
 
 " Like a burrowing dart, like a poignard, reeking and frightful, 
 Such is life-love to me, and I loathe what for thee is delightful. 
 
 " Now ruined is pleasure, the stronghold of Dark is destroyed. 
 
 Sinful, O Death, be it known thy dominion is void. " 
 
 "You reach your conclusions by an ill road," 
 retorted Prote, "and it is a way which I decline to 
 travel. Let us forswear melancholy themes. There 
 was once a man in my country who had some of your 
 gloomy notions, and even though they were tainted 
 with no such loathsomeness, but were quite pleasant 
 ly expressed, the people found that he was a menace 
 to society, he was corrupting the youth of the city; 
 so they put him out of the way." 
 
 "What harm did they see in him?" 
 
 "He was personally ugly, which was the lesser 
 grievance. His views were not wholly to be con 
 demned, for they showed genius, and they per 
 formed the good office of all dark things, in furnish 
 ing a background for the bright. Nevertheless they 
 were untrue." 
 
 "In what way?" 
 
 "They marred the symmetry of our exquisite life 
 and religion." 
 
 "You must," said Revato," pardon my amazement 
 at your philosophy, that character is moulded by 
 appearance." 
 
 "The question is not of externals," replied Prote; 
 "it is the entire substance of which the outside is a 
 part. Look at me!" 
 
 She turned toward him her fair glowing face, set 
 off by a garland of wild flowers which she had just 
 been weaving. 
 
 "What i_s_that you have on?" asked he. "Ah, 
 a vajjhamala, a wreath, such as they place on a 
 felon s head before he dies." 
 
 "Let that be so," she retorted, "but dare you say 
 
 1 am not lovely?" 
 
 "Lovely as the daughters of Maro, god of death; 
 as the nymphs of the Tusita heaven." 
 
 "And dare you tell me that this beauty is physical 
 only, and does not pervade my whole nature?" 
 
 "Yourwhole nature it is, Prote, which must one 
 day be dissolved, and who knows in what shape you 
 will be reborn?" 
 
 "I know," she retorted, "that if I am reborn I 
 shall be reborn beautiful." 
 
 "Do you remember, Prote, that in the picture 
 gallery of the Jataka stories, on the wall of the sala, 
 there is one which shows a monk plucking a lotus 
 flower?" 
 
 "I remember it," said Prote, "but I have never 
 found out the moral of the fable." 
 
 "That bhikkhu," Revato explained, "was sunken 
 in self-love, as you are, and for his sake Bhagava 
 made the lotus flower to appear. While he gazed 
 upon it the petals fell off, it faded and withered away 
 as every body must fade and wither. Then the 
 Master said: 
 
 " Pluck out self-love as with your hand you pluck 
 
 The autumn water lily; set your heart 
 
 On nothing but the perfect Path of Peace 
 
 And that Nibbana which the Buddho taught. " 
 
 With Revato s insistent reversion to the hereafter 
 of existence, Prote s expression reacted to the intru 
 sion of sinister thoughts. 
 
 "Ah, wretched Thyrsis, what avail thy sighs?" 
 she cried, and murmured to her lute a little threnody: 
 
 "How swiftly mortal pleasure 
 Attains its ripe fruition, 
 And swiftly too is driven 
 On fate s unpitying gales! 
 
 "One fleeting day we linger, 
 Perchance to ask, what are we? 
 And wonder what we are not, 
 For man is but a shade. 
 
 "Yet while god-given splendor 
 O erspreads mine earthly pathway, 
 The light of life attends me 
 And sweet my tarrying here. " 
 
 "Do you flatter yourself that you can alter facts 
 by refusing to look at them?" asked Revato, surlily. 
 
 Her reply came as another and more cheerful 
 song: 
 
 "What is thy tenure, Cicada, 
 
 Insanguinate, fleshless, ephemeral? 
 
 Glad yet thou art, by the dew-drops 
 
 Drunken, presager of Summer; 
 
 Dear to the tillers and Muses, 
 
 Dearer to other cicadas. 
 
 Phoebus hath formed thee for chirping, 
 
 And Earth, who hath cast thee so lately, 
 
 Giveth all things for thy pleasure 
 
 That are borne by the fields and the seasons. 
 
 Age cannot burden thy spirit, 
 
 But, loving and richly possessing 
 
 The world that is thine by thy nature, 
 
 In wisdom thou art an Immortal." 
 
 MAJESTY 
 
 A splashing among the reeds at the water s edge 
 now diverted their attention, and to learn its cause 
 Revato turned for a few steps into the underbrush. 
 
 "Come back, come back, there may be snakes!" 
 cried Prote, and she turned white as a kanikara 
 flower in token of the dread wherewith her race had 
 regarded the footless inhabitants of Bharata Khanda 
 since the days of the Macedonian invaders. 
 
 Out upon the path beside the highway, hopped a 
 frog whose hind leg had been mangled by the water 
 turtle which caused the splashing. 
 
 "Hideous creature," gasped Prote. 
 
 "No more hideous than you and I were when we 
 were as low on the staircase as he is now," replied 
 Revato. 
 
 [SO] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 "He is hideous," continued Prote, "not because 
 he is a frog, but because he is no longer a perfect 
 frog. I won t have him in my sight. Adhamo miga- 
 jatanang, meanest of animals! Gacchahi, gacchahi 
 Get away with you! Susu! Huhung!" she hissed 
 and grunted, displaying her proficiency in the native 
 language of "shooing" away animals. 
 
 She made a thrust with her foot to push the 
 wounded creature back into the bushes. So clearly 
 as a frog might, it gave utterance to its additional 
 anguish. 
 
 "Aho papa Oh wicked woman!" cried Revato, 
 "have you none of your sex s pity! I could tell you 
 of a mother in Giribbaja who, when her child was 
 bitten by a poor scorpion, carried the brute tenderly 
 out of the house for it knew no better." 
 
 Prote laughed prettily. "I fear this frog is not 
 so innocent," she said. "He is no better than 
 those churls who, changed into frogs, dwell for 
 ever in a Lycian pool because they insultingly 
 denied drink to Leto when with her children she 
 fled from Hera." 
 
 "It stands to reason," answered Revato, "that 
 every creature of mean estate has done something to 
 bring him there. But we should forget their past and 
 think only of their present forlorn condition. When 
 Bodhisatto rescued from a flooded river a rat, a 
 snake, a parrot and a prince, and warmed them by a 
 fire in his hut, it was the rat which he comforted 
 first, as being the weakest." 
 
 While they were talking, the frog had continued 
 to evidence its sufferings. 
 
 " I will kill it to put it out of its pain, " said Revato 
 impulsively, and he sought for a mercifully heavy 
 club. 
 
 "Have you more consideration for a frog s feelings 
 than for a woman s?" asked Prote pettishly. 
 
 Revato hesitated, not on her account, but from 
 realization that he was about to commit a great sin 
 under the commandments of his religion. A short, 
 but fierce, conflict took place in his mind between 
 his bold intellect, which counseled him that death 
 would be kind, and the traditionalism of his con 
 science by which deprival of any life was forbidden. 
 The latter control soon became ascendant, since here, 
 as usual, he had courage to form a private judgment 
 but not to act upon it. So he stood pitying the crea 
 ture but doing nothing. Then a gust of strong feel 
 ing rushed through him and he thought: "I will do 
 the humane deed of the moment, law, religion and 
 fate to the contrary notwithstanding." So he 
 picked up the stick that he had dropped, but before 
 he could use it, his mind was penetrated by a new 
 reflection: "After all, the holy law is right in weigh 
 ing ultimate against proximate considerations. If I 
 kill the frog, it will not end him, but merely transfer 
 him to some other state, where he is likely to be no 
 better off than he is now, perhaps far worse. His 
 sufferings in the long run will not be lessened a par 
 ticle, and I shall have done a bad deed to no purpose; 
 the law is right because it is founded on reason." 
 
 [5 
 
 What finally would have been the fate of the frog 
 from Revato s hand was left undecided, for just 
 then a great procession appeared down the highway. 
 As it approached the bridge, it resolved to view as a 
 troop of horses, followed by elephants with their 
 riders under high canopies adorned with the peacock 
 symbol of the dynasty. Both Revato and Prote 
 recognized it as a royal progress. 
 
 Many nobles in the train were tricked out with all 
 imaginable finery, chariot rugs, fans of buffalo tails, 
 umbrellas, embroidered slippers, gold-encrusted canes, 
 bracelets, diadems and other jewelry. To set round 
 their magnificence there were no hump-backed 
 dwarfs nor captives of war; there came, however, a 
 band of savage hill-tribe men, not with the air of 
 slaves, but with willing movements and happy faces. 
 As the rear of the procession drew nigh, were heard 
 the cheers of "Sadhu! Sadhu!" from stragglers who 
 followed it. But the march was attended by no 
 sound of war drums, for in their stead the Law of 
 Righteousness reverberated. 
 
 Toward the end of the line, came a chariot drawn 
 by milk-white horses, old and fat and lazy, and 
 allowed to make the pace for the whole cavalcade. 
 This vehicle was conspicuous for its shabbiness com 
 pared with the gilded turnouts before and behind. 
 It was the hunting car of King Asoko, in which, so 
 many years before, he had followed the chase to 
 watch the dying agonies of nervous wild creatures. 
 
 That now purified conveyance rolled along 
 empty. Behind it, with his bare, shaven head 
 shielded from the mid-day sun by a coarse palm- 
 leaf shade carried in his own hand, trudged an old, 
 worn-faced man clad only in the three-fold yellow 
 robes and girdle of the ascetic brotherhood. This 
 was the God-Beloved, Gracious Asoko, Maharaja 
 over the vast territories of the Ariyas! 
 
 The two by-standers assumed respectful attitudes 
 as the chariot passed, but its follower s eyes were 
 submissive to thoughts that abode while his body 
 wandered. His ear nevertheless was open to the 
 feeblest petition of those who needed his arm to save. 
 
 A faint, woeful croak went up from the roadside 
 and his glance fell upon the wounded frog. Directing 
 the driver of his empty car to halt, he stepped down 
 upon the path and lifted the little animal in a corner 
 of his outer garment. 
 
 "Hambho! King nu kho ettha karanang How 
 now! what can be the cause of this?" he inquired 
 searchingly of Revato. 
 
 "It was committed by a tortoise, Great King, 
 for what motive I do not know." 
 
 "Let us rejoice that none wiser than he hath this 
 crime to answer for," rejoined Piyadassi. "Poor 
 little friend," he added addressing his living burden, 
 "thine enemy shall have his recompense one day 
 but thou must bear him no ill will. Be patient and 
 I will send for an unguent which may afford thee 
 some relief." 
 
 By this time Piyadassi had recognized Revato 
 and also Prote, both of whom, in their respective 
 
 i] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 relations to the throne, had previously appeared 
 before him. He greeted them in a manner dry but 
 mild, ungracious but kind, and to one who could 
 waive externals, indefinably winning. At his com 
 mand, they came close to the chariot. Their pre 
 sence in companionship raised in him no question, 
 for the increasing abstraction of age had concen 
 trated him upon subjects of devout concern. And 
 then, not as a king but as a preacher, he saw fit to 
 hold them in audience. 
 
 "In times long ago it was my wont to wander 
 forth upon so-called tours of pleasure, during which 
 I engaged in hunting and similar amusements. I 
 arranged fights of rams and bulls and rhinoceroses 
 and elephants and other animals, wagering my 
 crown jewels upon the outcome. When I followed 
 the chase I was attended by hundreds of female 
 archers and they smote with death whoever would 
 trespass within the ropes of the field. With my 
 own hand I deprived of life thousands of living 
 creatures. I took delight as I watched the death 
 struggles of tender deer and antelopes upon which 
 my shafts had fallen like fire upon a heap of flowers. 
 But ten years after I had been consecrated as king, 
 I went forth on the road to wisdom. From that 
 time I have engaged no more in tours of pleasure 
 but in tours of piety, wherein I have practiced the 
 visitation of samanas and Brahmins, with liberality 
 to them, the visitation of elders with largess of gold, 
 the visitation of the people of the country with in 
 struction in the Holy Dhamma and discussion of 
 the Holy Dhamma. These are now the pleasures 
 which I enjoy in exchange for my evil pleasures of 
 the past. The life of every living thing, be it great 
 or small, is now precious to me as the lives of my 
 own children. I would not myself do it an injury, 
 neither will I that it be harmed by others. No 
 longer within my dominions do men lawfully burn 
 forests or fields or chaff, lest they destroy the puny 
 creatures which have there made their homes. 
 Moreover I have issued sacred rules that many 
 species of animals shall be exempt from slaughter 
 for food. The excellent effect of meditation is now 
 seen, the growth of piety among men and a more 
 nearly complete abstention from killing animate 
 creatures and from the sacrificial slaughter of living 
 creatures. But since it is not enough merely to 
 refrain from molestation or to cause others thus to 
 refrain, I have made curative provisions for the ail 
 ments of men and of beasts so far as my realm ex 
 tends, and beyond it in the territories of many 
 neighboring kings, from the country of Antlyako the 
 Yona to the island of Tambapannidipa. Medicinal 
 herbs also, wholesome for men and wholesome for 
 animals, I have imported and planted wheresoever 
 they were needed. Roots too, and fruits, wherever 
 lacking, I have both imported and planted. On the 
 roads I have caused wells to be dug and trees to be 
 set out for the enjoyment of man and beast. Much 
 is the relief and much the good which may be 
 wrought even here in this world; notwithstanding, 
 
 I have come to realize that nothing is of really 
 great importance except that which relates to Life 
 Hereafter."* 
 
 While Asoko was speaking, there came to Revato s 
 mind the thought that this was the opportune time 
 he had been looking for to petition the king con 
 cerning his official difficulties. But in the presence 
 of Prote, he felt an overmastering reluctance to do 
 so. Bold as he was in exhibiting himself to the 
 stares of the world in her company, defying both 
 Ariyaka and Yonaka decorum, he dared not excite 
 her scorn with his ethical quibbles. So he warded 
 off his impulse of duty as best he could, postponing 
 his address to the king to some more convenient 
 season. His indecision was bidding fair to keep him 
 at Pataliputta forever! 
 
 A pause in Piyadassi s discourse furnished oppor 
 tunity for interjection of a word of impatience by 
 a withered, shaven-headed man who sat in the 
 chariot beside him. This was the Thera Upagutto, 
 Tisso, Primate of the Religion of the Dhamma, who 
 at the first had led the king into the Faith and ever 
 since had guided him in its ways. Submissively, 
 Asoko broke off his oration to Revato and Prote. 
 
 Now, as it happened, there stood near the rest 
 house a palasa tree under which had been built a 
 tiny structure with thatched roof, showing that the 
 neighboring villagers believed the tree to be the home 
 of a sylvan sprite. 
 
 - Just before the arrival of the king s procession, a 
 poor ignorant man and his wife had come there to 
 make their little ball oblations to the devata a 
 handful of flowers, a husk cake and some water in a 
 cocoanut shell. After the royal cortege appeared, 
 they remained where they were, gazing on the spec 
 tacle. When Asoko had done talking to Revato and 
 was about to resume his place behind his carriage, 
 his eye fell upon this poor couple and the votive 
 provisions that they had set under the tree. Straight 
 way he procured from his attendants a wreath of 
 choice flowers and a flask of perfume, which he 
 carried to the tree and laid with the other gifts. 
 Slowly he performed this rite, not hastening away, 
 but lingering reverently beside the astonished, 
 trembling worshippers. 
 
 Revato looked on with amazement, not only at 
 the condescension of Majesty, but at the self-abnega 
 tion of Wisdom which would deny itself in order to 
 share with the foolish in so crude a ceremony. 
 
 The most gorgeous equipage in the procession was 
 a chariot plated with gold, studded with gems and 
 shaded by a deep-fringed silken chatta, or umbrella, 
 of peacock hues. The occupant was a brilliantly 
 apparelled young man with a huge jeweled sword 
 and a very dark scowl, presumably occasioned by 
 the delay. 
 
 "The prince Dasaratho," whispered Prote to 
 Revato. 
 
 *Adapted from the graven Edicts, using version in Smith s 
 "Asoka." 
 
 52] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 After the rear guard, which like all the rest of the 
 company except Dasaratho, was unarmed, followed 
 a rabble of spectators and beggars, lay and clerical. 
 Among the latter Revato espied Digho and Natha- 
 putto, the two Nigantha yatis with whom we had 
 fraternized and quarreled on the road from Rajagaha. 
 They failed to notice him, although they passed so 
 near that he could overhear Nathaputto remark of 
 some unnamed person: 
 
 "He ll soon come to his own." 
 
 While Asoko was performing his devotions, a 
 grand official on an elephant had greeted Prote 
 familiarly and, calling her to his side, engaged her in 
 conversation which Revato did not hear. He 
 noticed, however, the arch glances she turned 
 toward him and the backward leer he flung at her as 
 the procession moved on. 
 
 "Who was the gentleman that you spoke to?" 
 asked Revato of Prote after the march had passed. 
 
 " Did you not know him? That was the Dhamma- 
 mahamatta, The High Minister of Religion." 
 
 "You and he seem to be good friends." 
 
 "He controls the funds for ecclesiastical architec 
 ture," she answered cannily. 
 
 "A sad sight we have witnessed," remarked Prote 
 as they floated down the Hirannabahu river toward 
 home. "It is as if the Temple of All Gods in Athens 
 were given over to bats and crawling lizards." 
 
 "If the sight of Piyadassi s old age so distresses 
 you," answered Revato, "you must admit that 
 life is, after all, a bauble." 
 
 The sight of old age is nothing," she rejoined. "A 
 slave, a goat, or a hen may grow old. We care naught 
 for that, but we deplore to see the lofty abased, the 
 powerful paralyzed, the majestic made ridiculous." 
 
 "I fail to perceive the ludicrous side," answered 
 Revato. "And as to power, there is none like that 
 of the mind under a calm exterior. One of the old 
 arahats said, By will I could cause a mad elephant 
 to breathe not even to a measure of a blade of kusa 
 grass. Think how Piyadassi has quieted the 
 furious elephant herd of mankind." 
 
 "Layman Revato," said Prote soberly, "I have 
 been disposed to make you my friend, for I have felt 
 that there was a great power in you which needs only 
 a proper application. But let me say frankly that 
 I am beginning to look upon you with contempt. 
 The men whom we honor are not those that chatter 
 like parrots, submit like cattle or squeal at pain like 
 puppies, but those who see before them a goal and 
 reach it. Some cross shadowy seas, some take 
 strong cities; others whose skilful hand Hephaistos 
 and Pallas Athene have instructed, pour gold 
 around silver and achieve beautiful works. Each 
 trains to the utmost every faculty that can serve 
 him, and then resolutely, in spite of all obstacles, he 
 presses forward to the end. The proof of my words 
 is our civilization; the example nearest to hand is 
 the architect Diomedes." 
 
 Her rebuke hurt him sorely but he understood 
 that it was meant rather as a spur than as a dagger. 
 So it proved, for she quickly resumed her gracious 
 demeanor and was aimiable as ever during the 
 remainder of the voyage to Gotamo s Ferry. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 THE HOUSE OF DIOMEDES 
 
 HE THAT WAVERETH 
 
 Antinomianism, like the laurel sacred to ^Escula- 
 pius, is a deadly poison, but after the nature of 
 pernicious drugs, if taken by small doses, in proper 
 cases, it proves a salutary tonic. However the 
 philosophy of "beyond good and evil" may be 
 ambrosial food for To Evs, it is no pabulum for angels 
 nor men unless, under peculiar conditions, most 
 cautiously administered. 
 
 How the teaching to common people of superiority 
 to moral law will cast them down to lowest depravity, 
 was witnessed by both of those audaciously speculat 
 ing races who met at Pataliputta in Revato s time. 
 Among the Ariyas in their Brahmanical, not Buddh 
 ist, sects, mystical sages reached out for a God so 
 infinite as to be unlimited even by righteousness, 
 and when this notion trickled down to the ignorant 
 masses, it innoculated them with the venom of that 
 moral plague with which India is still putrid. 
 
 The lore of Hellas also was threaded with doctrines 
 of irresponsibility, whether in the examples of the old 
 mythology in the skeptical and pleasurable advise 
 ments of the Heracliteans that "good and bad are 
 the same, to God all things are fair and just," or 
 in the sane, prudential counsels of the Peripatetics. 
 Whichever of these was the most efficient cause of 
 the taint, it had broken out vilely on the fairness of 
 that incomparable civilization. 
 
 But to natures like Revato s, where perverse 
 conscientiousness has become a fever, a prescription 
 of license may act with cooling and clarifying 
 potency. Cajolement of pleasure, remittal or 
 obscuration of consequences, may release the 
 compressed energies of the mind to an elastic up- 
 spring, an abandon strong for happy achievement. 
 
 Somewhat such a liberation he was now experienc 
 ing, albeit reservation must be made of the ques 
 tions whether in his case the stimulant was rightly 
 measured and whether likely to have permanent 
 
 53] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 effect; whether the morbid factor in his make-up 
 was to use a cant medical term functional, or 
 organic and incapable of being eradicated; whether, 
 indeed, it was possible for him to be other than a 
 shuttlecock of reactions between those opposite 
 elements in his nature, the perennial melancholy 
 and the evanescent joy. 
 
 His association with the Yonas had intoxicated 
 him as if by some drug which clarifies the mind for 
 eager endeavor, confusing only malevolent ideas. 
 Or it was 
 
 "Like the full moon after sunsetting, 
 Rising rose-fingered and magical 
 Ancient lights merged in effulgency 
 Starry eyes blurred to obscurity 
 Vague with salt ocean and pasturage, 
 Whereon dream-tinted, indefinite 
 Roses wild-nurtured, with anthryscas, 
 Clover blooms, honey-secretory 
 Drink the earth dews to their quickening." 
 
 Thus the sinister logic of duty was confuted in the 
 only way that he could confute it by forgetfulness. 
 A diverting absorption of interest enabled him, when 
 old notions recurred, to slur them over and avoid 
 transfixation of their fatal details. Unhindered by 
 particulars, he could contrast the life purposes of 
 Ariya and Yonaka, making himself almost believe 
 that he had found a worthy relief from Buddhist 
 negations in Hellenic affirmations. His mind minia 
 tured the world s battleground of thought whereon 
 are opposingly aligned the East and the West, the 
 forces of asceticism and aestheticism, of self-repres 
 sion and self-expression, of solidarity and individu 
 ality, of renunciation and realization, of the will to 
 refrain and the will to act, of life for the future and 
 life in the present. 
 
 What a newness of heart suffused him with this 
 perfectly novel conception the liberality, the toler 
 ance of man s divine guardians, their will that we 
 should be happy, their good-humored short-sighted 
 ness when sometimes we overstep the mark! 
 
 If results signified, Prote s careless way must be 
 better than his own punctilious one, for while he 
 became deeper entangled in the jungle, she bounded 
 in the grassy open and sang the praises of those who 
 did great beautiful deeds. 
 
 Were not also the pitying acts of Asoko great 
 beautiful deeds? Yes, but they were of the sort to 
 which Revato s mind was habituated and which 
 were cognate with his old ill-working system, whereas 
 the accomplishments of Diomedes inspired him by 
 their freshness. 
 
 Revato was not insensitive to that Grecian vein 
 of cruelty, whereof had he not already witnessed 
 harrowing exhibitions? But the effect of these upon 
 him was other than it would have been had they 
 occurred less early in his new experience. They 
 might have sufficed to shatter a favorable opinion 
 already crystallized, but they could be accommo 
 dated by opinions that were still liquid. When we 
 know the worst, it is easier to appreciate the best. 
 
 Doubtless, also, there was in Revato s attitude a 
 tinge of selfishness which disposed him to condone 
 unkindness to others in those who were kind to him. 
 
 It would be hypocritical folly to dissemble that 
 Revato was influenced most of all by Prote s per 
 sonality. Much as he might pretend to abstractions, 
 and much of truth as there might be in the pretence, 
 the strongest appeal was the concrete one of human 
 ity. The best of us are materially definite in our 
 susceptibilities and are naively controlled by sensuous 
 argumenta ad hominum. A cool, caressing air on the 
 cheek or a dry one in the lungs will make for us the 
 happy destiny of all worlds. So, individual gladness 
 in Prote s loveliness no doubt did more to impel 
 Revato s philosophical handsprings than any power 
 of reason. 
 
 Nevertheless, Revato s lifelong preoccupations 
 were still so mighty as almost to subjugate human 
 trivialities and enslave the particular to the general. 
 
 Eagerly he gave himself to the investigation of 
 Hellenism as an emancipating power, suspecting 
 that the examples he had already seen were only 
 slight indicia of the magnificent whole. He fell to 
 hoping also that it enshrouded a secret which he 
 might discover a secret which would reconcile 
 incompatible contraries the free, glad life with the 
 life and hereafter of righteousness. 
 
 If not this yearned-for secret, at least a larger 
 knowledge of Grecian culture now directly awaited 
 him in his arranged-forvisit at the house of Diomedes. 
 
 His invitation for the third day of the bright 
 pakka, or fortnight, of the month Magasira, was still 
 outstanding and the time was drawing near. The 
 definiteness thereof began to strike him with terror. 
 
 It was one thing to fall in company by Prote by 
 chance albeit a favored chance and succumb to 
 the delightful confusion of the interview; it was quite 
 another matter to make such a meeting by set 
 arrangement, with intervening days for reconsidera 
 tion. The real excitant of these conscience pangs 
 was his sense of the wrong for him of association with 
 the Yonaki girl; the formal reason that he gave 
 himself for his scruple was his vow or quasi-vow, 
 made on the morning when first he met her. Had he 
 not promised himself to avoid her, to abstain from 
 speech with her and to guard his heart well if she 
 should speak to him? All these three fortresses of 
 conduct he had betrayed again and again. To sur 
 render the first two with fresh resolves to hold the 
 third was hardly worthy the name of self-deception, 
 yet this poor artifice he employed upon himself 
 repeatedly after it had been discredited by the 
 event. Revato did not however attempt to override 
 his "vow" merely by virtue of the subsequent 
 acceptance of Diomedes invitation, for he was too 
 searching a moralist to hold that a duty may be 
 shirked by incurring a subsequent contrary obliga 
 tion. 
 
 With vain ingenuity of argument, Revato offered 
 himself most diverse reasons for the contemplated 
 
 [54] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 visit. Sometimes he would make believe that he 
 might, by presentation of Buddho s truth, win the 
 Yonas from the errors of their ways; he imagined 
 himself laying this view of the case before Bharadvajo 
 and the old samana s rejoinder that it was his duty 
 to seek every opportunity for converting an un 
 believer. Does the heart ever outgrow its yearning 
 for that license which consists in shifting responsi 
 bility upon some tolerant human authority? 
 
 With less insincerity, Revato pictured the necessity 
 of company with Diomedes in order to be further 
 initiated into Yonaka mysteries. He had already 
 ventured too far to regain his old footing; he must 
 go on and learn the whole truth, casting himself upon 
 the grace of the new wisdom to sustain him in its 
 own way. 
 
 The unrest into which this battle between duty and 
 inclination threw him so occupied his mind as to leave 
 no room for a return, at that time, of the old struggle 
 regarding his tax collectorship. While to him the 
 sanction of a pledge made in his own mind was far 
 weaker than an obligation growing out of an evil 
 course of conduct damaging to others, and there 
 fore this new difficulty should seem less acute than 
 the old one, still the present question was nearer, 
 perhaps dearer to him, and so acquired a temporary 
 paramountcy. If, therefore, the quietude of his old 
 troubles was in part attributable to buoyancy of 
 mind, it was also due to these later perplexities, to 
 which even the factors of his emancipation gave rise. 
 Hardly can more than one great woe occupy the 
 mind at a given time. The coming of a new one 
 quiets the old one as an ache in a new part of the 
 body relieves a former one somewhere else. The diffi 
 culty on which attention is fixed appears more serious 
 than a graver one that is temporarily neglected. 
 
 As nearer drew the day for the visit, Revato s 
 misgivings increased until, in the lucubrations of the 
 sleepless night before it, he made an insincere 
 resolve to absent himself. Daylight, however, 
 brought the courage, true or false, of a different 
 purpose. When the fateful hour arrived, he took the 
 bit between his teeth and dashed through every 
 ethical objection. 
 
 FIRE 
 
 This day on which Revato betook himself to 
 Diomedes house was a festival of the Yonas when 
 the workmen were relieved from their toils in the 
 new sangharama. But the architect, who would not 
 absent himself from his idolized building for an en 
 tire day, had named an afternoon hour when he 
 should have returned from the island. The ap 
 pointed time fell in the midst of a heavy, cold, rain 
 storm. The house, which Revato had passed more 
 than once before, stood a long distance east of his 
 lodging, being situated north of the Market Street, 
 about midway to the riverside. It had been built 
 by its occupant according to his own ideas and looked 
 from the outside, in every way, different from the 
 usual high, narrow ornate dwellings of the city. 
 
 Separated from the street by a narrow yard, the 
 wide, massive, plastered front wall of the building, 
 only one story high, was blankly plain except for 
 the door, two small windows and a niche containing 
 a woman s helmeted head. On the door also was a 
 bronze lion head holding in its mouth a heavy ring 
 whereby visitors might make known their presence. 
 Revato lifted the ring and let it drop back with a 
 sharp, metallic rap. 
 
 The door was opened by a native servant, so that 
 Revato was saved the trouble he had apprehended of 
 making himself intelligible. He had been expected; 
 would he come through into the aula? 
 
 On entering, Revato found himself in a narrow 
 hall on one side of which seemed to be the porter s 
 lodge, while the pervasive odor of a stable aroused 
 his suspicions of the other. At the rear, the hall 
 debouched into a court situated not unlike those of 
 native mansions, but different in design. A colonade 
 ran around it and about a central fountain grew 
 plants of unknown species. They now dripped with 
 rain as well as spray. While the attendant was 
 hesitating whether to deposit him upon one of the 
 chairs of this paradise or consign him to some 
 reception room, Prote herself emerged from a 
 passageway on the further side of the court and 
 came to welcome him. This might or might not 
 have been according to the proprieties of her nation, 
 but for her it was entirely fitting. She bade him 
 into a parlor opening from the court pending the 
 appearance of her father who was delayed on his 
 return from the island. 
 
 The storm had cast such a wintry chill upon the 
 house that Prote called for a brazier of coals, and, 
 quickly dissatisfied with their sole effect, had them 
 applied to kindle a well-prepared pile of dry wood on 
 a fire-place of the apartment. The flames quickly 
 burst out and cheered the twilight of the room. 
 
 "Did you ever see a hearth-stone before?" she 
 asked Revato. "This is the way we console our 
 selves through the winters in my island home. There 
 snow comes down upon us from the dull mountains 
 into the frosty brown valley while we look upon a 
 ragged, terrifying sea." 
 
 "In my home among the hills," he answered, "the 
 nights are sometimes so cool that we shiver unless 
 we have a fire. Did you ever reflect," he continued, 
 "how two branches rubbing may start a blaze, but 
 the whole forest cannot extinguish it? And, Prote, as 
 I sit here before these pleasant flames my heart con 
 demns me for I think of the Blessed One s rejoinder 
 in the herdsman s cottage." 
 
 " I have boiled my broth, I have milked my kine, 
 
 Said the herdsman Dhaniyo; 
 We dwell by the Mahi, I and mine, 
 
 My hut is roofed and the fire s aglow; 
 Now, Cloud-god, rain if thou dost incline.. 
 
 " I have quelled my sloth, I have balked my spite, 
 
 Answering, Bhagava said; 
 By the Mahi dwelling a single night, 
 
 My hut is roofless, the fire is dead; 
 Now, Cloud-god, rain to thy full delight. " 
 
 55] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 Her reply was in the words of one of her native 
 songs : 
 
 " Rages the Storm God, huge in his heaven; 
 Winter lays hold on the swift-gliding waters; 
 Deep in dense woodlands, wide on the ocean, 
 Thracian tempest winds bellow. 
 
 "Abate thou the cold; heap fire-wood aplenty; 
 Mingle with honey strong wine, unconsidered; 
 Bind on thy brow soft, curled woolen comforts. 
 Gloom no guerdon hath, grief no emolument. 
 Bacchus, Oh cure our sick souls with thy simples, 
 Making us glad and forgetful. " 
 
 While thus Revato waited with a lulled heart, 
 intoxicated by the liquid fire-light and the aromatic 
 smoke of the well-cleft sticks and by Prote s pres 
 ence, the master of the house entered. After a kind, 
 if condescending greeting, Diomedes called for 
 lamps and took his visitor about the lofty-roofed 
 guest rooms to point out the objects of curious 
 charm with which they were filled. These had come 
 either from his own land or from its nearer-by colonies 
 or had been designed upon the spot by him and 
 his assistants as models and studies for their work. 
 
 SCIENCE 
 
 Such a bewildering array of little white and 
 colored gods and goddesses; of loharupas, bronze 
 images; of jars with narrow necks, slender stems and 
 graceful handles, made of delicate, lustrous mate 
 rials and engraven with festal processions! Here 
 stood lamps and basins and glassware of marvelous 
 patterns and polished silver mirrors. The walls 
 hardly had room for all the drawings, casts and 
 models of architectural details and embellishments. 
 Untrained as he was in art criticism, Revato could 
 only view the ensemble with confused wonder, con 
 scious nevertheless of the preternatural beauty that 
 pervaded it. 
 
 "Whoever," thought he to himself, "has put so 
 much wisdom into clay or plaster or stone, "cannot 
 be altogether foolish. Perhaps he could teach me 
 many things which I am anxious to know and could 
 point me to paths which I cannot find." 
 
 "I have also, friend," said Diomedes, "some other 
 devices in my house which you may like better than 
 these." So saying, he led the way through the 
 court to a door near the back which opened into a 
 great workshop and storehouse of mechanical con 
 trivances. Here were clever arrangements of levers 
 and pulleys, screws and cog wheels, with which, by 
 exerting ft little strength, vast power might be 
 produced, whether for hoisting blocks of marble or 
 for pressing out the fluid of grapes and olives. 
 There were engines with moving pistons for raising 
 water and for doing work by falling water. Diomedes 
 pointed out a double pump which could throw a 
 steady stream to extinguish a conflagration. Little 
 fountains played in glass vessels of intricate arrange 
 ment. There were reservoirs which discharged in 
 ingenious ways to tell the hour of day. A little four 
 wheeled wagon carried on one axle an instrument by 
 
 looking at which the driver might know the distance 
 traveled. A box of pipes discoursed music when 
 blown by air under the force of falling water. The 
 same inspiration caused a lifeless bird to sing. What 
 would the dumb, grotesque, elaborately plumed 
 silver birds in the old Moriya palace have thought if 
 their insensate ears could have heard it? A little 
 temple opened its doors when flames were kindled 
 on a neighboring altar, the secret of which lay, as 
 Diomedes explained, in the power of the element 
 air, when, in the hollow altar, it was incited by the 
 element fire. He then opened the window shutters 
 of the temple and was greeted by a trumpet call. 
 Beside the temple were a row of miniature theatres 
 on the stages of which a flying fish sprang from water, 
 a blacksmith smote an anvil, mimes danced and 
 lightning flashed from the hand of a helmeted god 
 all without human intervention. 
 
 On one table stood atrocious engines of war 
 battering rams on wheels, cross bows bent with 
 windlasses and stout spring poles that would hurl 
 rocks over city walls. "I have vainly entreated 
 Piyadassi to strengthen his armament according to 
 these models," remarked Diomedes. Revato saw 
 several globulous glasses which, when looked through, 
 made the object on the other side appear larger than 
 it really was. The architect told him that if these 
 were held toward the sun they would cause fire. 
 A hollow mirror, which he showed, would do the 
 same, and if made large enough, might even ignite 
 an enemy s ships. Most marvelous of all was a 
 wheel with spokes or stages like the Wheel of Life, 
 which would spin round when blown by a jet of 
 steam from a pipe in the mouth of a brazen image. 
 
 "How do all these inventions appeal to you, a 
 philosopher?" inquired Diomedes. "Our Ionian 
 sages scorn them as fit only for an occupation of 
 slaves, though I, as an architect, better appreciate 
 their value. They minister to Beauty, by assisting 
 in her works, be this their only worthy purpose." 
 
 "To relieve the labor of men and animals," 
 answered Revato, "their hunger and thirst and 
 disease and anguish, some of these things might be 
 good. But in-so-far as they pander to cruelty or 
 luxury, they are worse than useless." 
 
 "Luxury," replied Diomedes, "is relative. When 
 people become civilized, as ours are, then what 
 formerly they accounted luxuries become necessary 
 comforts." 
 
 "First," said Revato, "bring all up to the same 
 mark of welfare. Until then, riches are a pain to 
 those who see but do not have them, and a curse to 
 those who possess them exclusively." 
 
 "But," Diomedes continued, "is there not still 
 another kind of benefit which may be derived from 
 our experiments with the elements, earth, air, 
 water and fire and from our observations of land and 
 sea and heavens? I mean, do they not lead us to a 
 knowledge of Truth?" 
 
 "If only we knew it to be Truth," said Revato, 
 "but can we trust our perceptions?" 
 
 [56] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 By way of reply Diomedes inscribed on a tablet a 
 triangle and proceeded, step by step, to prove to 
 Revato that the sum of the interior angles was equal 
 to two right angles. "Have you any doubt in the 
 matter?" he asked. 
 
 "None at all," Revato replied. 
 
 "Similarly," Diomedes said, "I could solve for 
 you harder problems, like the quadrature of the 
 parabola. This is in order to let you feel the firm 
 ground under you and teach you confidence. It is 
 true that not all forms of investigation admit of such 
 a perfect demonstration, but by training our reason 
 ing powers in this way, as a soldier by athletic feats, 
 we are fitted to do battle with the great mysteries 
 of the world." 
 
 A thrill passed over Revato, the wonder thrill of 
 an eager, sanguine Springtime of Science. To his 
 instructor it was the Autumn or Winter of an old 
 Science, but for him the cycle of seasons was just 
 opening and he yearned toward the wonderful 
 harvests which he felt able to sow and reap. 
 
 This, however, was only a transitory emotion, for 
 he soon realized how little he knew or could learn 
 compared with his favored enlighteners. 
 
 "The means and methods are not for me," he said 
 with a sigh. "One individual cannot become an 
 adept in everything and my ways have otherwise 
 led me. But oh that before I die I may know the 
 farthest conclusions which your Yonaka wise men 
 have reached! It will be like living in the days of a 
 Tathagato." 
 
 "I fear that your wish is not altogether a possible 
 one," Diomedes replied. "The conclusions are so 
 abstruse and contradictory that they can not be 
 appreciated nor appraised except by one versed in 
 the elements wherewith they deal. Our sciences are 
 profound like your philosophy of the Dhamma, 
 which when first I studied it, seemed to me very 
 simple, but which is becoming to me more and more 
 elusive of grasp, even in the meaning of the terms 
 employed." 
 
 A BARBARIAN 
 
 When they had finished examining the wonders of 
 the house and had returned to seat themselves on 
 chairs of unusual design about the fire, Diomedes 
 said: "Now, if you are willing, let us open some of 
 our Hellenic books from which, as you remember, I 
 promised to prove to you that wisdom is not con 
 fined to Jambudlpa." 
 
 Thus saying, he produced from a curtained alcove 
 a round box stuffed full of tight rolls on end. These, 
 upon untying, proved to be made of some flexible 
 membraneous material which the Yonas used in 
 continuous sheets to write on, instead of palm-leaf 
 strips strung flat together. 
 
 "This book," said Diomedes, "is the corner stone 
 of our literature and is the greatest work in the 
 world. Shall I read you some of it." 
 
 "Yes," Revato acquiesced, "If you can t recite it. 
 We don t have to read our Suttas." 
 
 "Nor do we," retorted Diomedes, "but we pre 
 fer to. Time was when this book was written in the 
 mind, as yours are. But we found out that the 
 human intelligence could be put to better purposes 
 than economizing ink and parchment." 
 
 Diomedes commenced by reading aloud a few 
 gathas in the original tongue verses which surged, 
 low, loud and long like storm winds on the Virijha 
 hills. Now they dallied in the head voluptuously 
 like far-gone drowsiness, again they became sonor 
 ous of action and stirred up a will for exploits. Then 
 he began to interpret them into Pali and continued 
 by communicating the meaning in preference to 
 the sound. 
 
 It was all about a war caused by lust; a married 
 woman had been carried off by a prince as Sita was 
 stolen from Ramo by Ravano, and in consequence 
 allied armies were crossing the sea to attack the in 
 offensive subjects of the despoiler. Their leaders 
 were boasting and swaggering and bickering among 
 themselves, while shining devatas in the Heavens of 
 Sense looked down meddlesomely and intrigued and 
 quarreled over their unimportant affairs. Revato 
 did not try to conceal his disgust with the brutal 
 fighting which the poet glorified. 
 
 Prote was now sitting by the hearth while she 
 she turned sea-purpled threads of wool; going over 
 the web she wove with a golden shuttle. Meanwhile 
 she was not unmindful of her father s reading to 
 Revato. Now she interposed: 
 
 "Whenever one dispraises heroic deeds, there is 
 reason to suspect that he himself lacks ambition and 
 courage." 
 
 "The merit of my criticisms," Revato answered 
 back, "exists despite my own unworthiness." 
 
 The story that Diomedes was reading went on to 
 tell how one of the invading rajas, outdomineering 
 the others, pranced about beating with his royal 
 sceptre any luckless proletarians that were not spry 
 enough to dodge him, and shouting the while: 
 "Common people have no concern in government; 
 the wise devas have set one man to reign and rule; 
 let everybody obey him." 
 
 Then, as the poet related, there was found only a 
 lame, squinting hunch-back, named Thersites, who 
 dared to stand up to the usurper and denounce the 
 lecherousness and avarice for which he was dragging 
 his countrymen to shed their blood in helping him 
 plunder cities. In punishment, this croaker was 
 stricken by the tyrant with a bloody weal on the 
 deformed hump of his back, the pain of which made 
 him shed many tears. The teller of the tale took 
 no trouble to conceal his prejudices, since he glorified 
 the despot while he held Thersites in contempt, 
 gloating over the ill shapen body as if a mark of 
 character and a fit subject for derisive scorn. 
 
 "For my part," interrupted Revato, "this 
 Thersites is the first person in your book whom I 
 have found to admire. He is like the ugly, odious, 
 despised dwarf Bhaddiyo, whom the Blessed One 
 pronounced mighty, strong and beautiful." 
 
 [57] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 At this judgment, a groan sounded from Prote. 
 Revato s literary criticism was too barbarous to be 
 heard in silence. Her experience with his notions, 
 however, enabled her to take it without verbal 
 dissent, but she availed of the break to comment on 
 other phases of the episode that had been read. 
 With youthful, womanish, hero-worship and mega 
 lomania, she lauded the majesty of Odysseus. 
 
 "What a dull world this would be," she contended, 
 "if it were all level like the plains of Ganga, if there 
 were no Himavanta vast in altitude, huge in mass!" 
 The generality of men, she thought, were unfit to rule 
 themselves, and there was always someone more 
 competent than anybody else. Let him hold supreme 
 sway and breed an illustrious race to perpetuate his 
 power. Let him be endowed with all regal splendor 
 to fire the imaginations of his subjects and win 
 enthusiastic devotion to the State as typified in 
 him. 
 
 "Enthusiasm," retorted Revato savagely, "is the 
 most effective whip in the hands of tyrants. With it 
 they goad on every ignorant or thoughtless man to 
 further their own selfish ends. For this purpose 
 they create transcendent virtues and crimes and call 
 them by high-sounding names Patriotism, 
 Loyalty, Lawlessness, Treason, and the like, 
 which have little bearing upon public happiness but 
 serve the objects of these oppressors. The foe 
 against which cruel kings can never be secure is an 
 assassin; hence they call assassination the worse of 
 enormities and mankind by common consent have 
 accepted their judgment." 
 
 "With good cause," returned Prote. "It is the 
 most cowardly and merciless of all deeds." 
 
 "Cowardly to face almost certain capture and 
 death by torture!" exclaimed Revato. "If going to 
 war be brave, then the single stealthy warrior is 
 most valorous, for his hazard is by far the greatest. 
 Merciless to remove by swift means the perpetrator 
 of a thousand slow murders! The assassin is like the 
 surgeon who skillfully excises a diseased member; 
 the soldier at best is like one who, in order to remove 
 it, would batter to pieces with a bludgeon the sound 
 flesh of the body." 
 
 "Would you then become an assassin?" she 
 inquired. 
 
 "I was speaking of comparative, not absolute 
 values," he replied. "In deeds that I would not do 
 myself, I cannot resist a satisfaction when they are 
 performed by men of elemental passions, just as I 
 might take a grim pleasure in seeing a hand that was 
 raised to inflict anguish struck down by lightning." 
 
 "Our friend is not wholly unreasonable, Prote," 
 said Diomedes. "Did not a great light arise to the 
 Athenians when Harmodius and Aristogeiton slew 
 Hipparchus? Neither cause nor courage were 
 absent from their deed nor did it fail to win its 
 meed of torment." 
 
 Prote now perceiving the odds to be against her, 
 essayed to strengthen her original contention for the 
 excellence of royalty. 
 
 "Who would not suffer a hundred tyrants," she 
 exclaimed, "if only to produce one Maha-Alasando 
 towering on the battlefield as the Lesbian singer 
 towers o er them of other lands? His aim was not 
 to enslave but to enoble. Because of the half life 
 time that he lived, a moiety of mankind are now 
 lonians." 
 
 "Is it from her father," inquired Revato, "that 
 the lady Prote has learned to reverence kings and 
 kings of kings?" 
 
 "Prote," replied the architect, "speaks for her 
 self as a woman. Possibly you, sir, have had little 
 experience with the sex, otherwise you would know 
 that they are all by nature barbarians, delighting in 
 barbaric display. For me, I like better the small 
 democracy of cultured citizens. Ten are enough 
 of them, a hundred thousand are too many. Therein 
 is no ugly level, for ability has every opportunity to 
 rise in preeminent influence." 
 
 "Thus," put in Prote, "the citizen may rise to 
 become a monarch, and the school days of democracy 
 may end in a grander life." 
 
 "There need be no inferiority on the part of any 
 one," continued Diomedes, "for the vocations in a 
 civilized state are so varied that each may excel in 
 his own peculiar way." 
 
 "Many of our Ariya clans enjoyed similar liber 
 ties," Revato remarked, "before they were subju 
 gated by the kings of Kosala and Magadha. It is 
 pitiful to reflect how one tribe after another has 
 been overwhelmed. This very city was founded as 
 an outpost at the beginning of the wars against the 
 Vajjians, the LicchavTs, of Vesali. The Blessed One 
 himself declared that so long as they dwelt in con 
 cord, held frequent public assemblies, preserved 
 ancient institutions, revered and harkened to the 
 elders, respected womanhood, and supported the 
 offices of religion just so long they might be ex 
 pected, not to decline, but to prosper. And it was so, 
 for they retained their independence long. But they 
 were conquered at last, even they. This should be a 
 token to us that we set not our heart upon those fran 
 chises which must be defended by force of arms." 
 
 "Likewise have been swept away the liberties of 
 Hellas," remarked Diomedes pensively. 
 
 "After all," Revato added, "the equality even of 
 our free clansmen was founded on oppression, as our 
 life is unjust still, for our slaves share not with us." 
 
 "Slaves?" exclaimed Diomedes. "Do you call 
 your servants slaves? You mild-mannered Ariyas 
 have no conception what slavery means." 
 
 "Then did your free clansmen in Yonaloka hold 
 slaves also?" 
 
 "Assuredly, and it would make your hair stand 
 on end if you knew how we treated them and do 
 still. That is a necessity to keep them in subjection. 
 Without a multitude of people whose function is 
 simply to labor, like your Suddas and outcastes, how 
 can the fittest class be kept in leisure and means for 
 carving beautiful images, delivering noble orations 
 and performing illustrious services for the State?" 
 
 [58] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 "Granted that these are worthy ends," answered 
 Revato, "your reasoning might be sound. Your 
 error seems to lie in confusing with good works 
 brilliant ones, which are a fruit and a seed of profane 
 desire." 
 
 "Tell me, however," asked Diomedes, "why it is 
 that, since the government of Asoko has been so 
 favorable to your religion and its principles, you are 
 not an unswerving advocate of monarchy?" 
 
 "Because a particular benefit does not prove that 
 its source is the best. Who can foresee the fate of 
 Piyadassi s empire in the long run, and if they 
 could, it would not affect the principle." 
 
 "I have heard a prediction," said Prote, "that 
 Pataliputta will hereafter be in danger from internal 
 dissention, from flood and from fire." 
 
 "Buddho s own words," said Revato, "but it did 
 not require his wisdom to make the prophecy, for 
 internal dissention is everywhere, floods are to be 
 expected where men build on lowlands by rivers,and 
 some villian is sure to set a fire if you suggest the idea 
 that there will be one. To perish, is the safest 
 prophecy to make of anything that exists, except 
 our own responsibility. When we perceive this 
 latter and realize that it is a question for all time, 
 the difference between kings and republics is very 
 small to us. They are like the mud pies which chil 
 dren make, playing on the ground." 
 
 Diomedes and his daughter exchanged glances. 
 This barbarian, whom they had brought into their 
 house, amused them by his merciless reasoning, 
 otherwise they would have had none of him, but 
 there were times when he seemed to shrivel into a 
 mere tiresome fanatic. 
 
 To bring in a new train of thought, Diomedes 
 unwrapped another scroll, which he said might suit 
 Revato better than the former one. It contained a 
 story of a man who was shipwrecked on an island 
 where dwelt a beautiful Yakkhini, or ogress, named 
 Calypso. But she, unlike the Yakkhinis of Lanka, 
 instead of eating him, treated him kindly and kept 
 him on the island eight years. Finally, when he 
 became homesick she gave him materials with which 
 to build a raft and sail away. After he had voyaged 
 for weeks, a great storm came up, destroying the 
 raft. Still he clung to a plank for three days, and in 
 the end, entrusting himself to the sea without any 
 support, was cast alive upon the delectable shore of 
 a river. 
 
 "I like this much better than the other sutta," 
 Revato adjudged. "What does it mean: escape 
 from the ocean of Sangsara to the shore of Nib- 
 bana?" 
 
 "I should be interested to hear the poet s comment 
 if your interpretation were suggested to him," 
 Diomedes replied. 
 
 "Where are the venerated books of your religion?" 
 asked Revato presently. "Are you not at liberty to 
 open them to me?" 
 
 "Our religion is not one of books," answered 
 
 Diomedes. "I was on the point, however, of reading 
 to you from some of our philosophers." 
 
 "Pray do so by all means," said Revato. 
 
 "With the stipulation that you do not hold me 
 accountable for their opinions. Our Hellenic sages, 
 like yours, have made free to think for themselves, 
 which they have done with great variety. In some 
 of their speculations you may detect a likeness to 
 your own." 
 
 PHILOSOPHY 
 
 In the first scroll from which Diomedes then read, 
 was declared the Heraclitean doctrine of Flux. All 
 things are in motion; nothing abides. No man 
 passeth twice over the same stream; nay, the passer 
 himself is without constancy. Life and death, 
 waking and sleeping, youth and old age are the 
 same, for the latter change and are the former and 
 the former change back to the latter. Gods are 
 mortals, men are immortals, each living in the 
 others death and dying in the others life. 
 
 With amazement Revato heard thus clearly 
 enunciated the familiar principle of Anicca, Imper- 
 manence. As Gotamo applied it to the human 
 personality, it was Anatta, "No Self," the lack of 
 any enduring Ego wherein we might find refuge from 
 Dukkha, Pain, and which could remain unchanged 
 in our passage from life to life. (For, under the 
 Dhamma the mortality of the soul was no bar to 
 resurrection and retribution.) 
 
 Asked Revato, "Tell me, Diomedes, what has been 
 the moral influence of the Impermanence doctrine 
 upon your people? It has taught mine to despise 
 the vanities of life." 
 
 "Which goes to show, Revato, that people find 
 in a doctrine what they bring to it. Among us, 
 opposite minds have plucked from Herakleitos what 
 has appealed to their tastes. But most richly have 
 his teachings borne amiable fruit. We lonians are 
 lovers of life of life s vanities, if you will have it 
 so. We reason that, if we are destined to last only 
 for a moment, then during that moment let us be 
 happy. It is on this consideration that Aristippus 
 of Cyrene and that Epicurus the Samian base their 
 joyous ethics, which most of my countrymen 
 approve." 
 
 "How do they evade the consequences in rebirths ? 
 
 "They are not concerned with rebirths. These are 
 the teaching of another philosopher, Pythagoras, 
 who preached also a sad-faced abstention from meats 
 and drinks. But listen now to Parmemides of 
 Elea: 
 
 " Being is. It is without beginning and indestruct 
 ible; it is universal, existing alone, immovable in the 
 hold of great chains, one and continuous without 
 end; justice does not slacken her fetters to permit 
 generation or destruction, but holds Being firm. 
 Only in name do things arise and perish, change 
 their position and vary in color. Without Being, 
 thou wilt find no thinking. It is not subject to divi 
 sion nor compounded of parts, but is all alike. It 
 
 [59] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 lies the same, abiding in the same state, on the same 
 spot, like the mass of a rounded sphere, equally 
 distant from the centre at every point. " 
 
 "I can hardly believe," exclaimed Revato, "that 
 you are not repeating to me the very words of a 
 Brahmin hymn! Who would have imagined that 
 while our Ariya munis have been seeking for truth 
 by so many different paths, your Yonaka sages have 
 been following in just the same devious ways?" 
 He proceeded to quote from the Upanishads and 
 the suttas of the Vedanta, passages which like 
 wise declared this Infinite, Eternal Being Tad 
 Ekam To EJ/S "That One" One with the World, 
 One with Thyself Tarn Tvat asi "Thou art 
 That." 
 
 "Now what do you think," inquired Diomedes, 
 "will be the practical consequence of this creed?" 
 
 "The Brahmins who hold it are licentious," 
 Revato answered. 
 
 "Its outcome in the West has been quite the 
 reverse," replied Diomedes. "They who adhere to 
 virtue, like your Gotamo, are against him in theory 
 and agree with your Brahmins in their faith in The 
 One. Such were Socrates and Plato, of whom I have 
 yet to tell you, and austere Zeno, the Stoic. While 
 they learned of Herakleitos in outward things, yet in 
 that which is vital they are to be counted rather as 
 disciples of Parmenides. 
 
 "Verily, Diomedes," Revato exclaimed, "you 
 Yonas have the quality of making your effects follow 
 just contrary to the causes. You build self-gratifi 
 cation upon impermanence of soul and abstenance 
 upon its stability, whereas Ariyas in each case do 
 the opposite." 
 
 Forthwith Diomedes read certain passages illumi 
 nating the Stoic philosophy. Revato saw reflected 
 therein many sides of Buddhist wisdom community 
 of animate existence; indifference or despite toward 
 one s physical environment; compulsion of inward 
 serenity. 
 
 After illustrating the Epicurean position, Dio 
 medes remarked, "From this, I presume, you 
 totally dissent." 
 
 " By no means, " said Revato. " In what may good 
 be measured if not in terms of happiness? Thus, 
 one of Piyadassi s edicts rightly points out that 
 penalties should be proportioned to the degree of its 
 destruction. By happiness I mean not our own 
 of the moment, but that of all beings for all time, 
 even of the gods, if there be such, who take pleasure 
 in watdiing our actions. And since we can rarely 
 tell whether this or that thing will ultimately prove 
 best, we must submit ourselves to rules which gen 
 erally work for good, such as the Enlightened One 
 has taught us. Then, after all, even your Epicurus 
 recognizes that happiness is not a positive quality 
 but consists in the removal of its opposite, pain, 
 craving. He would get rid of craving by gratifying 
 it, Buddho by suppressing it; in either case the final 
 goal is not happiness but peace. This, however, is 
 beyond our comprehension. 
 
 " When, by consummate saving, the miry slough is crossed, 
 When crushed are thorns of craving and all delusions lost, 
 Would then, or pain or pleasure contest that sure Release, 
 They fail in equal measure, for nought prevails but Peace. " 
 
 "You allay your craving for argument by Epi 
 curus plan, gratification, rather than by Buddho s, 
 suppression," interjected Prote, "and the result is 
 not always peace to your listeners. Philosophy is 
 only a part of life, which it serves to round out, and 
 it must not be given such prominence as to destroy 
 the symmetry of the whole. " 
 
 FOOD 
 
 A servant, now entering the room, made some 
 announcement in Yonaka to his master, who said to 
 Revato : 
 
 "The hour has arrived for applying the precepts 
 of Epicurus. I trust you will not decline. And 
 Prote, you may dine with us on condition of a 
 solemn vow to Artemis that you do not divulge 
 the fact if ever again we find our way to Athens." 
 
 In a room across the court was prepared a long 
 table with wide cushioned couches on which the 
 diners might loll as they ate and be saved from a 
 fall if indulgence overcame them. Prote, however, 
 sat upright in a chair with her feet on a padapitha, 
 a foot-stool. The dining-room furniture was 
 strange to Revato. He had been used to broad, 
 square benches on which the eaters squatted to take 
 their food from a few dishes on individual cross- 
 legged stools. Now he became painfully embarrassed, 
 fearful of doing the wrong thing. 
 
 Before their beginning upon the meal, slaves 
 brought in silver basins of perfumed water with 
 towels, that the diners might perform their ablutions. 
 
 Upon the table were laid many dishes of food, 
 some recognizable in kind but all served in un 
 familiar manner. The place of honor in the menu 
 was filled by the royal bird of the Moriya dynasty. 
 Revato had heard from the back of the house a 
 peacock s terrified shrieks, which were now accounted 
 for. 
 
 "In eating this bird we shall perform a three-fold 
 duty," said Diomedes; "we shall agreeably nourish 
 ourselves, we shall win favor from the Queen Goddess 
 Hera, to whom her favorite bird of the Argos-eyed 
 tail is offered, and we shall honor Piyadassi, the 
 Moriya." 
 
 "Honor him thus!" exclaimed Revato. 
 
 Evidently the law of the city weighed no more 
 with Diomedes than did Asoko s wishes. Since 
 the fowl had been slain by an unbeliever, Revato 
 was not debarred by his religion from eating it. 
 The Blessed One himself had come to his death 
 by an indigestible meal of bacon, and slaughter 
 houses served by Candala outcastes were an ortho 
 dox institution in spite of Piyadassi s restrictions. 
 But Revato had no taste for the peacock nor for the 
 dishes of antelope s flesh and portions of other 
 creatures that had been alive. So he fared as best 
 he might on herbs and cakes and tree dainties, 
 
 [60] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 humorously explaining to his host that he was an 
 exploiter of fruit food only. 
 
 His persistent refusals of the meat furnished 
 ample subject of conversation throughout the meal. 
 Diomedes remarked that Pythagoras had forbidden 
 beans as well as meat. Revato told how Buddho had 
 permitted beans but had ruled out onions because 
 they had caused a monk, after partaking of them, 
 considerately to hold aloof from his brethren during 
 the preaching of the Dhamma. 
 
 Never did Revato feel more at a disadvantage 
 than in attempting to justify the distinction between 
 killing to eat and eating that which has been killed. 
 "They say that when a cow has been slain and 
 dressed, she is no longer cow but meat," Revato 
 contended, as the best argument he could remember. 
 
 The compromising attitude of Revato s religion 
 toward meats did not extend to intoxicating drinks, 
 the use of which he had been brought up to regard 
 as in quite another category, positively, not con 
 tingently, evil. He told his hosts a story of how the 
 Elder Sagato, having freely indulged, helpless, and 
 hiccoughing nonsense, was carried by the brethren 
 to the cloister park, where he lay on the ground 
 with his feet disrespectfully toward Buddho. 
 
 "Well now, Brethren," said the Master, "is it 
 proper to drink that which, when drunken steals 
 away a man s senses?" "It is improper, Sir," said 
 they, and he declared that the drinking of liquor 
 must constitute a misdemeanor. 
 
 By this time, the substantial part of the meal 
 being over, servants removed the tables and brought 
 in a tall pitcher of wine with goblets. Among them 
 was a great wrought cup all of silver, but the lips 
 were worked with gold. Filling this, Diomedes 
 dashed a part of it on the floor, exclaiming, "To 
 Pallas Athene," then drank a swallow and handed 
 it to his guest. 
 
 Boldly as Revato had refused the meat, he found 
 the present situation embarrasing, but a happy 
 solution for the dilemma occurred to him and he 
 passed the cup on to Prote. Yet this only post 
 poned the difficulty, for, after sipping, she returned 
 the flagon to him. 
 
 "It will make you glad and forgetful," she said. 
 
 "Temperance," supplemented Diomedes more 
 prosaically, "is intended to preserve our appetite for 
 occasions, such as this, for its most happy indul 
 gence." 
 
 Perhaps Revato s unfamiliarity with the tempta 
 tion may condone his yielding. At all events, 
 he drank; and having done so, it was an easier 
 matter to accept the special goblet that was rilled for 
 him after that of the libation. There was nothing 
 distasteful to him in the wine, as there had been in 
 the meat. When later he pondered over himself, 
 he felt like the mendicant who returned a straw yet 
 purloined gold. But now the liquor, light and 
 frugal as it was, cheered him and put him in a humor 
 suited to the occasion. 
 
 The supper was concluded with a desert con 
 sisting of dainties imported from Yonaloka 
 dried figs, olives and nuts. When satiety had taken 
 away the desire of eating and drinking, Prote sang 
 to her lute and even ventured to execute a dance, 
 sedately however as compared with the professional 
 dancing girls of Magadha. 
 
 It was now quite dark outside and Revato spoke 
 of taking leave but Diomedes objected: 
 
 "It would dishonor our Greek wisdom were I to 
 let you go after revealing it to you so imcompletely. 
 There is better yet to come. When we have spent 
 the evening together you will depart with a more 
 perfect insight of our philosophy." 
 
 Compliance was no hardship, and Revato stayed. 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 THE PLANE TREE AND THE BODHI TREE 
 
 BEAUTY 
 
 The story which Diomedes began after supper, 
 from a freshly-unrolled book, was no dark legend 
 of gods and heroes, but an account of two friends, 
 who strolled from the restless town out among 
 bright fields to the side of a brook where nymphs 
 and dryads dwelt in fancy. There they seated 
 themselves in the umbrage of a fronded tree called 
 the Plane tree. 
 
 Not thus did Bodhisatto, fainting in body and 
 riven with striving, approach the river Neranjara 
 and sink beneath the Assattha tree the Pipphala, 
 which thence is called the Bodhi, the Tree of Wisdom, 
 but who could tell whether the Plane tree might not 
 after all be the truer Tree of Wisdom? 
 
 "Beloved Pan, and all ye other gods who haunt 
 this place, give me beauty in the inward soul; and 
 may the outward and inward man be at one. May 
 I reckon the wise to be wealthy, and may I have 
 such a quantity of gold as only the temperate can 
 carry. Anything more? That prayer, I think, is 
 enough for me." 
 
 Thus spake Socrates as he sat by Phaedrus. This 
 shrewd self-possession, this calculating humility, 
 was not in the spirit of Buddho, but it might have 
 its own valuable lesson to teach. And the lesson 
 that the Ionian taught to his friend was this: How 
 the soul may be winged by the beauties of this 
 world and soar to a beautiful world on high. 
 
 [6, 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 He showed that, throughout successive births as 
 beasts and man, we dwell on earth or in heaven or in 
 hell, as the case may be. But the spirit of him who 
 has never seen the Truth will not pass into the 
 human form, for we must be capable of recollecting 
 "those things which our soul once saw when in 
 company with God when looking down from above 
 on that which we now call being and upward toward 
 the True Being. And therefore, the mind of the 
 philosopher alone has wings; and this is just, for he 
 is always, according to the measure of his abilities, 
 clinging in recollection to those things in which God 
 abides, and beholding which He is what He is. And 
 he who employs aright these memories is ever being 
 initiated into perfect mysteries and alone becomes 
 truly perfect. But, as he forgets earthly interests 
 and is rapt in the Divine, the vulgar deem him mad 
 and rebuke him; they do not see that he is inspired." 
 
 "Are you weary of Hellenic wisdom, Revato, or 
 have you patience still to listen?" 
 
 "My patience to listen, Diomedes, is as enduring 
 as yours to instruct." 
 
 "Then harken awhile longer to this, the greatest 
 of all philosophers. Had he been born in Ariya Land, 
 the people would have made him a god. They 
 would have built to him temples hideous with 
 painted wooden images. It is thus I am giving them 
 a graven form worthy of worship in making a god of 
 your Buddho." 
 
 "Why then do you not manufacture of your own 
 Enlightened One a new god in Yonaloka? It 
 appears that they are as easy to make there as 
 among the Brahmins." 
 
 "No Helene needs an image in order to be a god," 
 rejoined Diomedes. "He comes of an Olympic race. 
 As we are divine, so also are our gods human; they 
 are our own flesh and blood; our blessed ancestors, 
 vanished, yet ever close beside us with kindly 
 interest in our affairs. Do not try to understand 
 this, for you cannot." 
 
 "Madness," went on this philosopher, "is imputed to him who, 
 when he sees the beauty of earth, is transported with the recollec 
 tion of the true Beauty; he would like to fly far away, but he 
 cannot; he is a like a bird fluttering and looking upward and 
 careless of the world below, and he is therefore esteemed mad. 
 Few there are who remember the things of the other world and 
 they, when they behold any image of that world, are rapt in 
 amazement. For there is no light in the earthly copies of justice 
 or temperance or any of the higher qualities which are precious to 
 souls: They are seen but through a glass dimly. 
 
 "But Beauty we saw there shining in company with the 
 celestial forms; and coming to earth, we find her here too, shining 
 in clearness through the aperture of sense. For sight is the keen 
 est of our bodily senses; though not by that is Wisdom seen, for 
 her loveliness would have been transporting if there had been a 
 visible image of her, and this is true of the loveliness of the other 
 ideas as well. But Beauty only has this portion, that she is at once 
 the loveliest and also the most apparent. Now he who has not 
 been initiated, or who has become corrupted, is not easily carried 
 out of this world to the sight of absolute Beauty in the other; he 
 looks at that which has the name of Beauty in this world, and 
 instead of being awed at the sight of her, like a brutish beast he 
 rushes on to enjoy and beget. But he whose initiation is recent 
 and who has been the spectator of many glories in the other 
 world is amazed when he sees anyone having a godlike face or 
 
 form, which is the expression or imitation of divine Beauty; and 
 at first a shudder runs through him and some misgiving of a form 
 er world steals over him; then, as he gazes, the shudder passes 
 into an ardour whereby he groweth his wings. " 
 
 "What can this beautiful world be but Nibbana?" 
 exclaimed Revato. "Your muni speaks as do those 
 who have attained it. Truly, as I affirm, we 
 must withdraw our eyes from sensuous beauty and 
 fix them upon the beauty of Truth as perceived in 
 our hearts. Then let men call us mad. It is said 
 that only a Buddho remembers his past lives. And 
 can it be that from Nibbana we proceeded as we 
 aspire to return into it? Who knows? But I 
 believe with all my heart that we shall rise to the 
 beauty of that world the most eagerly as we behold 
 it with affection in the Blessed One himself." 
 
 "You wrest Socrates meaning to conform it with 
 your own notions," Diomedes rejoined. "He would 
 not have us look for the Blessed City by blinding 
 ourselves to earthly beauty, but he teaches us rather 
 to dwell on all that is lovely in the outward life, 
 seeing in it a shadow of the perfect spiritual world. 
 Error consists in turning our eyes either wholly 
 inward or wholly outward. Our life is here com 
 pared with a chariot whereunto are harnessed Sense 
 and Spirit while the reins are in the hands of Reason 
 to hold his team at an even pace." 
 
 "He has somewhere said," interposed Prote, 
 "that beauty and goodness are the same thing and 
 that neither one amounts to anything apart from its 
 object. What is beneficial is good to whomsoever 
 it is beneficial, and the beautiful must be considered 
 with regard to the useful." 
 
 COURAGE 
 
 Another of Plato s suttas Diomedes opened to 
 Revato. It was Laches, in which Socrates dis 
 courses with his friend of that name, and with 
 Nicias, on Courage. Here were pointed out divers 
 kinds of intrepidity. "For we must rank as coura 
 geous those not only who are such in war, but those 
 who in disease, in poverty, or again in politics are 
 courageous; and not only who are courageous 
 against pain and fear, but mighty to contend against 
 desires and pleasures." 
 
 "Truly," remarked Revato, "this Socrates would 
 have agreed with Bhagava when he said: 
 
 " Though, vanquishing a million men, in battle one engages, 
 Whoso himself can overcome, a grander conflict wages. " 
 
 "Did you suppose, Revato," Diomedes answered, 
 "that any noble thought could exist unknown to 
 Hellas? Hearken to this hymn addressed to Ares 
 and attributed to our greatest of poets: 
 
 " Gleam with mild glow on my pathway, kindling my warlike 
 
 endeavor 
 
 Strong to encounter my cowardly temper, my petulant passion, 
 Curbing the force of mine anger, which spurs me to mix in the 
 
 battle. 
 Hearten me, Blest One, to linger, harmless, unpained, in my peace 
 
 Deaf to the enerm 
 
 shout, far from the fates of destruction. 
 
 [62] 
 
THE 
 
 LAYMAN 
 
 R E V A T O 
 
 "That indeed," observed Revato, "is a type of 
 nobility with which I had little credited your 
 countrymen." 
 
 "Were it the prevailing type," Diomedes retorted, 
 "my countrymen could never had attained their 
 exalted state, or having reached it, they would 
 quickly be enslaved by the barbarians." 
 
 As they read further in the book, they came to a 
 definition of courage by Nicias. He maintained 
 that courage is dependent upon a knowledge of the 
 grounds of hope and fear, and hence a brute, be it a 
 pig or a lion, cannot show courage, but only fearless 
 ness or rashness." 
 
 " Good ! good ! " exclaimed Revato. " Most of those 
 acts of men which are admired as heroic possess only 
 this quality of brute recklessness. There is a courage 
 of assured safety, such as Arahats possess. Thus 
 Buddho s monks whose passions were at rest were 
 calm before the assassin Migalandiko. There is a 
 courage which is a deliberate exposure of oneself 
 to privation, peril, pain or scorn, after a prudent 
 weighing of these in the balance against certain 
 results. This was the courage which Buddho com 
 mended. But what people generally have in mind 
 when they speak of courage is a mad venturesome- 
 ness which is possible only by blinding one s eyes to 
 consequences. Since we should always act with an 
 outlook to eventualities, such courage is inherently 
 evil. Readiness to face death, as men go into battle, 
 ignoring what comes after death, is a fearful exhibi 
 tion of this heroism. Why, even the damned in 
 Purgatory fear death, little as it can aggravate their 
 condition! But fatuous men so delude themselves 
 as to count the cheers or jeers of their fellows, or the 
 lust for revenge and loot, or the mere joy of killing, 
 more important than millions of ages in the hells. In 
 many ways this course leads to immeasurable cruelty 
 and misery which would be escaped if cowardice pre 
 vailed. Not only those who go to war, but those of 
 us who remain behind pass our lives in a state of 
 foolhardiness, by reason of that animal vivacity 
 which is the veil of Maya before our eyes. Reason 
 and virtue demand that we govern our lives by the 
 calmest judgment; hence I laud what men call 
 cowardice." 
 
 "Faint not, fool, in thy strong heart," interjected 
 Prote from some one of her sources of songs, but in a 
 tone which did not promote Revato s self-compla 
 cency. 
 
 "Lady," he managed to retort, "you are like the 
 Queen of Kosala who was glad to go and see an army 
 clad in armor standing on auspicious ground and to 
 drink the water in which swords were washed." 
 
 WHAT THE GREEKS ALSO KNEW 
 
 Finally Diomedes went on to read how this same 
 Socrates was condemned to death by vote of his 
 fellow-citizens for corrupting their youth, because 
 he had been searching into things of Heaven and 
 the under world, doubting the gods in which the 
 city believed and making the worse appear the 
 
 [63 
 
 better reason. In the prison, as his hour for execu 
 tion approached, he gathered about him a little 
 group of friends to counsel and comfort them, as 
 did the dying Buddho among his disciples. "All of 
 us who were present," said the Greek who bears 
 record, "were affected in much the same manner, at 
 one time laughing, at another time weeping." 
 
 Alike the two Enlightened ones urged the mourn 
 ers to seize this last opportunity for making known 
 their perplexities: "If Simmias here, or anyone 
 else, has anything to say, it were well for him not 
 to be silent; for I know not to what other oppor 
 tunity beyond the present anyone can defer it, who 
 wishes either to speak or to hear about these things." 
 So too the Bhavaga: "It may be that there is some 
 doubt or misgiving in the mind of some brother as 
 to the Buddho, or the Truth or the Path or the Way. 
 Enquire, brethren, freely. Do not have to reproach 
 yourselves afterward with the thought: Our teacher 
 was face to face with us and we could not bring our 
 selves to enquire of the Blessed One when we were 
 face to face with him. " 
 
 Devoid of apprehension for himself, the man 
 about to die, in either case, discoursed with his 
 friends by the same leisurely, dialectic method, 
 a monologue of leading questions periodically broken 
 for the respectful assent "Certainly Socrates," 
 "Even so, Lord." 
 
 This Greek led his friends into that "philosophy 
 which is the highest music," and "hatred of which 
 springs from the same source as hatred of mankind." 
 He told them that the soul reasons best when in 
 contact with no disturbing thing hearing or sight 
 or pain or pleasure of any kind. 
 
 "The lovers of wisdom know that philosophy, receiving their 
 soul plainly bound and glued to the body, and compelled to view 
 things through this, as through a prison, and not directly by 
 herself, and sunk in utter ignorance, and perceiving too, the 
 strength of that prison that it arises from desire, so that he who is 
 bound as much as possible assists in binding himself I say then 
 the lovers of wisdom know that philosophy, receiving their soul 
 in this state, gently exhorts it and endeavors to free it, by show 
 ing that the view of things by means of the eyes is full of decep 
 tion, as also that through the ears and the other senses; persuad 
 ing an abandonment of these so far as it is not absolutely to lose 
 them, and advising the soul to be collected and concentrated 
 within herself. . . . She abstains as much as possible from 
 pleasures and desires, griefs and fears, considering that when 
 anyone is exceedingly delighted or alarmed, grieved or influ 
 enced by desire, he does not merely suffer such evil from these 
 things as one might suppose, such as either being sick or wasting 
 his property through indulging his desires; but that which is the 
 greatest evil, and worst of all, this he suffers, and is not conscious 
 of it." 
 
 How like a sutta from the Baskets of his own Law 
 this address sounded to Revato! Little had he 
 thought to hear from the lips of a Yonaka so clear an 
 admission of the evil resident in desire and in sen 
 suous life. 
 
 Prote, whose pretty eyelids had been drooping 
 during the long locutions that had preceded, was 
 roused by this last to pugnacity. 
 
 "Father," she exclaimed, "have you not too 
 much patriotism to mislead Revato with such 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 travesties of our Ionian ideas? He will think that 
 our philosophers are as morose as his own. No, 
 Revato, our truest philosopher was she who taught 
 that according to the intensity of our feelings, we 
 live." 
 
 "You Yonakas, who have outdistanced the rest 
 of the world in refinements of life," said Revato, 
 "have a great external show of joy, and it may be 
 that you are able to feel pleasure more keenly than 
 we, but I venture to say that, were the whole truth 
 known, there would be found lurking under those 
 pleasures thorns of anguish sharper than any which 
 we have to endure." 
 
 "That may be true, " replied Prote, " but is not the 
 ability to experience such happiness are not the 
 multifold forms of happiness which our culture opens 
 to us beyond those which the barbarian knows 
 more than a compensation for the attendant pains?" 
 
 "Frankly, I think not," said Revato. "Of those 
 joys and miseries which are entailed in the develop 
 ment of our lives, the suffering builds up more 
 rapidly. This is the universal law." 
 
 On this question, as they had before proved, 
 Prote s and Revato s opinions were irreconcilable. 
 A judgment was asked of Diomedes. 
 
 "Discretion lies in moderation," he affirmed. 
 
 "Precisely," said Revato. "There I agree with 
 you. Only our variance in defining the word mod 
 eration would leave us far apart." 
 
 "More of this anon," said Diomedes, "but first 
 shall we read more of the Phaedo? 
 
 " Each pleasure and pain nails the soul to the 
 body and fastens it to it, and causes it to become 
 corporeal, deeming these things to be true whatever 
 the body asserts to be so. It cannot pass into Hades 
 in a pure state, but must depart polluted by the body, 
 and so quickly falls again into another body, and 
 grows up as if it were sown, and consequently is 
 deprived of all association with that which is Divine 
 and pure and uniform. " 
 
 "Sown like a seed!" exclaimed Revato. "That is 
 right. That explains how we pass from one birth to 
 another. Kamma is the force in the seed by which it 
 puts forth a new body." 
 
 Perhaps in all that was read, Revato most ad 
 mired the Socratic qualification: "To affirm posi 
 tively, indeed, that these things are exactly as I have 
 described, does not become a man of sense." 
 
 At Cebes remark upon the alarm of one who 
 should die in doubt whether his soul, in its disunion 
 with the body, might not entirely perish, Revato was 
 startled by the opposition of such a fear to that which 
 harassed himself. While he, in common with his 
 countrymen, was oppressed by the stupendous 
 difficulty of escaping from existences, these Western 
 ers looked upon such release as a calamity, and Cebes 
 even with a naive disregard of preparedness for 
 hazards. 
 
 Much akin to the Yonaka muni as he felt himself in 
 many particulars, Revato, with his Buddhist pre 
 occupations, was conscious of an impassible gulf be 
 
 tween their views of the soul s nature. It was upon 
 the dissolution of the soul, or mind, into elements 
 at death, a theory earnestly combatted by Socrates, 
 that Buddho based his religion. Yet he remained 
 not in the abyss of negation from which Socrates 
 raised the skeptic Simmias, but by the affirmation 
 of Kamma he established the law of futurity and 
 retribution as firm as adamant. 
 
 "The soul," said Socrates, "goes to Hades possess 
 ing nothing but its discipline and education." This, 
 at least, was the essence of Buddho s doctrine, it 
 being explained that the soul which goes to Hades 
 consists of naught else but that discipline and edu 
 cation. There it is sown as a seed to raise unto itself 
 a new body and mind. That mind, by the Buddhist 
 theory (when consistently maintained) will possess 
 no historical memory, but it may be said to have as 
 a moral memory, the memory of conscience, for it 
 will read its past written in its present condition. 
 Indeed, we may presume that the identity of char 
 acter will restore the soul in duplicate of the old one, 
 virtually the same, and linked with former lives 
 almost as closely as our to-days are linked with our 
 hazy yesterdays. Thus, from the voice of denial 
 echoes a great affirmation. 
 
 THE TEACHER OF ALASANDO 
 
 The hour was now so late that Revato again 
 moved to depart, but Diomedes detained him still, 
 saying: 
 
 "I fear that my promise has ill been kept and that 
 I have been reading to you those things which I 
 knew would appeal to your interest, rather than 
 those which best illuminate our Hellenic life and 
 which you most need. But you shall not depart 
 without carrying away a few thoughts from our 
 most sensible of teachers, the preceptor of Alex 
 ander." 
 
 "We are in search of something that is concrete and practical," 
 read Diomedes, "rather than of abstract Ideas. The physician s 
 investigation concerns not health in general, but of this or that 
 particular man. 
 
 "The man who is truly noble and sensible does what is noblest 
 under the circumstances, as a good cobbler makes the best shoe 
 he can out of the leather that has been given him. 
 
 "The elements of our conduct are spoiled either by excess or 
 defect. In anger, for example, we are wrong if the anger be 
 either too violent or too slack, but right if it be a happy medium. 
 Thus it is with fear, confidence, lust, compassion, pleasure and 
 pain. " 
 
 "A small deflection from the right is not blameworthy, but 
 only a considerable one, for it is hard to judge precisely where 
 the mean lies. 
 
 "A man may be praiseworthy for rejecting the results of logic 
 when he finds them objectionable. 
 
 "The man of Perfected Self Mastery delights not in vicious 
 things; but those which conduce to health and good condition, 
 being also pleasant, he will moderately grasp, and also such 
 other pleasant things as are not injurious. 
 
 "All men rightfully grasp at pleasure, since all aim at life, and 
 life is working and each works with the things he likes best the 
 musician with melodies, the student at speculations, etc. And 
 pleasure perfects the act of working, and so life, after which men 
 grasp. 
 
 "For noble things, even the desires themselves are praise 
 worthy, and for ignoble things blameworthy. 
 
 [6 4 ] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 "Higher than pleasure, though involving it, is Happiness. 
 This, at its best, is a continuous, enduring, leisurely, detached, 
 contemplative, god-like state. To possess it requires sufficient 
 worldly goods for personal well-being, but no excess. It is not 
 for animals nor slaves, but for sages." 
 
 Among these prudential, cultural, life-exalting 
 counsels of Alasando s tutor, were sentences which 
 caused Revato s spirits to rise like a captive bird, 
 forgetting the cage that limited its flight; with a will 
 almost that would have annihilated that cage by 
 ignoring its existence. 
 
 How glorious is freedom from the petty restraints 
 of unyielding law! from the purposeless wasting of 
 a lifetime within its prison! How grand to be at 
 liberty for expedient action, shaping one s conduct 
 for greatest usefulness, most perfect results What 
 could be a better rule of life? The good in such 
 achievements is definite, positive; they are the most 
 tangible criterion of virtue. Should not those 
 courses of action which lead to them be followed 
 and those courses of action, or halting places of 
 inaction, which are aloof from them be shunned? 
 If theory clash with practice, so much the worse for 
 theory. If logic work harm, let logic go. 
 
 So Revato told himself. He also reasoned: 
 "These Yavanas, whether they be right or wrong, 
 are not ignorant of any side of any question. Is not 
 every idea known to the wise men of Jambudipa 
 found somewhere in the teachings of their phi 
 losophers? Ascetic morality has been repudiated in 
 Yonaloka because it has been tried and found 
 wanting." 
 
 It is true that a misgiving lurked in Revato s 
 mind due to the affirmation of Aristoteles that, 
 after all, justice is not one of those questions which 
 admit of compromise. Injustice being the gravamen 
 of the Layman s difficulties, he could not rid himself 
 of the lurking consciousness that his attempt to 
 destroy them was merely covering them up. Still, 
 he reflected, the Yonaka moralist would probably 
 have refused to class his obliquities with things 
 really unjust or dishonorable and would have swept 
 them aside as trifles which ought not to be allowed 
 to hinder a symmetrical development of character, 
 a successful persistency in career. 
 
 In the few moments remaining before his pro 
 tracted departure, Revato discussed with Diomedes 
 the opinions of this last great teacher. He noticed 
 in them the same recognition of the inter-relation of 
 desire, pleasure and life which lies at the bottom of 
 Buddho s system and which he had identified in 
 other of the Yonaka sages expounded by Diomedes 
 and Prote usually, however, with an exaltation on 
 their part of that which the Sakiya called an unqual 
 ified evil. The question of happiness and its goal 
 interested him as tending toward a conception of 
 Nibbana, although he thought the distinction be 
 tween happiness and pleasure to be sophistical, 
 unless meaning merely a difference of lower and 
 higher pleasures. He reserved, however, the ques 
 tion whether there might be a condition of satisfac 
 
 tion which was not pleasure or happiness, but 
 something higher than either, however inconceivable 
 by reason. Another subject of remark was Aris 
 toteles Happy Medium. 
 
 "The Lord of the Dhamma, also," said Revato, 
 "proclaimed the Middle Way. But his was another 
 path from the Mean of your sage. Yours is adapted 
 to the genial life of rich cities, his to the quiet of the 
 many-treed forests on the hills about my home at 
 Giribbaja." 
 
 "What kinds of trees grow at Giribbaja?" asked 
 Diomedes with real interest. 
 
 Revato named the sala, the teak, the banyan, the 
 pipphala, the lodda and what others he could recall. 
 
 "I have need of the choicest woods," Diomedes 
 explained, "for framing and trimming the sang- 
 harama buildings for beams and rafters and jambs, 
 for doors and window frames and shutters and bal 
 conies. No trouble has been spared to obtain the 
 best lumber adapted to each purpose. In crossing 
 the mountains on our way to Jambudipa I noticed 
 how large and straight grew the Devadaru sharp 
 spined Tree of God and would you believe it? 
 I have since dispatched foresters to that far north 
 western region to fell for me those trees and float 
 them down upon the rivers. Their wood has its 
 special uses; to other ends I require the pick of your 
 southern hard timber." 
 
 "We have some tinduka ebony," Revato sug 
 gested. 
 
 "Saccang nu kho! True, now, indeed!" ex 
 claimed Diomedes with unfeigned delight. 
 
 "If you wish to learn more about our trees at 
 Rajagaha than I can tell you," Revato answered, 
 "you might consult the Sakiyaputtiya samana Kon- 
 danno, who was a wood seller before his pabbajja 
 and who spends every vassa among us. He is now 
 in Pataliputta, staying at the Kukkutarama." 
 
 "I would like to talk with him," said Diomedes 
 eagerly. "When can you meet me there and intro 
 duce me to him?" 
 
 "Shall we say to-morrow at two muhuttas an 
 an hour and a half before sunset? He will probably 
 then have returned from the day s wanderings." 
 
 "Very good," replied Diomedes, "I shall doubt 
 less take occasion by the end of hemanta the winter 
 season to prospect your Rajagaha mountains for 
 timber." 
 
 "To that time," said Revato, "I shall look forward 
 expectantly. If, when you arrive, you will call on 
 me at the custom house, I will bid you welcome to 
 my home." 
 
 Diomedes promised that he would do so, being 
 in his best humor since he had heard about the trees. 
 Revato did not know whether it would conform with 
 Yonaka etiquette were he to suggest that the archi 
 tect bring his daughter too; but he hoped that so the 
 event might turn out. With pleasant anticipation 
 of this, and also of to-morrow s meeting with Di 
 omedes, at least, in the Kukkutarama, Revato took 
 a late leave of his friendly host and hostess. 
 
 [65] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 THE WORLD OUTSIDE OF THOUGHT 
 
 Where earth nor water, flame nor wind, attaineth 
 
 A footing ground, there gleams not any light; 
 
 Not there the sun appears nor moon remaineth 
 
 Nor is it yet the dwelling-place of night. 
 
 He knows it well whose holy mind constraineth 
 
 To broodings of the Truth-fraught eremite. 
 
 No world of shape nor unformed world shall bound him, 
 Delight and anguish nevermore confound him. 
 
 AT THE COCK GARDEN MONASTERY 
 
 It was far into the pacchabhatta of the day 
 that long period which intervenes between the late 
 morning meal and fall of night that the meditating, 
 studying and conversing bhikkhus in the Cock 
 Garden Monastery were startled by the news that 
 two foreign women and a man sought admittance at 
 the gate. The women proved to be Prote and her 
 maid lasis, the man her boatman Nereus. 
 
 Revato, who was waiting, met her with wonder 
 and embarrassment, to catalogue his emotions only 
 in part. She explained to him that her father had 
 found in a wall of one of the cells at the Parayana 
 abbey a crack caused by undermining in the recent 
 freshet, and had sent word to her that he must 
 remain on the island until he should get the structure 
 safely shored up. In default of instructions to the 
 contrary, she had thought proper to come here herself 
 and present the excuse to Revato. She had made 
 the trip in the Nagi boat by a circuitous route, 
 down the Ganga and up the Hirannabahu, entering a 
 lagoon and threading through the canals south of the 
 city till solid ground blocked the way. There a chair 
 had met her by arrangement and had carried her over 
 the, not very long, land journey to the Kukkutarama. 
 
 Prote was quite willing to look about the priory 
 quadrangle with its rows of cells. It was built on a 
 larger scale than the Parayana, for it had been 
 erected by Asoko to shelter a thousand monks and to 
 constitute the capitol, so to speak, of the Dhamma 
 religion. The buildings were brick and sudhakamma, 
 stucco work, embellished with five-ribbon scrolls, 
 dragon s tooth tracery and figures which made of 
 them wonderful cittagaras "picture galleries." 
 Prote, however, called them crude and tawdry. 
 
 With curiosity she inspected the various offices 
 of the great institution and watched the brethren at 
 their divers avocations. Some were stitching robes, 
 others dyeing the fabric, a few repeating sacred 
 texts, more gossipping. 
 
 Prote did not meet the Venerable Kondanno, 
 who for some reason failed to return to the monastery 
 when expected, so that Diomedes absence saved 
 Revato from a broken engagement on his part. 
 Kondanno was to start northward the next morn 
 ing, and consequently the plan for an interview 
 with him was abandoned. 
 
 With some trepidation Revato led Prote to the 
 cell of the Venerable Bharadvajo; he did it upon her 
 own request. 
 
 Since Bharadvajo s arrival at Pataliputta, the 
 infirmities of age and hardship had swiftly de- 
 cended upon him. He had found it necessary to 
 remain at the Cock Garden convent, abandoning 
 his plan for a winter s travel north of the great river, 
 and was even questioning whether, when Kondanno 
 should rejoin him, he would be strong enough to 
 return and spend the next vassa at Giribbaja. 
 
 "I too," he might have said in the words of the 
 Blessed One on his last pilgrimage, "I too am 
 grown old, and full of years, my journey is drawing 
 to its close, I have reached my sum of days; and just 
 as a worn-out cart can only with much additional 
 care be made to move along, so, methinks, the 
 body of the Tathagato can only be kept going with 
 much additional pains. It is only, when the Tatha 
 gato, ceasing to attend to any outward thing, or to 
 experience any sensation, becomes plunged in that 
 devout meditation of heart which is concerned with 
 no material object it is only then that the body of 
 the Tathagato is at ease." 
 
 Bharadvajo felt not quite at home with the 
 bhikkhus of the Kukkutarama. Much true piety 
 and humility as there might be among them, there 
 was also, as inevitable in the midst of that capital 
 city, a great deal of disguised worldliness and am 
 bition, a vast amount of clerical politics, bickering 
 and intrigue. They all treated him with kind 
 deference, but his simplicity was alien from the spirit 
 of the institution and he longed to build once more 
 his grass hut on the Vulture s Peak, for the Lenten 
 season, in the presence, as it were, of his blessed 
 Master. Yet, like Pingiyo of old, he had the con 
 solation: 
 
 "Though my flesh be worn and wasted, 
 
 Though my carnal eye be dim, 
 
 Though my body cannot follow, 
 
 For I totter, weak of limb, 
 
 Forth in mind and thought I travel 
 
 And my heart is joined to Him. " 
 
 When Revato and Prote found Bharadvajo, he 
 was sitting in front of his red-washed cell, by the 
 cangkama, that cloistered walk where the monks are 
 wont to move to and fro in meditation. Not now 
 could he move to and fro, but he was seated in the 
 lion posture of revery. The Layman had felt mis 
 givings as to the monk s demeanor toward this 
 Yonaki woman and toward himself as her com 
 panion. He had also entertained a hope that his 
 venerable friend would recognize the evasive truth 
 that lay in her life philosophy and make it easier 
 for him, Revato, to grasp. In both of these expec- 
 
 [66] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 tations he was disappointed, for the old man s mind 
 had entered a state almost of impassivity to scenes 
 around him. 
 
 "Santang, santang! Hush, hush!" cautioned 
 Revato to Prote upon perceiving Bharadvajo s con 
 dition of revery. He looked up, aware of their 
 approach and spoke a few words, but connected 
 conversation was impossible to him and his talk 
 took the form only of mutterings reminiscent unto 
 earlier times or allusive to present emotions. Prote s 
 proud spirit became abashed by the perceptible 
 atmosphere of vital, noble facts beyond her under 
 standing. 
 
 "Kacci nu bhoto kusalang, I trust there is 
 health for your Reverence?" she ventured. 
 
 "Vimutto, vimutto, released, released," he mur 
 mured. 
 
 "Are you perfectly contented and happy?" 
 
 "Adukkho, asukho, adukkho, asukho Painless, 
 joyless, painless, joyless," and he continued to 
 asseverate, "adukkho, asukho, asukho, adukkho." 
 
 The visitors remained for some time in a hush, 
 but afterward began to converse, whispering between 
 themselves, and withdrew to continue their talk as 
 they strayed about the great pool in the court. 
 
 "He seems to be perfectly happy and yet he 
 claims to be free from joy as well as from pain," 
 said Prote; "what does he mean by it? Why should 
 one strive to be free from joy? What value can 
 there be in anything except felicity?" 
 
 "That is what we were discussiong yesterday, 
 don t you remember?" said Revato. "Pleasure is 
 freedom from pain, and is negative, though it seems 
 to us positive. And yet it may be that the absence 
 of pain and joy alike which holy men experience in 
 ecstasy is really a deep form of pleasure. Or, perhaps 
 in Nibbana there is a sort of bliss superior to any 
 kind of joy. For Nibbana is well called Sududdasa, 
 Very Hard to Behold. It is the Ineffable, the 
 Inconceivable; it is the Atakkavacara, Outside-of- 
 Thought-Sphere, which our understanding fails to 
 grasp. 
 
 " Reach that Eternal Stage, that Utmost Height, 
 So Clearly Pure, so Subtle, Hard of Sight. " 
 
 "You have heard," continued Revato, "the fable 
 of the blind men who examined an elephant each 
 by feeling of a different part and then vainly dis 
 puted among themselves what an elephant was like. 
 Just so, we who have sensed only a little portion of 
 all that exists cannot be made to perceive matters 
 in which we have had no dealings. We know about 
 Nibbana only two facts: First, that it is the perfect 
 condition, or rather, unconditioned; and second, 
 that it is unlike anything with which we have had to 
 do. Therefore, I make bold to argue that since 
 we have experienced joy, joy cannot make there its 
 home, and since we have felt sorrow, that state must 
 be sorrowless. But we need not, on the other hand, 
 presume Nibbana to be a stupid lethargy, such as 
 
 an absence of pleasure and pain seems to us; for 
 since torpor is a fact of our knowledge, torpor 
 cannot there abide." 
 
 "Did Buddho teach all this?" asked Prote. 
 
 "Not exactly, but implicitly. When the ascetic 
 Vaccho enquired of him where an arahat goes after 
 death, he showed that this was like asking whether 
 a fire that has gone out has gone east, west, north or 
 south. The fire, which depended on fuel of grass 
 and wood, when that fuel has all gone, is said to be 
 extinct. Just so it is when all properties by which 
 we can describe the existence of the saint have been 
 destroyed. He that thus has been released from 
 form and formlessness is, however, deep, immeasur 
 able, unfathomable like the ocean. To say that he 
 is reborn would not fit the case; to say that he is 
 not reborn, would not fit the case." 
 
 "The Tathagato," Revato went on, "thus de 
 clared himself free from all theories; he refused to 
 tell whether Nibbana is a state of existence or non- 
 existence, since this question was to no practical 
 purpose. Still, I do not think he meant to forbid 
 our wondering about it, as a sin, but only to show 
 that it is foolish to speculate where there are no 
 grounds of knowledge. I have pondered much upon 
 that Ananto that Sassatiko that Eternal State, 
 but my notions are in harmony with Buddho s 
 meaning for they are deductions from its very 
 mystery." 
 
 "It is the life of the aeons, as we would say," 
 remarked Prote, half sympathetically, then she 
 added with a feebly cynical reaction, "Have you 
 never visited Nibbana?" 
 
 "I? Nonsense! There are myriads of births yet 
 before me. But its attainment would not enable 
 me to make it clear to you, for those who have 
 entered it, even in this life, find no words by which 
 they can describe it to others." 
 
 "So far as I have learned your religion," said she, 
 "Nibbana is to me blank nothingness, for in entering 
 it, the consciousness and other attributes of life are 
 destroyed, or rather they are so sterilized that they 
 have no power of re-creation after the natural death 
 of the saint. Is this view of mine correct?" 
 
 "It is, so far as anyone can understand the case," 
 Revato answered. "You have a wonderful mind 
 for a woman to seize on truth. By strict worldly 
 logic there is nothing in the idea of Nibbana on 
 which a state of existence can be based, and, in any 
 sense to be terrestrially grasped, Nibbana is simply 
 a region of nibbuta, being blown out. But there 
 are regions where logic is stultified by facts: One of 
 them is the Origin of the primary Cause of things; 
 another may be Nibbana. In this very obscurity 
 lies the possibility that Nibbana, even after death, 
 may be something real, something copious and mag 
 nificent. The Tathagato declared: 
 
 "All the rivers of the world and all the torrents 
 of rain that fall from the sky enter the great ocean, 
 and no deficiency or surplus of water is perceptible 
 in the great ocean. Thus when innumerable saints 
 
 [6 7 ] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 merge all their elements of becoming into Nibbana, 
 where no element of becoming remains, still there 
 is no diminution or surplus perceptible in Nibbana." 
 
 "You remind me of the epitaphs that we inscribe 
 on our funereal urns," said Prote: " The earth hath 
 received his body, the aether his soul. It was min 
 gled together and was separated; it went again from 
 whence it came, earth to earth, the spirit upward. 
 What is difficult here? Nothing. Yet why should 
 we waste the happy, fleeting hours in long-winded 
 conjectures about a shadowy bliss hereafter which 
 is neither this nor that nor yet the other thing?" 
 
 "It depends upon your view of life," answered 
 Revato persistently. "You feel that life is sweet, 
 but in a few years you will discover that you were 
 mistaken and that all the sweetness lay in being 
 young. When sorrow, disease, and decay have 
 done their work, you will admit that you do not 
 care to live another life like the present, even for 
 the sake of being young again. Then what? Before 
 you is an endless chain of such lives. Death only 
 renews them and a wilful death but adds to their 
 calamity. What you should seek is a direct reversal 
 of your present conditions. You have endured 
 through countless existences in worlds of the origi 
 nated and born; your only escape is to a realm of the 
 unoriginated and unborn. You have dwelt where 
 time is, you would dwell henceforth where time is 
 not. As the Master has said, Where there is de 
 pendence, there is instability; where there is no 
 dependence, there is no instability; where there is no 
 instability, there is quietude; where there is quietude, 
 there is no desire; where there is no desire, there is 
 no coming and going; where there is no coming or 
 going, there is neither birth nor death; where there is 
 no birth nor death, there is neither one world nor 
 another world, nor both: That is the end of sorrow. 
 
 "And the end of sorrow," continued Revato, 
 "may still be a very positive condition, rich to sat 
 isfy every right aspiration. When we drop from the 
 weary wheel of existence we shall fall, perchance, 
 into the deepest gulf of Truth. What is Nibbana 
 after death but a prolongation of Nibbana on earth? 
 and in Nibbana on earth the saints have found a 
 plenitude of meaning. Yet for myself I confess 
 that what I long after is neither fullness nor rich 
 ness, but rest." 
 
 As Revato concluded his speech, Prote passed 
 judgment upon it with a quotation from some one 
 of her Ionian poets: 
 
 "Unwisely thou strainest for wisdom 
 Withholden from human discernment. 
 Fleeting is lifetime, and therefore, 
 Whoso pursues the prodigious 
 
 Forfeits his part in the present. 
 Foolish, infatuate, silly, 
 Are such men in my estimation. " 
 
 DRIFTING 
 
 Dusk was now creeping into the shade of the 
 cloister, warning Prote to depart for home. Revato, 
 
 at her bidding, accompanied her, walking beside her 
 chair to the boat. 
 
 On the way they talked of what they had just 
 seen, Prote being loud in her scorn of the brethren 
 at the abbey as encumbrances of human society like 
 parasitic creepers clinging to the strong jungle 
 trees. Revato argued that their influence was a more 
 potent factor for public welfare than any manual oc 
 cupations could be and that their way of life was the 
 best fitted to impress their character upon mankind. 
 
 "// they were all of such high character," she 
 rejoined, "but are they?" and this led to citation of 
 examples on both sides. 
 
 Right so they came to the boat that was waiting 
 for them and after Prote had dismissed her bearers, 
 rewarding them with a kahapana between them, 
 she entered the craft together with Revato, lasis 
 and Nereus. The boatman soon had it shooting 
 through the canals and out upon the Hirannabahu 
 river. They passed by husbandmen returning from 
 the fields and herds from pasture. 
 
 "Evening, thou bringest all that bright morning 
 scattered," murmured Prote. "Thou comest from 
 heaven, wearing a purple mantle. Thaumas is 
 hovering near us; see how the water reflects the 
 lights of the sky and the dark of the banks. Do you 
 hear that low sound over yonder? That s Pan play 
 ing on his reeds. And do you see a flash of white 
 among the trees? That s the flying robes of the 
 naiads and dryads who are dancing around him." 
 
 "I would gladly exchange eyes and ears with you," 
 said Revato, "so that I might perceive the good 
 things which are not, rather than the evil things 
 which are." 
 
 "There is no evil, only good," she answered. 
 
 "No evil?" he repeated sadly. 
 
 "Look at those bubbles," she commanded, point 
 ing among the reeds by the bank. 
 
 "Yes, what of them?" he asked. 
 
 "Are they moving with the stream or against it?" 
 
 "They are going against it." 
 
 "No they are not," she protested. "They are 
 going with the stream, only they are caught in a little 
 eddy where the current strikes the banks and so are 
 moving opposite to the main flow. That is all that 
 evil is, a little local eddy of the great good river 
 where it meets an obstacle. And it s only a hollow 
 bubble, anyway." 
 
 "Let the great, good river try its hand at reversing 
 the fact of past torments," said Revato bitterly. 
 
 The sky was now almost dark, for this was a 
 season of short days. On the obscured banks lamps 
 began to kindle in temple and dwelling. A thupa 
 across the stream was illumined in honor of some, 
 sacred fete, with numerous star-like candles in little 
 niches studding its dome. These various lights the 
 intervening water duplicated without distortion. 
 Mingling with the reflections, were also some true 
 lights, moving stars, floating oil lamps which cele 
 brants of the festival had committed to an unknown 
 destiny upon the receding water. 
 
 [68] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 Prote commanded Nereus to ship his oars and let 
 the craft drift with the current, which was slower 
 than during the flood of the preceding fortnight, yet 
 rapid enough for their desires. So smoothly flowed 
 the stream that the boat s progress was perceptible 
 only by the fixed lights. They kindled a lantern with 
 sides of horn so thin as to let through the shine of 
 the inner lamp, and fastened it on the skiff s prow. 
 
 The girl was in a mood for frank, earnest speech, 
 and in the Pali tongue, which she had learned to use 
 so dexterously, her words were safe from the profane 
 understanding of Nereus and lasis. In the river 
 those who would might read the lesson of every sea 
 ward flowing stream, which is written in all lan 
 guages and in all lives: 
 
 Nuestras vidas son los rios 
 Que van a dar en el mar, 
 Que es el morir. 
 
 The scene in the Kukkutarama might have 
 prompted such an expression, but not by the will of 
 Prote. Her conversation played about the beautiful 
 cities of her own country and the heroic deeds of 
 its sons. 
 
 Revato listened, attentive not to the martial 
 exploits, but to her recital of high thoughts and great 
 works in peace. Presently he said: 
 
 "You admit, Prote, do you not, that, as we were 
 remarking at the vihara, there are subjects, like 
 Nibbana and First Causes, where logic is confuted?" 
 
 "I do not think so, "replied she; "logic would never 
 fail us if we used it properly. Anything can be 
 rationally explained, if it is understood." 
 
 "Then perhaps," said Revato, "you, who see 
 many things so much more clearly than I, can 
 answer for me a riddle, which is a more perplexing 
 one than Nibbana and to me more vital. Here are 
 two roads of life. One is the path of strict righteous 
 ness, wherein if a man walk he must subject himself 
 to renunciation and failure, must reject all earthly 
 happiness for himself and even his efficiency to help 
 mankind. The other is the way of you and your 
 countrymen, which conscience does not infest and yet 
 which is full of beauty, joy and beneficent result. 
 These are hostile opposites. I know that the first is 
 true, you know that the second is true. Is one of us 
 crazy or are we both? Is there no reconciliation in 
 logic or beyond logic? Upon your answer depend 
 life now and countless lives to come. Prote, Prote, 
 answer my riddle." 
 
 "What ground," she retorted, "have you for 
 charging us Hellenes with being unscrupulous male 
 factors? Do good and evil grow on the same tree?" 
 
 "Yes, on the tree of the human heart," answered 
 Revato. "Custom may lead the best of men to per 
 petrate any enormity as a matter of course. Witness 
 torture What crime can be worse than to inflict 
 it? yet the mildest of kings use it without pausing 
 to consider. Still it is not of heinous wrongs that I 
 would now accuse your people, but of such as our 
 inmost hearts must judge. Things which you may 
 
 regard as virtues become mortal sins under our 
 blessed Dhamma. Have you never heard of the 
 monk who was accused of stealing scent from a lotus 
 flower, because a small offence shows in a pure 
 person?" 
 
 "If offences be trivial," Prote exclaimed, "they 
 are trivial; then why worry?" 
 
 "Nothing, however small," insisted Revato, "is 
 trivial if it is an asava, a taint of character. Not the 
 magnitude of a sin but its recognition by our minds, 
 our conscience clinging to it, makes it a vital trait 
 in us." 
 
 "Suppose," argued Prote, "you owed a rich man a 
 few grains of rice, to pay which would starve you, 
 and you knew that he was perfectly willing to 
 remit the debt, would you not be a fool to give it a 
 further thought? If there is wrong in anything we 
 do, the reason must be that it tends to work harm 
 against the world; when, therefore, the world 
 scorns to consider an injury, why should we dwell 
 upon it?" 
 
 "Have we not," contended Revato, "responsibili 
 ties which the world is powerless to relieve?" 
 
 "Responsibilities to whom? To the gods? They 
 are lenient. To the Fates? They also have common 
 sense." 
 
 "To the law of Paticcasamuppada, of cause and 
 consequence," Revato answered, "the law that our 
 immeasurable future is bound to be just what we 
 make it by the intents of our heart. There is no 
 weakness, no forgetfulness: 
 
 "Not in the lofty air nor ocean s hollow, 
 Nor dark in some deep cave s perpetual night, 
 Nor any other where, shall cease to follow 
 The present power of a past unright." 
 
 "The worst that can be charged to one s ac 
 count," said Prote, "is impiety against the gods. 
 With that they are more angry than with anything 
 else; still they may be mollified, even for this, by 
 our contrition and expiatory rites. 
 
 "Lofty and large the Immortals, still do they deign condescension; 
 
 Moved are their hearts by fragrant incense and smoke of the altar, 
 
 Sprinkled libations or vows which the penitent pay to incline 
 them; 
 
 For, ever there be a deliction, it leads to a prayer of appeasement. 
 
 Prayers of the contrite are daughters of Zeus, the offspring of 
 Kronos, 
 
 Halting and haggard and shame-faced watchers afar on trans 
 gression, 
 
 Long outstripped by the fleet-foot Sin, whom following after, 
 
 Over the world they wander to heal the harm that awaits them. 
 
 Whoso holdeth in honor the daughters of Zeus, they will favor, 
 
 Winning to pardon their father who reigns on the heights of 
 Olympus." 
 
 "Prote," exclaimed Revato, "I must set you down 
 as an Ahetuki a disbeliever in Causation an 
 infidel. How can anyone with your otherwise clear 
 mind be sunken in such ignorance?" 
 
 "By causation," she replied, "you refer to 
 Yathadhamma, justice. But the severity over 
 which you gloat is most unjust." 
 
 [6 9 ] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 "I m not quite sure I do mean justice," said 
 Revato. "Justice is such a familiar idea that we 
 take it for granted, but if we really try to grasp 
 it, it vanishes. Between doing wrong and suffering 
 pain in consequence, there is a relation according to 
 the way the world is made, but not, so far as I can 
 see, in pure reason. Two wrongs do not make a 
 right. Punishment is only a rough and ready ex 
 pedient of Nature and man, producing results. That 
 is partly why I pity the felon more than the martyr. 
 The former is punished doubly both outwardly and 
 inwardly and no evil is righted, but a new wrong is 
 committed. Some can assuage their pity at misery 
 on the theory of demerit in past lives, but I cannot 
 to my satisfaction." 
 
 "Then it is you yourself who are the unbeliever in 
 Causation," exclaimed Prote. "You deny Buddho s 
 basic doctrine." 
 
 "If I do," he answered, "I distinguish between 
 fact and reason. The latter should govern the spirit 
 ual realm of life and teach us mercy rather than 
 retaliation in our dealings one with another. Yet it 
 should not lead us to forget that we are caught in an 
 endless chain of consequences, be they logical or 
 illogical." 
 
 "The worst that can happen to us is to leave the 
 world," said Prote, "and our transition will not last 
 long." 
 
 "How can you blink the truth, Prote, that this 
 world is for us only a little link in a chain?" 
 
 "What proof have you of that?" 
 
 "None that you would accept. When I try to 
 rest it on firm grounds I am at a loss, and I begin to 
 question my own belief in it. But then I reflect: 
 If I did not believe it, how unspeakably different 
 would be my purposes in life from what they are 
 now? So I prove to myself, not the fact indeed, 
 but my faith in the fact. If the probability that we 
 shall be reborn after death is no greater than one 
 sesamum seed, still that little seed contains a germ 
 of possibilities greater than all Himacala. There 
 fore, in proportion as I realize this, I declare that, 
 in spite of many doubtings, I have tremendous 
 faith in the Dhamma. An old saint said of Bhagava : 
 
 He will end the doubters questions 
 If they will but let him in. 
 
 "Until you, Prote, become imbued with his teach 
 ings you can never see things through eyes like mine. 
 Not that I have attained to a supernal knowledge 
 I who have never complied with the conditions 
 announced by the Blessed One: 
 
 " If a brother should desire to touch and feel with his hand 
 even the sun and moon, mighty and powerful though they be, 
 and to reach in the body even to the heaven of Brahma, let him 
 fulfill all righteousness, let him be devoted to that quietude of 
 heart which springs from within, let him not drive back the 
 ecstasy of contemplation, let him look through things, let him 
 be much alone. " 
 
 "I do not think to touch the sky with my two 
 arms!" cried Prote, "and I would not dwell alone 
 
 to attain it. Come, make an end of this soul-wasting 
 grief. You are as bad as the monk I heard of, who so 
 brooded on the thought of death that the sough of 
 the wind, the rustle of a fan, or the cry of a bird 
 would make him shriek in abject terror and dash 
 away. Such men we call cowardly after a brutish 
 sort. And you are like Pentheus, the sombre- 
 visaged king who fettered the limbs of Dionysus, 
 but soon after, falling himself under the spell of the 
 revellers, was torn to pieces by his own drunken 
 mother, whom the gods incited to avenge his cruel 
 repression. Your grievous spirit will make you 
 finally rebound to riot and destruction." 
 
 "I might have known, Lady," said Revato sadly, 
 "that you could never answer my riddle. Our souls 
 are divided by an impassable wall. You have 
 treated me with that most ignoble mockery, absolute 
 misapprehension. You would clothe a foul skeleton 
 in rich, perfume d garments, you would gather lillies 
 in a lake of blood." 
 
 "You may be wiser than I in many ways, Revato, 
 but do not suppose that you can compass the mind 
 of the Immortal Ones, who contrived all that we 
 know and are. You say yourself that bounds are set 
 to reason. Why not seek consolation in your 
 ignorance ? 
 
 them, 
 And the paths undiscerned of our eyes, the gods unseal them " 
 
 During the dialogue Prote had evinced a growing 
 disquiet at the preferably never overstepped limits 
 of her living interests. Repeatedly she shuddered 
 and bit her lips as if to emphasize her defect of 
 adjustment. This last reply was her final effort at 
 debate. Finding that Revato did not immediately 
 respond to it, she took occasion for an attempt to 
 extinguish the mortuary discussion with a fresh 
 breeze of life. 
 
 "For me," she said, "the hereafter will be a 
 memory of my to-days, a memory which will linger 
 when you and I are gone. As the colors of the fields 
 and wood renew, season by season, I trust that they 
 may forever bloom a little brighter because of my 
 presence now." 
 
 They were still floating on, with unrippling motion, 
 down the Golden-Armed river, toward its confluence 
 with the greater one. Above the earthly Ganga, 
 with its reflected lights, flowed the skyey Ganga 
 The Milky Way with a soft radiance all its own an 
 undeviating stream whose banks were fixed eternally, 
 like the Sambuddhasandakasa, the Firmament of 
 Buddho s truth. 
 
 Not such a far, unattainable region now claimed 
 Revato, but his delicious terrestrial environment, 
 for Prote, striking once more her lute strings, sang to 
 the happier notes of the sky, which she, as ever, was 
 alert to read, a song which brought it near to en 
 courage her own good humors: 
 
 [70] 
 
THE 
 
 LAYMAN 
 
 R E V A T O 
 
 "I, a terrestrial reveler, 
 Gaze on the glittering star-dance, 
 Westerly, down in the sky. 
 Be it not said that when others 
 Made merry, I ever stood mournful 
 Or pressed a slow, pondering heel-print. 
 But crested with wild-flung garlands, 
 I have smitten the sonorous tambour, 
 Leading the life of the orb-world, 
 Lyre-bearing, crowned, like me." 
 
 At last the thoughtful despair in Revato s 
 heart fell asleep from weariness, while unreason 
 ing joy exerted its latent resiliency. Peace pos 
 sessed him, as gentle as the gliding of the unpro- 
 pelled boat. That voyage was destined to remain 
 a transfixed event among the fleeting memories of 
 time. 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 THE GREAT RENUNCIATION 
 
 As, early on the morning after his visit to the 
 Kukkutarama and return by boat with Prote, 
 Revato walked forth from his lodging through the 
 city streets, he came up behind an old mendicant 
 friar with bowl half full of rice and herbs collected 
 at the charitable doors of the citizens. The absence 
 of flesh food from the bowl indicated that its bearer 
 was one of those most consistent and tender-hearted 
 devotees who not only avoid killing or causing to 
 kill any animal, but refuse to partake of its sub 
 stance though it has already been slaughtered. This 
 bhikkhu was bent and feeble; his face was pro 
 foundly sad, yet almost childish in its expression, 
 although it was a countenenace that suggested a 
 history of strength. Not at first did Revato realize 
 that he was brushing against the poor yellow robe of 
 Asoko Piyadassi, King of Kings. When recognition 
 came to him Revato fell back abashed. Loitering 
 afar, he followed the royal monk in the spirit of a 
 worshipper. 
 
 As the mendicant walked with eyes downcast to 
 a plough s length ahead of him, going from house to 
 house and omitting none, he would stop before the 
 doors and, silently holding his bowl, await a pinda- 
 pata, then totter forward with diminished strength. 
 Cares not alone of politics, but responsibility for the 
 temporal and eternal happiness of living millions, 
 human and animal, had brought him as low as old 
 Bharadvajo, of whose tranquil years he had by a 
 score the advantage in fewness. When he passed the 
 hermitage hill, he stopped and fixed his gaze on the 
 grottoed summit once tenanted by his young brother, 
 the missionary Mahindo. All Magadha knew the 
 burdens of family sorrow that he was bearing the 
 sacrifice of his best-loved ones for the salvation of 
 distant Lanka, while among those of his household 
 who remained had arisen opposition to his good 
 efforts, treason against his throne, and, in the near 
 est relation of all, a nameless infamy. 
 
 From one house before which Asoko stopped came 
 a gruff voice: 
 
 "Bhikkhumhi yahi! Beggar begone!" 
 
 This was not the ordinary smooth refusal, "Atic- 
 chatha, Seek alms elsewhere." Into the word 
 "Beggar" the speaker s tone imported none of the 
 
 exalted sense due to a holy man. It must have 
 been a Brahmin or Jaina who, returning evil for 
 good, was disposed to feed no mendicant of another 
 religion. 
 
 Revato darted up furiously, angry at this unusual 
 insult offered to the yellow robe as much as to its 
 royal wearer. But seeing how meekly and wearily 
 the king passed on in silence, he felt that composure 
 was the royal pleasure. 
 
 Now came to Revato a remembrance that this was 
 his long-awaited opportunity to address himself to 
 the king regarding the customs receivership. For 
 the last few days he had almost forgotten about it, 
 although it ostensibly was the only object that was 
 keeping him so long in Pataliputta. 
 
 Before he had quite summoned resolution to speak, 
 his attention was diverted by the King s itinerary, 
 for Asoko now turned into the street where dwelt 
 Diomedes the architect. When arrived at the Yona s 
 door, the mendicant halted and stood in his usual 
 receptive attitude, ready for a morsel to complete 
 his breakfast. 
 
 For a long time the occupants of the house gave no 
 evidence of noticing his presence; then the door 
 opened and a Yonaka serving man set upon him a 
 ferocious-looking dog. The creature, however, was 
 better than its master and, after a perfunctory bark, 
 came up to Piyadassi wagging its tail. 
 
 However curt had been the Brahmin s rebuff, no 
 Ariya would ever have committed such an outrage 
 as this. Revato was now ready in earnest to lay 
 violent hands upon the Yonaka. But suddenly in 
 the doorway stood Prote. 
 
 Unthinking as yet who waited in front of her, she 
 was anxious to repudiate the inhospitable conduct 
 of her servant and she came to bid the old monk 
 enter her dwelling. Asoko staggered through the 
 door and corridor into the central court. As he stood 
 holding to a pillar, she recognized him and with a 
 cry of horror, prostrated herself at his feet and kissed 
 his alms bowl. 
 
 "Maharaja, namo ty atthu," she cried "Great 
 King, hail to thee! Svagatang te Piyadassi 
 Welcome to thee, Majesty." Sternly he bade her 
 arise, and then her adoration of royalty ran riot with 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 proffers of every hospitable office for his honor and 
 comfort. 
 
 He ignored them, but commanded in a quiet tone 
 of authority: 
 
 "Fetch for me the rug that is hanging yonder, and 
 spread it beneath the potted tree, for a couch with its 
 head to the north. I am weary and would lie down." 
 
 She brought the rug and spread it beneath the 
 potted tree for a couch, with its head to the north. 
 Piyadassi laid himself down in the dignified way that 
 a lion does, on his right side with one leg resting upon 
 the other. Then he spake no word and made no 
 motion. 
 
 Prote knelt in front of him and fanned him; Revato 
 stood close by. While thus they waited, the sun 
 crept high in the heavens. 
 
 By and by there occurred to them both this 
 thought: "How calm are all the limbs of the great 
 King Asoko, the mendicant! Oh may it not be that 
 he is dead?" 
 
 Then King Asoko, the mendicant, opened his 
 eyes and moved his lips and spoke to them thus: 
 
 "Friends, I put away ease, I put away pain, and 
 by the dying out both of gladness and sorrow I 
 entered into and remained in a state of purified 
 self-possession. I pervaded one quarter of the 
 world with Metta, Friendship, and with Mudita, 
 Congratulation, and with Karuna, Compassion, and 
 with Upekha, Equanimity; so did I the second 
 quarter, and so the third and so the fourth. Thus 
 the whole wide world, above, below, around and 
 everywhere, did I continue to pervade with heart of 
 kindness and sympathy and pity and peace, far- 
 reaching, grown great and beyond measure, free 
 from the least trace of anger or ill-will." 
 
 He paused, and Prote, anxious to stimulate him, 
 addressed him thus: 
 
 _ "Thine, O King, are four-and-forty thousand 
 cities, the chief of which is the royal city of the 
 Trumpet Flower. Arise, O King, reawaken thy 
 desire for these; quicken thy longing after life. 
 
 "Thine, O King, are mansions having staircases 
 of gold and silver, of crystal and beryl, having 
 chambers filled with ivory and sandal-wood and all 
 manner of gems; with chairs and divans whereon are 
 flower-embroidered cloths and long-haired rugs 
 and magnificent antelope skins and cushions of 
 purple silk. Thine, O King, are state elephants and 
 horses with trappings of gold, and gilded banners 
 and coverings of net-work. Thine are chariots with 
 skins of lions and of tigers and of panthers, whereof 
 the chariot called the Flag of Victory is the chief. 
 Arise, O King, reawaken thy desire for all of these, 
 quicken thy longing after life. 
 
 "Thine, O King" 
 
 But he interrupted her: 
 
 "At other times, O lady, thou hast addressed me in 
 pleasant words, and sweet. Yet now in this last 
 time, thou speakest in unpleasant, disagreeable 
 words." 
 
 O 
 
 "How then, O King, should I address thee?" 
 
 "Thus, ayya, shouldst thou address me: The 
 nature of all things near and dear to us, O King, is 
 such that we must leave them, sever ourselves from 
 them, separate ourselves from them. Pass not away 
 with longing in thy heart. Sad is the death of him 
 who longs. Unworthy is the death of him who longs. 
 Thine, O King, are these four-and-forty thousand 
 cities, thine are these palaces, these elephants and 
 these horses. Cast away desire for them; long not 
 after life. " 
 
 When the desire is dead, events matter not. For 
 him on whom life had no more hold, it was still in 
 store. Asoko arose from his rest with the vigor of 
 a man and the majesty of a king. With all his 
 monastic discipline, he was yet the great monarch; 
 though the royal elephant had been tamed, it was 
 still powerful in its movements. 
 
 Prote beheld him with the eye which glistens 
 toward a hero. "O Majesty, Devanam-Piya, of the 
 Moriya line, whose emblem is the bird of our Immor 
 tals queen, as she remaineth ever young, so thou, 
 King of human men, art still in thy prime still for 
 life and love. Hark, it is I, a fair woman, who tell 
 thee so." 
 
 A storm of beauty swept across her face, tempestu 
 ous beauty such as Revato had never seen upon it 
 and which filled him with wonder, almost angry. 
 Her eyes were fastened upon Asoko s face with a 
 boldness that might have caused offence to the 
 King, confusion to the friar. In neither capacity 
 did he show any perturbation, but calmly returned 
 the gaze and answered her: 
 
 "Dhltike, daughter, thou art fair and full of 
 youthful ardor, as was mine own child when she left 
 me, to carry over the waters that blessed branch 
 which will bear saving fruit for a nation. May st 
 thou, like her, embrace the blessed Truth." 
 
 Prote dropped her eyes, confused. Then, in an 
 altered tone and manner, with a new form of earnest 
 ness, she said: 
 
 "Wilt thou pardon my forwardness, O King, 
 and wilt thou consent to listen if yet again I address 
 thee?" 
 
 "Mine ear," he replied," has long been open to the 
 meanest among the border tribes of my people to 
 audit their complaints. I have encouraged their 
 confidence. Why then, lady, should I repel thine? 
 Only, pray tempt me not with evil enticements." 
 
 "Great King," said Prote, "I will speak only that 
 which tends to thine honor. Thou hast inherited a 
 dominion which Alexander coveted in vain, a realm 
 which thou hast made vast among the empires of 
 the earth. Well may it be called Sammudapariyanta 
 Ocean Bound! Thou hast established it in 
 tranquility and justice and the art of war hath long 
 been disused. Think not that age hath of necessity 
 sapped they power, for did not my countryman 
 Nestor, having already survived two generations 
 of men, acquit himself with valor in the great war? 
 But of one thing be admonished, I pray thee, by me, 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 though I am but a child. For I have traveled across 
 the countries of the world in journeying from mine to 
 thine; and as I passed through I saw them filled with 
 vast armies constantly habituated by warlike kings 
 to hard campaigns. Especially on the borders of the 
 fair-haired Saka barbarians, which are not far from 
 thine own, were many alarms and rumors of invasion 
 by those innumerable cruel tribesmen. The long 
 peace of this land cannot endure forever. The 
 natural law of nations is to conquer or to be con 
 quered. Thou art prepared neither to attack nor to 
 defend. Before thee are two futures: to preserve an 
 empire as magnificent as Alexander s or to see it 
 swept away." 
 
 Then Piyadassi answered her: 
 
 " It was Jino, lady, Jino the greatest of Conquerors, 
 who declared that while one remaineth in a dwelling 
 he may subdue the earth without rod or sword, 
 he may rule in justice. But should this yet fail, did 
 not the same Blessed One also say: 
 
 " Alas for life, by nature evanescent, 
 Concrete of properties which wax and wane; 
 They all arise, they all return quiescent 
 But their allayment is our utter gain. " 
 
 "O Great King, bear with me still," cried Prote. 
 "If the glory of thine empire be nothing in thine 
 eyes, yet is not the progress of thy Religion? Is 
 not the consolation that it bringeth to its devotees, 
 is not the mercy which it hath in store for all 
 beings?" 
 
 "If a downfall be indeed at hand, bhagini, sister, 
 yet will this be better than that it should be averted 
 by unrighteousness. Did not the Blessed One foretell 
 that defection from the Perfect Way must come and 
 that it would be brought about by the agency of 
 women? The Saddhamma eradicated by force may 
 again take root, but if decayed from within it must 
 perish. How can I seek to perpetuate the religion 
 of mildness by deeds or threats of violence which are 
 contrary to its nature, and in the very doing of which 
 that religion would cease to exist? Thou and I are 
 not accountable for the results of the Holy Law, but 
 for obedience to it. Had we perfect wisdom like the 
 Clarified One, then perchance we might study remote 
 ends, but short-sighted mortals, as we are, we must 
 adhere to the precepts which he taught us, especially 
 to the principle of kindness. Thus will the most good 
 kamma be sown, the most beneficent energy will be 
 generated." 
 
 "By thy mercy, O Piyadassi, endure my speech 
 yet a little longer. I am about to tell thee what no 
 one else hath dared to whisper to thee. Thou wilt be 
 amazed at my boldness, but I entrust myself to thy 
 clemency. Hast thou suspected that thy throne and 
 Religion are both in danger, not only from foreign 
 foes, but from traitors among thine own kindred? 
 Here is no question of great military preparation, 
 but of quick, decisive, and therefore merciful, 
 action." 
 
 Then Asoko, answering her, recited this gatha: 
 
 " Wonder-sweet our dwellings be, 
 Girt by anger, anger-free; 
 Angry folk around us press; 
 Live we always angerless. " 
 
 He repeated also the stanza: 
 
 " Vanquish wrath by harmless living, 
 And with goodness conquer sin; 
 Men of greed by open giving, 
 False of word by candour win. " 
 
 When therefore he had uttered these verses he 
 continued in speech as follows: 
 
 "In the ninth year of my reign I conquered the 
 Kalingas with great slaughter for which I have ever 
 since felt deep regret, sorrow and remorse. All men 
 are my children, and just as I desire for my children 
 that they may enjoy every kind of prosperity and 
 happiness, both in this world and the next, so also 
 I desire for all men. Even upon the unsubdued 
 borderers and forest folk in my dominions I have 
 compassion and will that they be not afraid of me, 
 but that they should trust me and should receive 
 from me happiness, not sorrow. This, in my 
 opinion, is the chiefest conquest the conquest by 
 the Law of Righteousness. By that law I con 
 quered both in my dominions and in far distant 
 Western realms, even to that of Antiyako* Yono, 
 and beyond to where reigned the four kings Tura- 
 mayo, Antlkini, Mago and Alasando. I will that 
 my heirs on the throne and as many as come after 
 me may not suppose it to be their duty to effect a 
 new conquest by arms, and that, even if they be 
 come engaged in a new conquest, they may find 
 pleasure in patience and gentleness, and may regard 
 as the only true conquest that effected through the 
 Law of Piety which avails both for this world and 
 the next. But if they fail to walk in the way of fore- 
 bearance, it will be the fruit of my own bad example, 
 when I subjugated the Kalingas. And if still the 
 effect of that bad example can be overcome, it will 
 only be by setting an example of meekness in such 
 time as yet remains to me. And I have come to realize 
 that, however great be the importance of creating 
 happiness in this world, nothing is of supreme 
 importance save the concerns of the World to Come. 
 For me all things are now past, are ended, have van 
 ished away. Impermanent are composed things; 
 untrustworthy are composed things. It is meet to 
 be weary of, it is meet to be estranged from, it is 
 meet to be set quite free from the bondage of all 
 composed things." 
 
 Having completed this declaration, he said: "I 
 am faint, bhadde, dear lady, from want of food. For 
 my sake it matters naught, but I must sustain my 
 strength yet a little while longer for the good of my 
 people, who are my children. I must now hasten 
 home to eat of the alms in my bowl." 
 
 *Antiochus of Syria, Ptolemy of Egypt, Antigonos (Gonatas) 
 of Macedonia, Magas of Cyrene and Alexander of Epirus. 
 
 [73] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 "Deign, O thou Holy one, to dine here," entreated 
 Prote, "as they say the Blessed One feasted on 
 sweet dishes of boiled rice and cakes, here in this 
 town, with Sunidho and Vassakaro and in Vesali 
 with with Ambapali." 
 
 "I cannot tarry, dear girl, but place if thou 
 will st a morsel of rice in the bowl, for space re- 
 maineth." 
 
 Into the courtyard the noonday sun was shining 
 and the pillars on the eastern side were just beginning 
 to cast a shadow. Piyadassi saw the shadow and 
 said calmly: 
 
 "It is now past mid-day and too late for the 
 bhatta the meal. I must not break my fast with 
 solid food until to-morrow. Keep, I pray thee, 
 dhite, the food in this bowl for them who suffer by 
 its lack. I will take only a draught of rice milk, 
 highly praised by the Blessed One. Handa ca dani 
 mayang gacchama Now then, I must be going." 
 
 Thus saying, and declining every proffer of 
 assistance that Revato dared to make, the royal 
 bhikkhu departed as he had come. 
 
 Said Revato: "Farewell, Prote." 
 
 "Why farewell in this hasty fashion, Revato? 
 You have not yet disclosed what brought you here." 
 
 "That which brought you here now carries me 
 away," he answered, and without more words 
 returned to his lodging. 
 
 Hastily he packed into a bundle the requisites of 
 his journey and, after summoning a porter from the 
 neighboring street, took his way to the chief cara 
 vansary of the city. Here, upon inquiry, he learned 
 that a halted party of traders was preparing to press 
 on toward Rajagaha that afternoon, among them 
 being Subhaddo of Alavi, the woolen merchant, who 
 was amicably known to him. His own equipage, 
 with Pilindavaccho and the steers, was still quartered 
 on the outskirts of the town, having been held during 
 the fortnights through which he had daily been 
 representing to himself that he was about to return. 
 He could not have told why he attached it to the 
 slow caravan hardly for reasons of safety from 
 robbers; perhaps to ensure morally the continuance, 
 if not the speed, of his homeward journey. 
 
 A brief interval before departure afforded time 
 for a parting call on the Venerable Bharadvajo at 
 the Cock Garden Monastery. 
 
 "Where is the Yonaki woman?" asked the old 
 samana. "Why did you not bring her with you this 
 time?". 
 
 "Reproach me not, bhante," said Revato. "All 
 that is ended." 
 
 "I do not reproach you, my son," replied Bharad 
 vajo, "I could not help being glad to see you happy 
 even when I knew that your pleasure was bitterness 
 in disguise." 
 
 "You cannot be more deeply aware of that fact 
 than I am," answered Revato. 
 
 "Very good. This is grateful news to me, and it 
 will be welcome tidings to King Asoko also." 
 
 "King Asoko! Does he concern himself with my 
 personal affairs?" 
 
 "He knows you better than you know yourself; 
 we have spoken about you much of late." 
 
 "Why, bhante, as well as I have been acquainted 
 with you all my life, I have never suspected that 
 you were privileged to such intimacy with royalty." 
 
 Asoko s condescending goodness was thus brought 
 home to Revato in a new light. It rilled him with 
 wonder and contrition to learn that he, individually, 
 was embraced by the comprehensive, yet specific 
 solicitude put forth by that earthly lord of salvation. 
 
 After Revato had left the Kukkutarama, as his 
 attention reverted to the merchant caravan with 
 which he was to travel, an association of ideas 
 recalled to his mind, with a twinge, that purpose for 
 which he had come to Rajagaha the resignation of 
 his tariff collectorship. Any present painfulness of 
 this subject was from habit rather than from distinct 
 perception of the reasons for its dolor. Its intricate 
 details had so long remained dormant that he could 
 not readily reawaken them in memory. He won 
 dered whether now before quitting the city he 
 should not seek the King again and lay down his 
 office, but as nearly as he could remember, the last 
 oscillation of his mind when the matter had been 
 under careful consideration had opposed this action. 
 Upon now reopening the question, he might gradu 
 ally have recalled his former arguments and brought 
 them to a different conclusion, at the same time 
 renewing his distinct comprehension of his unes- 
 capable difficulties, but he was not fated to restore 
 their place in his attention at this period. The gen 
 eral remorse and abasement into which he was 
 plunged afforded no foothold for any specific grief 
 or apprehension. 
 
 Revato took his way from the city past the 
 Rativaddhana garden, as upon the night of his 
 arrival. Once more he tossed into the pond his gem 
 graven with the Greek girl, satisfying himself that 
 this time it lodged upon no lotus flower, but sank 
 among their tangled roots in the greedy mud. Con 
 siderations of filial duty, which before had reproved 
 him for his act, made now no protest, since the moral 
 necessity of repudiating all that the image stood 
 for was indisputably paramount. 
 
 He joined the caravan and, at nightfall, was ad 
 vanced on the way toward Rajagaha. When they 
 reached a certain point on the road, he alighted and 
 walked into an open field near at hand. There were 
 the remains of a fire now almost overgrown with 
 fresh weeds, among which he descried some charred 
 bones from a corpse which had been consumed upon 
 it after what form of death he knew. 
 
 Upon overtaking his companions, and riding on 
 a little while, he heard beside him a familiar whine. 
 It was Dukkho, his dog, in a starving condition. 
 
 "Kahang bhane tumhe ime divase na dissatha?" 
 he called down languidly, "Where in the world hast 
 thou been not to show thyself all these days? Art 
 thou following me once more? Why didst thou de- 
 
 [74] 
 
THE 
 
 LAYMAN 
 
 R E V A T O 
 
 sert me? Because I deserted thee, eh? Very well, 
 we will forgive each other and forget the past with a 
 mutual promise never again to part." 
 
 So the dog, keeping close to Revato, followed him 
 home and into the house with perfect assurance of 
 domicile. 
 
 Sundarl, his mother, did not take kindly to the 
 creature, which was caused less by aversion to dogs 
 
 in general than by an intuitive antipathy for this 
 individual. 
 
 "You must not let him stay here, Revato," she 
 said. 
 
 "He intends to remain," replied Revato solemnly, 
 "and it is neither in your power nor in mine to thwart 
 his purpose." 
 
 Dukkho remained. 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 A VISION OF DEATH 
 
 THE PLUCKED OUT EYE 
 
 In the olden days of simple doctrine and conse 
 crated life, there dwelt at Rajagaha a Sister in the 
 Bhikkhunisangha, named Subha, who was young 
 and lovely to behold. As this nun was entering one 
 day alone into the shady solitude of JIvako s Mango 
 Grove, a gallant intercepted her, as is related in the 
 ancient ballad: 
 
 Hithermore the woodland whiling 
 
 (Votive park of Jivako), 
 One to Subha came beguiling, 
 
 In her pathway to and fro. 
 
 This diffident maiden answered him: 
 
 "How provoked I thee to linger, 
 
 Making my transgression much? 
 Buddho s daughter s every finger 
 
 Must be consecrate from touch. 
 
 "All my heart is in attending 
 
 His, the perfect Master s will. 
 Pure am I and unoffending; 
 
 Why obstruct my pathway still?" 
 
 But the lover persisted, cajoling her: 
 
 "Young and innocent, why sadly 
 
 Cling to hermits garb and food? 
 Come with me, and we go gladly 
 
 Wandering in the flowery wood. 
 
 "Odorous buds are scattering madly, 
 
 Yea, the Springtime hours are good! 
 Come with me, and we go gladly 
 
 Wandering in the flowery wood. 
 
 "Ripple soft the pointed grasses, 
 
 High above the boughs are blown; 
 Doleful yet is she who passes 
 
 Through the woodland aisles alone." 
 
 Then he strove to break her purpose by artful 
 change of appeal: 
 
 "Tigers lurk, unapprehended, 
 
 Furious elephants, my child, 
 Where thou goest undefended, 
 
 Through that vast and fearful wild." 
 
 But since danger had no terrors for Subha, or 
 else because she was reasonably skeptical of those 
 
 [75] 
 
 wild beasts in the urban Mango Grove, this vil- 
 lian reverted to his vein of enticement and 
 flattery: 
 
 "Like a golden angel maiden, 
 
 Denizen of Paradise, 
 Should thy beauty be arrayed in 
 
 Kasi robes of costly price. 
 
 " Mid these leaves of languorous motion, 
 
 May thine utmost wish unfurl; 
 Thou art worthy my devotion 
 
 More than any goddess girl. 
 
 "If thou wilt attend my saying, 
 
 Lofty mansions I ll prepare, 
 Damsel servitors arraying 
 
 Towers and chambers high in air. 
 
 "Gems and jewels I will find thee, 
 
 Lustrous, dazzling to behold; 
 Filmy Kasi webs shall wind thee, 
 
 Pearl-encrusted, barred with gold." 
 
 Subha again indignantly interrupted him: 
 
 "Where is any charm exalting 
 
 In this corpse of vile decay, 
 Unenduring, dead, revolting, 
 
 As it slowly rots away?" 
 
 Her beau, however, was at no 
 such charms: 
 
 to point out 
 
 "Eyes, the soft gazelle beseeming, 
 
 Yea, like oreads of the hill; 
 As with mine I watch them gleaming, 
 
 Love and longing wax and thrill. 
 
 "In thy face, those eyes, unfolding 
 
 Like an aureate lotus flower, 
 Still with mine I stand beholding; 
 
 Love and longing wax in power." 
 
 The girl was now aroused to vehement protest: 
 
 "Groping in a trackless thicket, 
 
 Meru s top o erleaping wild, 
 Snatching at the moon to pick it 
 
 So thou temptest Buddho s child! 
 
 "Nay, my soul is free from craving 
 Earth and Heaven attest its void 
 
 Long it grew, but since my saving, 
 Root and all have been destroyed." 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 Her mind was fortified, she assured him, by 
 recognizing in every living substance its necessary 
 corruption and vanity. 
 
 "In beguilement, in revilement, 
 
 Pleased or pained, I recollect: 
 Foul is matter; its defilement 
 
 Keeps the conscious heart unflecked. 
 
 "Like a mural-drawn depiction, 
 
 Bright in ochre tints defined, 
 Such is that befooling fiction 
 
 Which we know as humankind. 
 
 "Bubble-round these orbs, and sphery, 
 
 Lodged as in tree-hollows lie; 
 Filth exuding, slimy, teary, 
 
 Homogenic with the eye. 
 
 "Though I gouge this eye and cast it, 
 
 Undefiled my soul shall stand; 
 Take it," cried she; "Here, thou hast it" 
 
 Plucked and placed it in his hand. 
 
 Straightway the beguiler, with passion quenched, 
 contrite and remorseful, craved of this nun her 
 forgiveness : 
 
 "As I hold a blazing ember 
 
 Or a serpent," stammered he, 
 "So this maid will I remember. 
 
 Hast thou grace to pardon me?" 
 
 Forthwith, delivered from her peril, Subha betook 
 herself to the excellent Buddho and, as the old ballad 
 will have it, when she beheld him in his character of 
 exceeding virtue, her eye was restored fair as it had 
 been at first. 
 
 "Better," said the Lord of the Dhamma on 
 another occasion, "that thou burn out thine eye with 
 a glowing steel and that thou gaze no more upon the 
 things which are visible. Shall it indeed be burned 
 out with glowing steel? This only do I declare: 
 Transitory is the eye, transitory is that which it looks 
 upon." 
 
 It lay in store for Revato, under the second moon 
 after his return home from Pataliputta, to make as 
 painful a rejection of his right to behold. His house 
 was not situated on the great highway where cara 
 vans and pilgrims passed continually, but on a little 
 frequented road which led into the forested moun 
 tains. Strange passers-by were therefore a sight 
 which always attracted attention. 
 
 On a certain evening Revato had returned from 
 the customs office and was eating his meal in a back 
 room of the house, while Sundarl, his mother, was 
 sitting in the front door to enjoy the breeze that drew 
 down the valley. 
 
 Suddenly she called to him: 
 
 "Revato, come quickly and look." 
 
 "What is there to see, Mother?" he answered. 
 
 "The most goodly company that has ever come 
 our way," she exclaimed in delight. "I cannot be 
 mistaken; they are Yonakas." 
 
 "Are they men or women, Mother?" 
 
 "Men," Sundarl answered, "and two women. 
 One of them is riding under a canopy on a fiercely 
 
 dashing elephant, which is anxious to keep ahead of 
 all the rest, and she evidently enjoys the excitement. 
 She is young and beautiful and looks just like the 
 image on the carved stone that you are cherishing. 
 Come and see if it is not so. Hurry up, Revato, or 
 you will be too late." 
 
 Revato made no movement. 
 
 "Hurry up, I say," reiterated his mother. "To 
 see them makes me young again." 
 
 With a semblance of dutiful compliance, Revato 
 came finally to the door, after having allowed time 
 for the procession to pass around an obscuring bend 
 of the road. The tail of the last elephant which 
 carried servants and baggage was all that he beheld 
 of that Yonaka train. 
 
 "They must be converts," said his mother, "who 
 have come on a pilgrimage to reverence at the sacred 
 places in our mountains. As if a religion which could 
 make such noble people were not good enough for 
 them!" 
 
 "It is more likely that they are lumber prospectors 
 who have combined their business errand with a 
 junketing trip," answered Revato with violent 
 indifference of tone, but he did not state his grounds 
 for that opinion. 
 
 Thus, in the spoliation of vision, had Revato s 
 wound been heroically self-inflicted. But the first, 
 sudden, sharp experience of an injury is a small 
 matter; it is the after inflammation that agonizes, 
 and especially a fresh irritation of the sore. All 
 this he was required to bear during and after the 
 visit of Prote to Rajagaha. He knew that she was 
 probably sojourning in his immediate neighborhood, 
 where he readily could find her at any time and 
 receive a gracious welcome. Yet he must not seek 
 her; he must rather shun chance meeting, must 
 stay away from the custom house, must avoid, if 
 possible, even learning by gossip of her whereabouts 
 and movements. 
 
 Yet in this self-mortification, worthy of the most 
 fanatical Brahmin he was conscious of no merit, 
 but rather of bitterness in heart. He felt that some 
 of the motives actuating him were paltry and 
 wicked, as namely a hankering to foster self-pity. 
 
 Such a spirit is widely diffused in the human 
 breast and varies greatly in its morbid manifesta 
 tions. It is suggested in the restless fingers which 
 continually linger about an open sore, and it has led 
 to extremities of physical self-torture, but it also is 
 to be observed in more refined, psychical manifesta 
 tions. 
 
 Once, when Revato was a little boy, the Venerable 
 Bharadvajo had made him a whistle and he, in 
 caprice, had intentionally broken it. The old monk 
 had then replaced it by another, little guessing the 
 true situation and unable from his own inward 
 workings to comprehend such refined morbidity, 
 even had it been declared to him. The mood thus 
 early arisen in the lad s mind was virtually a desire 
 for pathos in his own behalf. Such a spirit pre 
 supposes in ourselves dependency upon a guardian 
 
 [76] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 who will right our wrongs for us and humor our 
 vagaries. When we grow older and are cast into the 
 sea of life to swim for ourselves or sink, this feeling 
 becomes grotesquely foolish. Still it may persist, as 
 persists to the day of our death the conviction that 
 there is a human paternity somewhere to look after 
 us if we fail to look after ourselves; as persists also a 
 craving for tolerant spiritual directorship which will 
 relieve us from fidelity to our own consciences. 
 
 Such faults were woven into Revato s nature like a 
 tape worm in the stomach of a sheep, and beside 
 many others of greater complexity, they were 
 blended with better instincts to right living. He 
 candidly acknowledged to himself that his outward 
 rectitude was supported upon a structure of diverse 
 unprecedented reasons which was rotten in several 
 of its members. 
 
 The self-pitying instinct in Revato was brought 
 to its most violent exertion when he met Prote face to 
 face and avoided addressing her. It was a sudden, 
 unexpected encounter in JIvako s mango grove, 
 where she was walking attended only by her maid 
 lasis. He turned into a by-path before she had time 
 to accost him, but for an instant their eyes had met 
 and she could not have doubted his recognition. 
 The affront was so evident that she refrained from 
 calling to him, as no doubt she would have done 
 had she believed his slight unintentional. 
 
 By this act Revato felt that he had irretrievably 
 cut himself off from the recent past and from any 
 future that might have been linked to it. The 
 conscious discourtesy, the unkindness, the ingrati 
 tude of his behavior overwhelmed him with shame. 
 It was that shame which his ideals of renunciation 
 required him to bear, yet in which renunciation he 
 was deprived of spiritual reward, because he yielded 
 the while to an unwholesome sorrow for himself and 
 had incited himself to his deed partly by a desire to 
 cause that sorrow. 
 
 THE GREATER CONSIDERATIONS 
 
 However, if Revato s moral motives contained 
 unworthy elements, there were also good ones, 
 according to the peculiar standards of his religion, 
 and otherwise. He brought to bear the salutary 
 arguments of death and decay. From a child he had 
 willingly lived in a wakefulness to those facts which 
 most people endeavor not to realize until they are 
 brought close to the end of life. 
 
 Dissolution was ever going on in his mind. Not 
 far from his home lay an old cemetery, or charnal 
 ground, where the remnants of burned corpses were 
 thrown and others placed whole to rot. It had been 
 the child Revato s playground and its scattered 
 bones his toys. No need to remind him of the 
 monkish dhutanga virtue of sosanikanga, the exercise 
 of dwelling in mortuary proximity and contempla 
 tion. He failed not of padkdna, exertion. When 
 Prote s image now arose in his fancy, he transmuted 
 it into a dead body; he pondered on putrifaction as 
 the natural state of those concretions whose sound 
 
 ness and beauty were impermanent, evanescent, 
 transitory. 
 
 But it would discredit the dignity of Revato s 
 mental condition to assume that Prote was the 
 circumference, as well as the centre, of his circle. 
 His ponderings dealt with solemn matters compared 
 with which woman was a trifle. Though she might 
 be the most tantalizing of any single allurement, 
 there were facts before him that overrode the power 
 of feminine attraction. 
 
 More difficult to cope with even than Prote s 
 memory, was a yearning toward the world she 
 typified, a world whose magnificent qualities he 
 could not ignore and which he had vainly striven to 
 fit into an appropriate place in his own universe. Her 
 earth indubitably fostered the highest type of man 
 kind from a cultural point of view. Rough-shod 
 ambition was indispensable to its attainment. 
 But if there was any truth in Buddho s teaching, 
 such ambition was pernicious. Where then lay the 
 fallacy? Were the objects of Yonaka striving good 
 or bad ? 
 
 They led, he reflected, to extremes both of happi 
 ness and of suffering. Diomedes had contended that 
 the former more than compensated for the latter. 
 Was he right? 
 
 No and here the light broke into Revato s mind 
 intensity of joy was not a requital for intensity of 
 anguish. Both were evils, the sorrow as a present 
 calamity, the worldly joy because of its seductive 
 effect upon the character. 
 
 Over Revato the Dhamma would have had little 
 power had it treated the questions of suffering and 
 death by ignoring them, by diverting attention to 
 more cheerful subjects. To those who have learned 
 the secret of sorrow, there is no real encouragement 
 other than through a full recognition of its truth. 
 In sadness is their only comfort and the via dolorosa 
 is their only path to peace. 
 
 Revato s endeavor to quiet his hunger for things 
 things typified by those of the Ionian world was 
 not without indications of success. He had caught 
 glimpses of a vision which for its clear beholder has 
 the power of a blessed living death. 
 
 There were some in Ariya Land who taught that 
 the universe is .substantiated only by illusion and 
 who ended their philosophy in a sense of utter 
 nothingness. This was the goal of one of the highest 
 Attainments in the meditations of the Buddhist sage. 
 Others, but not of that faith, fixing their gaze upon 
 the Eternal Spirit, became stone blind to the tem 
 poral. In either case, they and the world had recip 
 rocally ceased to exist, they had entered that state 
 of Nibbana which is possible even before the ele 
 ments of terrestrial life are dissolved. 
 
 Fortunate, Revato admitted, it was for the 
 world s system (fortunate either for better or for 
 worse) that the enlightened were few in number. 
 To keep the earth s wheels turning quietly, illusion 
 was an indispensable lubricant. Life was based 
 upon self-deceit and shortsightedness, upon miscon- 
 
 [77] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 ception of the near and imperception of the far. 
 Were it not so, there would have been no effort, no 
 progress. Calculation of results disarmed courage; 
 estimation of probabilities crippled hope; vision of 
 injustice paralyzed action; insight of realities 
 reversed desire. Life understood became life 
 impossible but rarely it was understood. Men 
 continued to be cajoled by caressing pleasures of the 
 hour, or they were stimulated by expectations of the 
 next hour, and if, when the next hour came, the 
 anticipated enjoyment was deferred, they merely 
 postponed it to the next, and the next, and so on till 
 the end of their days. Those a little nobler minded 
 fastened their eyes upon some coming perfection of 
 society, which equally proved a mirage. Thus the 
 lowest by illusions of sense, the higher by delusions 
 of hope, were nourished on emptiness. The few 
 who had apprehended the High must starve. 
 
 The conviction of terrestrial nothingness was for 
 Revato neither a metaphysical hypothesis nor a 
 Theistic emotion. He had no controlling belief in 
 the idealistic philosophy clearly enunciated in the 
 Vedanta and frequently upspringing, if not deeply 
 rooted, in his own religion. Neither could he follow 
 the Vedantist devotees into any vivid, emotional 
 experience of a Divine, Pervasive Person. But his 
 mind was able to make judicial comparison of time 
 and Eternity in their importance, a dispassionate 
 judgment which resulted in passionate conviction. 
 When, unexpectedly, in the dead of night, perhaps in 
 starting up from a dream, he caught a glimpse of the 
 future and all that it involves, the present shrank 
 to such dimensions as if not existing at all; as if no 
 pain or sacrifice here and now was of any consequence 
 whatever. Beside these brilliant flashes of alarm, 
 there were others, less coruscant, of wonder. Like 
 the sunlight, defused and deadened by impending 
 haze, so that the disk of the orb is invisible yet its 
 effects pervading, he beheld the emanations from 
 that Substance in which is comprised the Answer. 
 
 Fleeting as were his visions of living death, im 
 possible as it was to sustain the intensity of emotion 
 that they produced, their effects lasted over the 
 intervals between them. If the awe of the Infinite 
 did not extinguish the finite, at least a dread of the 
 endless annihilated the transitory. Earth had 
 dwindled to non-entity. 
 
 In his memory lingered a fragment which Di- 
 omedes had read him from the last words of a Yonaka 
 muni condemned to death: "Is the deep mediation 
 of the Enlightened One anything else than separation 
 of the soul from the body? And is not this to die, 
 for the body to be apart by itself, separated from the 
 soul, and for the soul to subsist apart by itself 
 separated from the body? Is death anything else 
 than this?" Feelings worthy of an Arahat! How 
 different this serene detachment from Revato s own! 
 
 And yet, he pondered, were these no real values 
 even in life? Was there nothing intrinsically worthy 
 of endeavor? Refreshment in Nature? Truth dis 
 
 covery? Beauty perception? Beauty creation? 
 Approbation of just men? Approval of conscience? 
 Yes, these were good when related to the life that 
 ends in Eternal Rest, which implied that they were 
 bad as properties of the life that was hostile to it. 
 Was it then inherently wrong to receive joy from 
 such delights even in their earthly relations? Per 
 haps not wrong if they came as joys unsought, as 
 by-products of self-discipline, but in any case 
 extremely dangerous. 
 
 The quest for knowledge, for truth was that also 
 perverse? Did not Buddho open his mind wide to 
 all wisdom "that leadeth not to sin"? Yes, but it 
 was said also of the Saint that "he is no follower of 
 philosophical views, nor a friend of knowledge; he is 
 indifferent to learning while others acquire it." 
 Therefore, Revato inferred, even truth was an 
 unworthy object of search if one were prompted by 
 the cravings of a selfish curiosity. 
 
 Self-conquest was best aided, not by tapa, fiery 
 trial, as the Brahmin ascetics contended, but, as the 
 Master had sanely pointed out, by freedom from 
 the thralldom of sensations, whether of delight or of 
 agony. If even the voluntary sufferings of the 
 devotee were futile, how much more deplorable was 
 the great mass of human and animal misery that 
 came unbidden! Contentment in plain, wholesome 
 things that was the true philosophy of life, the 
 "Middle Way" of Buddho. 
 
 There remained then one object of striving which, 
 even physically, was right and good the lessening 
 of anguish. In the discernment of philosophic altru 
 ism was scope for the boldest speculations, most 
 logical deductions. In the assuagement of world 
 wide anguish, in all artful works that might tend to 
 such alleviation, lay ample opportunity for every 
 man s strongest powers. Thus, while jealously 
 avoiding all promotion of high aesthetics, the fur 
 therance of humble ease opened unlimited fields for 
 enterprise in politics, law, science, industry, and 
 what not. Trifles as these things might be by com 
 parison with Eternity, in themselves they were 
 absolute. 
 
 To Revato was now ever present a corporeal 
 reminder of those great departments of the sentient 
 world which lie outside of humanity, though closely 
 affiliated and, as his doctrine taught, reciprocally 
 transmutable with it. Dukkho was now his con 
 stant attendant, a melancholy companion who, 
 throughout the dog s own waking and even sleeping 
 moments, evidenced himself by frequent low whines 
 which seemed uncalled for by circumstances. A 
 close sympathy was established between dog and 
 master, a mutuality often evidenced by tokens of 
 psychical intimacy at which Revato marveled. It 
 was an instructive study for Revato to observe how 
 every slight motion on his part was followed with 
 understanding on the dog s part; how perfectly each 
 could predict the other s movements, influence him 
 by slight suggestions, tacitly indicate changes of 
 mood and carry on sport which was clearly under- 
 
 [78] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 stood to be such and was guarded by a code of honor 
 against undue roughness, under which both parties 
 felt perfectly secure. 
 
 A moral consciousness also was clearly shown in 
 Dukkho. If Revato was weak enough to let an 
 inward groan become vocalized, the dog would 
 approach and paw upon him in altruistic pity. A 
 foible to which the animal occasionly gave rein, 
 in relaxation from his habitual sobriety, was the pur 
 suit of kukkuktls hens. Once, while thus engaged, 
 he was stung by a bee, whereupon he hid in shame 
 for the remainder of the day, fully aware of the in 
 visible kamma which had wrought his retribution. 
 
 Such traits of likeness between man and dog were 
 indeed offset by a mountain of differences, of limits 
 over which the latter could not pass. Revato hardly 
 knew whether to call the similarities or antitheses 
 more characteristic. But of this he was convinced, 
 that if the contrasts were significant of great facts, the 
 resemblances were also, and that they were enough 
 to establish a very close relation between himself 
 and the more helpless creatures that swarmed around 
 him, a relationship demanding deep interest and pity 
 both for this world and worlds to come. He was 
 led by this thought as by many other of his independ 
 ent reflections to the feet of his sapient Master. 
 
 SUNNATA EMPTINESS 
 
 While disinterestedness thus had power to lay 
 strong hold upon Revato, neither its claims nor 
 those of religious self-seeking controlled him to the 
 perfection of Saintship. His heart, after all, was a 
 ravenous tiger. The old broken fetters of self-delu 
 sion and life-love were ever re-uniting about his 
 limbs. Repeated failures taught him how better to 
 direct his efforts for effectual release. He must be 
 loosed from all sense of earthly possession other than 
 as a mere licensee or a tenant at a will not his own. 
 If the breezes blew they produced a grateful refresh 
 ment, but if they withheld their motion he would 
 not complain. He would not say in the evening 
 "I hope that tomorrow will be cool," for he had no 
 claim on tomorrow nor on to-day. Peace comes only 
 "When unremembered is the thought my own. " 
 
 Trouble cannot lodge where there is nothing upon 
 which trouble can take hold. There might be a 
 logical defect, yet was there not also a great truth in 
 the old verse: 
 
 "On covered roofs it falls, 
 
 But not on open roofs, the rain; 
 If but you will take off the roof, 
 
 Twill ne er be wet again"? 
 
 By such paradoxical policy, such abdication of 
 ordinary prudence, reversal of the canons of reason, 
 might be attained that Ultimate Condition which is 
 described in a variant of the metaphor, that state of 
 quiescence of turmoil and trouble when: 
 
 That desire in itself is an evil thing, Revato s 
 common sense never could admit in the sweeping 
 manner of his teachers. But his experience had 
 otherwise led him to a nearly the same conclusion. 
 He had found that almost invariably the wish for a 
 thing raises a necessity to violate our sense of right 
 just a little in order to obtain it. This presupposes a 
 delicate conscience habituated to be on the alert for 
 traces of evil. If the wish be not primarily wrong, it 
 teazes a conscience thus practiced into detecting the 
 wrong. The outcome is therefore an identification of 
 wishing with depravity, which confirms practically, 
 if not quite in theory, the doctrine of Buddho that a 
 taint inheres in desire. 
 
 If, at least, the question arises whether, in a 
 particular case, duty lies with or against inclination, 
 there is a strong presumption that they are opposed, 
 because where they agree, action follows spon 
 taneously and a conscious moral issue is not raised. 
 
 Two general rules might have summed up Revato s 
 philosophy of moral discipline: Abstention, first from 
 that which involves wrong and compromise; second, 
 from that which has for its purpose luxury, as 
 distinguished from comfort. But no purification of 
 the body with a surgeon s knife was ever more 
 severe than the one which the heart must undergo if 
 subjected to these principles. Total severance of 
 conscious worldly attachment must inevitably 
 follow.* 
 
 Happiness which comes unbidden, therefore, is the 
 only earthly form that is not alloyed. Even to 
 suppress desire with a view to obtaining such happi 
 ness would be merely a self-deceiving indirection. 
 
 Not the outward cloister but the inward, Revato 
 felt, was the residence of duty. To bear his part 
 on earth oblivious to its seductions, this was his task. 
 
 Casual experience with the world should, he per 
 ceived, be made by a right spirit to subserve inward 
 freedom. Thus, as had been said: 
 
 "No form-fancy kindling, 
 But haply beholding 
 Each object unyearning, 
 
 The vision is clear; 
 Sensation is dwindling, 
 Detachment unfolding; 
 The sorrow discerning, 
 Nibbana is near." 
 
 "The Wheel is broken, craving now is dead, 
 Nor flows the river on its dried-up bed; 
 Ne er shall the shattered wheel roll on again, 
 And so is reached the Perfect End of Pain." 
 
 *"We must learn to look upon life as an apprenticeship to a 
 progressive renunciation, a perpetual diminution in our preten- 
 tions, our hopes, our powers and our liberty. The circle grows 
 narrower and narrower; we begin with being eager to learn 
 everything, to see everything, to tame and conquer everything, 
 and in all directions we reach our limit non plus ultra. Fortune, 
 glory, love, power, health, happiness, long life, all these blessings 
 which have been possessed by other men seem at first promised 
 and accessible to us, and then we have to put the dream away 
 from us, to withdraw one personal claim after another, to make 
 ourselves small and humble, to submit to feel ourselves lim 
 ited, feeble, dependent, ignorant and poor, and to throw our 
 selves upon God for all, recognizing our own worthlessness, 
 and that we have no right to anything. It is in this nothingness 
 that we recover something of life the divine spark is there at the 
 bottom of it. Resignation comes to us and, in believing love, we 
 reconquer the true greatness." H. F. Amiel. 
 
 [79] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 Renunciation to Revato was no mere acknowledg 
 ment of external barriers, but a self immolation at 
 heart. He was further aware and this was the 
 hardest of all that it would go for naught if he 
 solaced himself with secret bitterness. He should 
 "live and die in the shade" but he must do so with 
 unfeigned good cheer. 
 
 "How blissfully we live who nothing hold! 
 Like sparkling angels, we will feast on joy." 
 
 It was the duty of such unnatural bliss that most 
 made him feel the despair of his condition. 
 
 His mind anon reverted to that day after the 
 Pavarana festival when, on the Mountain of the Vul 
 ture s Peak, he had instructed his reverend friends 
 as to the meaning of Renunciation. How much 
 more his ponderings of the few intervening months 
 had taught him concerning the subtle implications 
 of that word! The Venerables Bharadvajo and 
 Kondanno had by this time returned from the Cock 
 Garden; Bharadvajo had marvelously recovered 
 strength and had been able to accompany his fellow, 
 with a sturdy stride, back to the old Hill City. To 
 them one day Revato unburdened the thoughts that 
 pressed for utterance: 
 
 "If, after a man has thrust aside that which is 
 most dear unto him, he reflects, Perhaps this was 
 unnecessary, unwise; maybe the time will come 
 when I shall find it right to revoke my abdication; 
 why should I exert my ingenuity to render such 
 recall impossible? yet if, finding this ensealment 
 of quit-claim more difficult than the main act, he 
 nevertheless puts his purpose beyond possibility of 
 reconsideration he knows what it means to re 
 nounce. 
 
 "Have you not heard of the monk who loved his 
 garden so well that after leaving the world he six 
 times backslid by thoughts of his spade which he 
 had concealed, yet finally, carrying it to the river 
 side, shutting tight his eyes and whirling it thrice 
 around his head, he flung it with elephantine force 
 straight into mid-stream, determined that it should 
 not fall where he could fish it out again, and who 
 then, as a lion roars, shouted: I have conquered. ? 
 
 "Or if, as it may befall, a man has already cast 
 away what seemed to him the essence of his life, so 
 that he becomes like dead; yet if, anon, in the sun 
 shine, his animation renews and fresh joys begin to 
 bud; if, in plain terms, his heart discovers residual 
 or fresh .interests, nursing them till they become 
 full grown and take the place of the old ones, and if 
 he must likewise sever them off, one by one he 
 knows what it means to renounce. 
 
 "Ah, but our grasping is like that of a monkey 
 which lets go of one branch only to catch hold of 
 another! Yes, when the heart of the mendicant, who 
 has broken all other attachment, fixes only upon a 
 dog, a tree, a mouse or a cockroach in his cell, it 
 goes to show that the spirit is yet unsubdued. Think 
 of the bhikkhu in the story who harbored a viper as 
 a pet and who, when warned by Bodhisatto, answered 
 
 that it was dear to him and that he could not bear 
 to part with it; for which obstinacy he lost his 
 life. 
 
 "Ruthlessly, then, we must lop off every green 
 sprout of desire although the very pruning stimulate 
 a ranker growth. We are to stifle all sense of acqui 
 sition or property by treating everything we possess 
 as a jewel picked up in the road, whose sparkle we 
 may enjoy only until we find the owner. Yes, we 
 must even combat that insidious guile with which 
 we think to hold a vested interest of selfish delight 
 in necessary acts, such as eating, and must cultivate 
 rather the pahanaparinna a clear consciousness of 
 rejecting pleasures of appetite while we eat to sustain 
 life. In his Enunciations the Tathagato declared: 
 
 " When power of ancient wrong is overthrown, 
 When old, corruptive dust no longer clings, 
 When unremembered is the thought "my own" 
 Then age-long sorrows perish from their springs. 
 
 "Perhaps, after one has broken the power of the 
 five crude senses, there waxes acute that subtle sense 
 which clamors, An-annatang nassami I will know 
 the unknown. He seeks happiness in the pursuit of 
 wisdom and he thinks: Though I have given up all 
 my goods, my thoughts are my inalienable property; 
 though I have subjugated my body, my mind cannot 
 be suppressed; I seek only Truth and Truth is a 
 right object. Then comes a misgiving and he begins 
 to reflect: Why do I pursue the Truth? Is it not 
 for vain curiosity? Is it not for pride? Is it not 
 for the bold enjoyment of confuting my elders? Is 
 it not in hope that I may prove the blessed Dhamma 
 to be false and with impunity may defy the law of 
 Cause and Effect? Wisely did Bhagava reprove our 
 speculations on dark subjects on the first origin of 
 things, the eternity of the world, the nature of Nib- 
 bana and similar problems which we cannot solve 
 and which divert us from themes on which we need 
 to ponder. And even to uproot weeds of error may 
 be untimely if they are growing close to sacred flow 
 ers that risk destruction with them. For Truth is a 
 fearful peril, and though it must finally prevail, that 
 will not save him who injures others or himself by 
 hasty meddling in word or thought. I say not that 
 his duty lies in falsehood, but in silence. Hereby 
 may it be known when to follow Truth is lawful 
 when she is sought after not with delight, but in 
 travail of soul. For to the sage as to the sensualist, 
 death lies in longing. He that for this cause slays 
 his intellect he knows what it means to renounce. 
 
 "Thus it was that Talaputo struggled: 
 
 " Desire and folly I forsook, the bitter and the sweet- 
 Fair images and feelings dear that flesh or mind would greet, 
 These all alike I left behind and shall I now retreat? 
 
 " Wilt thou beguile me, O my heart, by cunning tricks concealed, 
 Again, again, once more, my strong resolve to yield? 
 To madness thou hast often lured, and led me far afield. 
 
 "Now this, my heart, at rest, at large, I ll set before thy sight- 
 That where a wish is there is love, and where is love, delight; 
 So, like a raging elephant, I ll handle thee aright. 
 
 [80] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 "Having put away all the pleasures of mind, as 
 well as of sense, is there not a reward in the appro 
 bation of good men? But some are called upon to 
 forego even this, to let themselves be misunderstood, 
 be charged with ungenerosity, ingratitude, cowardice, 
 dishonor, when a word would refute the accusation 
 a word which must not be spoken. It has often 
 seemed to me that no other part of the Great Renun 
 ciation could have been to the Blessed One so full of 
 anguish as bearing the reproach of unkindness when 
 he left those near to him in order to seek salvation 
 for all mankind. Whoever consents unjustly to be 
 reviled of men and women he knows what it means 
 to renounce. 
 
 "Being harassed, as we have seen, by the mistaken 
 scorn of mankind, the heart would take refuge in 
 its own impervious cavern. But self-approbation, 
 which there dwells, is a most venomous snake and will 
 sting to death every housemate. When even a 
 faultless life has become an object of clinging, it turns 
 to poison like other desires, and occasion may arise 
 for its painful sacrifice. How few there be, bhante, 
 who can interpret this saying, that the craving 
 for brahmacariya * for pure life is among those 
 which ought to be destroyed. This meaning I have 
 found therein: Since all conduct must be a choice 
 between wrongs, the lesser preferred to the greater, 
 it will often occur that those works should be elected 
 which most humiliate spiritual pride by destruction 
 of fond ideals, and this will especially be true where 
 the heart most yearns for its own peace. Whoso 
 thus mortifies even his conscience he knows what 
 it means to renounce." 
 
 "You are preaching heresy, Layman!" exclaimed 
 the Venerable Kondanno. "For the arahat there is 
 no choice of evils, but he is perfect in all his deeds. 
 Remember how the Blessed One declared: There 
 are those who take for truth the teaching of the 
 trouble maker that, whatever one attains to, it is 
 sprinkled over with evil. There is a second opinion, 
 that no harm resides in lusts. Both of these views of 
 life despair of good and sensuality enlarge the 
 realm of death. And that, in turn, tends to the 
 increase of speculation?" 
 
 "Does the arahat," asked Revato, "never walk 
 abroad after dark?" 
 
 "Certainly," Kondanno answered, "if for a good 
 work." 
 
 "And when he starts out, is he not aware that he 
 will most likely trample to death some earth worm? 
 This assuredly is a choice of evil." 
 
 "With your subtleties you are impugning wisdom 
 of the Buddho," retorted Kondanno; "but you do 
 only confirm the truth of his word, that the ascrip 
 tion of evil to the holy redounds to pernicious spec 
 ulation. You who but now were asserting that men 
 ought to renounce their right to speculate!" 
 
 *Iti-Vuttaka, sec. 54, which I follow Moore in taking at its 
 face value, despite the suspicion that an error has somewhere 
 entered. 
 
 [8, 
 
 "I did not claim that we should never speculate," 
 answered Revato, "but that we should do so with 
 discrimination. We must fit our discourse to the 
 hearer, avoiding what would stimulate his disposi 
 tion and rather applying a wholesome corrective. 
 To you, soaring in your windy sanctimony, I may 
 speak words that would be serpents fangs to some 
 ignorant worshipper in yonder licentious deva temple. 
 
 When others fall, I rise, 
 When others rise, I fall, 
 
 as you are fond of quoting from saint Piyanjaho of 
 old." 
 
 "A moment ago," argued Kondanno taking a 
 new tack, "you were contending for uncompromis 
 ing perfection of life, as if the slightest wrong would 
 taint it wholly. But now you affirm that all conduct 
 is a balancing of evils. I cannot reconcile the two 
 theories." 
 
 "A slight wrong," answered Revato, "becomes a 
 great wrong if it be a necessary stepping stone to a 
 great object. When done for a purpose it must be 
 measured thereby. To such wrongs I especially 
 referred. Some evils, moreover, are totally con 
 demned by their very nature. Among them are all 
 words and acts that are not transparent in candour. 
 Honesty differs from many virtues in this, that it 
 admits no compromise. Again, where inaction is 
 possible, we are less justified in doing a wrong than 
 where no passive alternative is offered. For which 
 cause, I am every day more sluggish to act. I do 
 not claim that these arguments are perfect. We are 
 dealing with elusive matters. I own that I feel 
 promptings to bolder reasonings, such as I dare not 
 suggest even to you. But enough of this, for I 
 must finish telling you what it means to renounce. 
 
 "In its despair, the mind will clutch at self-pity, 
 as a man swept away by a freshet on Ganga river 
 snatches a drifting log. Such inward grasp is more 
 difficult to break than the hold of him who drowns. 
 If Anando, gentlest of all the disciples, was excluded 
 from the Great Council and held back from saint 
 hood until he had ceased to harbour a grudge in 
 his heart, how can we break the fetters while we 
 cherish an injured spirit? When we have flayed our 
 selves for duty s sake, are we forbidden to cry out 
 with pain? He who, having thus flayed himself, 
 does not cry out even in spirit he knows what it 
 means to renounce." 
 
 Still at times was Revato brought back to a 
 source of solace. The strongest aid in his difficulties, 
 one to which in his most harrassing trials he could 
 turn with assurance of soothing and stimulus, was 
 the power of a compelling, yet winning personality. 
 
 An atmosphere almost of holy clearness some 
 times enveloped him when he dwelt upon the calm, 
 spotless life of his enlightened lord. As his thoughts 
 turned from Prote and those things which she and 
 hers represented, to him who, upon these same 
 forested hills, had gone out from every household 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 gain and comfort and had lived unmoved by the 
 enticements of the world, Revato realized the 
 weakness and shame of any yielding in himself, and 
 he perceived how full with the true elements of 
 satisfaction were the compensatory privileges of 
 those who immolated their earthly hearts. 
 
 RAIN 
 
 Such, during the months that dragged along after 
 Revato s return to Rajagaha, was his inward life, 
 that is to say his true life. His outward life, if that 
 mattered, was marked by few incidents. He con 
 tinued to perform the duties of his office in a mechan 
 ical way, for in-so-far as he had mastered the hopes 
 and fears connected with it, and had assumed 
 indifference to personal results, however dolorous, 
 the moral stress to immediate change pressed less 
 heavily upon him, and whether wisely or mistakenly, 
 his conscience for the time being tolerated a cautious 
 policy of laissez faire. 
 
 The two months of Hemanta, early Winter, 
 which season had chiefly comprised his visit at 
 Pataliputta, were soon over and were followed by 
 the chills of Sisira, the cool, dewy time. A new 
 year came in almost abreast with Vasanta, that far- 
 too-brief period of vernal transition when, remem 
 bering our shivers, we welcome their relief, heedless 
 of the worse fate that is in store. Quickly it merged 
 into Gimha, Summer, a time of parching heat, 
 when verdure burned from the fields, forest brooks 
 and springs dried up, birds cowered with spreading 
 beaks, four-footed beasts lay dead of thirst and the 
 valleys were thick with mountain serpents which had 
 quitted their rocky dens in quest of water. 
 
 When the month Asalha drew near, the hangsas, 
 wild swans, might have been descried high aloft, in 
 flocks, flying toward Himavanta, to spend their 
 breeding season about the Anottata tarn on Mount 
 Kelasa. At the same time, the mendicants of the 
 Order in companies or in pairs or singly, were 
 returning from their scattered alms and preaching 
 tours to pass the coming lenten season at Rajagaha. 
 Day by day they continued to wander in, until 
 hundreds, even thousands, had arrived and taken 
 up their residences in the sangharamas of the 
 Bambu and Mango groves. Some, more zealous 
 and some more traditional than the rest, sought 
 out meditative grottoes on the mountain sides or 
 framed and thatched for themselves grass huts, like 
 the disciples of yore. 
 
 Eager to inward compellings, 
 Houselife and home they forsake, 
 Dallying not in their dwellings, 
 Flitting like swans from their lake. 
 
 Among those who passed on from the comfortable 
 monasteries to special retreats in more austere 
 quarters, were the Venerable Bharadvajo and the 
 Venerable Kondaiino, who, as usual, resorted to the 
 huts on the Vulture s Peak. 
 
 ^Suddehly, one night, the sky became radiant 
 with forked lightning playing against the tops of 
 
 Vipula and Vebhara, the air grew resonant with 
 thunder and the world was swept by a southeast 
 gale like the all-destroying wind at the end of an 
 aeon the Yugantavato. 
 
 Water poured as if Sakko were bringing down the 
 Ganga of the heavens. It was the beginning of the 
 monsoon, which had broken up the summer. 
 
 After its violence abated, its clouds lingered over 
 the country, discharging a constant downpour, 
 which laid the dust and turned vegetation green, 
 though the forest trees were bared by the gales. 
 Vassana, the Rainy Season, had begun. 
 
 Their lenten retirement was, of all yearly events, 
 dearest to the fervent souls of those brethren who 
 minded not the depressing influences of the constant 
 rains. It was a time for hard spiritual exercises, for 
 exalted rhapsodies. Those most ardently seeking 
 seclusion had penetrated into the deep woods and 
 passed weeks at the foot of some tree in the dripping 
 jungle encompassed by boars, antelope, deer and 
 snakes. Thus long ago the Thera Talaputo: 
 
 When will the time of the rain outpour 
 
 New-born waters adown on me, 
 In my hermit s dress on the greenwood floor 
 In the way of the Master who comes no more 
 
 When shall it be? 
 
 When shall I sit in the caverned hill 
 
 Where the peacock s call comes in to me 
 
 And I hear the skyward songbird s trill 
 
 And I soar to a sky that is higher still 
 When shall it be? 
 
 When, as the maul of the hell-world flings 
 
 Ganga s terrible floods at me, 
 Shall I sap their power in their utmost springs 
 There is naught to harm but in him who clings 
 
 When shall it be? 
 
 When shall I war, with an elephant s ire, 
 On the sensuous foes that encompass me, 
 
 Till I feel decay in its cause expire 
 
 And my soul is rapt with a mystic fire 
 When shall it be? 
 
 Revato sought company with his two friends at 
 the Vulture s Peak less often than formerly, and, 
 when he came, there was in him a listlessness not 
 unnoticed. 
 
 "It must be due to the weather," he said when 
 questioned. Hardly could an explanation have been 
 more plausible. Never throughout a four months 
 vassa had the rain poured down more continually. 
 It flowed in perpetual torrents through the mountain 
 gullies, swelling the Sarassati brook to a mighty 
 river and flooding the fields about the walls of the 
 new town. The unseen sun diffused its heat over 
 the earth, day and night, lifting the fallen water in 
 vapor like the mists of the hot springs, to remain 
 low-suspended over all the earth and discharge in a 
 sluggish drizzle upon the now defoliate forest. 
 In the rain came myriad creeping and flying and 
 crawling and gliding creatures to torment and 
 terrify the sleepless hours of darkness. 
 
 Only twice during this long Lenten period, did the 
 receding clouds disclose the moon. On these two 
 
 [82] 
 
THE 
 
 LAYMAN 
 
 R E V A T O 
 
 nights, so delightful for their rarity, open air preach 
 ing services were held in the Mango Grove. People 
 of the city and from neighboring villages came to 
 sit on the grass in a glade of the park and listen 
 to the monks as they instructed and admonished 
 or told tales from the Jatakas to draw the atten 
 tion of the more ignorant hearers. Aside from 
 
 these occasions, life was an oppression. Caravan 
 trade was halted by the swollen rivers and the 
 doors of the custom house closed for lack of busi 
 ness. Revato was left with nothing to do but to 
 turn his thoughts deeper into his heart, woeful 
 retreat as that might be from the dismal prospect 
 outside. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 A VISION OF LIFE 
 
 "Just as when, O Brethren, at the end of the last 
 month of Summer, the dust and dirt are destroyed 
 by a great unseasonable storm which perforce allays 
 and suppresses them, even thus, O Brethren, when 
 Intent Contemplation in Breathing is practiced, in 
 creased and perfected, yea when it is sweet, pleasant, 
 delightful and enduring in the effect produced, it 
 perforce allays and suppresses bad, evil things. 
 
 With the month Asalha, when the days are longest, 
 had come that monsoon which broke up the Summer, 
 but its benefit had been illusory, for not even the 
 scorching drought could so depress the heart of man 
 and Nature as did the steaming rains which ensued. 
 Some alleviation was felt after the first two vassa 
 months, when Autumn coolness crept into the air. 
 A more beneficent change overspread the world 
 toward the end of the fourth month when, as Assayu- 
 ga was giving place to Kattika, a north wind came 
 from Himava, driving together the clouds and 
 shepherding them down the sky like flocks of sheep. 
 
 "In the last month of the rain," as an old recita 
 tion runs, "in Autumn time, when the sky is clear 
 and the clouds have rifted, the sun, ascending the 
 sky and pervading all that is situate either in light 
 or in darkness, doth shine and glow and radiate." 
 Thenceforward by day the heaven became a deep 
 blue wherein at evening the stars expanded like 
 loti on a lake. In the valleys plentiful kasa grass 
 arose, rapidly approaching its wonted height of 
 ten or twelve cubits and whitening the land with its 
 silvery wool. Leaves and blossoms of every sort 
 put out on trees and ground, for the season of early 
 Hemanta, Winter, was the true time of Spring. 
 The air had become resilient and hard as glass; it 
 quickly dried up the dampness of the fields and 
 forests, save where floods remained in great pools. 
 Likewise it dried the sweat and the tears of mankind. 
 In the alternations of earth, which, like man, is 
 fated to endless sangsara, this among the times of 
 year is Brahmaloka. While Farmers went forth 
 to plough and ditchers to dig, the brethren, who till 
 themselves, set out upon their annual travels, not 
 without confidence of support by the way and 
 readiness of spiritual ministry to others. 
 
 Under the influence of this season, Revato the 
 Layman resorted one day to the forest at the foot of 
 
 the Vulture s Peak mountain for the purpose of 
 breathing. It was not to be the inhalation of the 
 light-hearted holiday maker, nor yet of the -suffo 
 cated lungs which might physically crave these 
 crisp northern airs, but the measured, prolonged, 
 thoughtful, purposive, expiration and inspiration of 
 the striver after peace. 
 
 "Forests are delightful," says one; "where the 
 world findeth no delight, there the passionless will 
 find delight, for they seek not after pleasures." 
 
 This eremitic exultation was heard in many of the 
 psalms familiar to Revato; in none more rapturously 
 than that of Ekavihariyo, the Dweller Alone. He 
 was identical with King Asoko s younger brother, 
 Prince Tisso, who after these blissful experiences at 
 Rajagaha, had gone to end his days in a monastery 
 of that distant southern land, Kalinga. 
 
 THE SONG OF EKAVIHAIYO, THE ANCHORITE 
 
 If before me, if behind me, treads no follower to intrude, 
 Sweet the season that shall find me deep in sylvan solitude. 
 
 Let me seek those wildernesses which the Enlightened Lord 
 
 extolled. 
 Glad the monk whose purpose presses far to the deserted wold. 
 
 Trained in rapture-kindling trances, soon sensation falls away; 
 Though the elephant advances, bold I to the woodland stray. 
 
 Fair the flowers in Sita s ramble, where, what time my limbs I lave, 
 Up the mountain side I ll amble to the coolness of a cave. 
 
 Solitary, unprotected, in the beautiful great wood, 
 I will dwell how soon perfected, purged the wrong, performed 
 the good? 
 
 Prosper now my strong intention, let my strenuous will succeed, 
 Doing, void of intervention, mine, and not another s deed. 
 
 By myself the conquest winning, I will tread the jungle track, 
 All decay and root of sinning purging e er I turn me back. 
 
 Where, on perfumed, fresh perflations, tree-flung scents come 
 
 fluttering down, 
 I will rend my crude illations seated on the green hill s crown. 
 
 Cool the mountain cave around me, ripe the flower-clad grove 
 
 distils, 
 
 Dear the land where I ve unbound me Fortress of the Circling 
 hills. 
 
 Waxing will pervades me stronger as the discal moon inflates 
 Sin shall compass me no longer, nor a new becoming waits. 
 
 [8 3 ] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 The delectability of experiences like Ekavihariyo s 
 was accentuated by their prudent rarity. Whereas 
 the Brahmins went into the forest to become per 
 petual eremites, the Buddho had counseled for his 
 disciples wise companionship. Their retreats, like 
 his own, were by custom temporary ones. Thence 
 these friars returned with uplifted hearts and 
 stronger self-possession to the communal life. 
 
 But wherefore did Revato thus undertake the 
 unwonted exercises of a recluse or a yogi? With the 
 last desperate hope that, after having tried all 
 means of subduing his heart by the independent 
 power of his reason, and finding the result a failure, 
 he might accomplish something by the prescribed, 
 traditional methods of the Church. The breathing 
 exercise was a practice once recommended to him by 
 Kondanno. He had then contemned the suggestion, 
 but now, more humble, he was willing and anxious 
 to put it to a test. 
 
 The religion of the Dhamma had grown in an 
 atmosphere saturated with the mysticism of the old 
 votaries, so full of trances and raptures. One of its 
 best results was its return to earth and sanity. 
 Surrounding influences, however, were persistently 
 suasive for a revival of ecstatic culture, and it is 
 entitled to credit for yielding to them no more than 
 it did. Nevertheless, a place well-recognized, if 
 not preeminent, was found in this Buddho religion 
 for practice of trances, of ecstasies which went 
 beyond the subdued fervours of the saints ordinary 
 meditations. It cannot be doubted that the Tatha- 
 gato stamped approval upon certain states of 
 mystical exaltation and himself experienced them. 
 They have a real and a valuable function in religion, 
 even if liable to abuse, and if less necessary than 
 those practical duties which are for all mankind. 
 
 Connected with the Jhanas, or trances in which 
 Arahatship reaches its most perfect equanimity, 
 and from which the Blessed One himself passed to 
 his parinibbana, were the exercises of methodical 
 respiration, learned from the old Brahmin cult, in 
 which physical action cooperated with extreme 
 mental effort. 
 
 Such mysterious elements in the religion of his 
 up-bringing had appealed to Revato s young fancy 
 because of their romantic glamour. He had early 
 flattered himself with being transcendentally en 
 dowed, just as he had assumed the possession of all 
 superior qualities until he grew old enough to esti 
 mate himself more rationally. Self-experience 
 gradually proved to him that his nature, although 
 sentimental, was remote from that nai ve, vivid 
 spirituality which is called mysticism; that he was, 
 in fact, analytically and prosaically minded and 
 bound fast to earth. After this had become clear 
 to him, his interest in the transcendental appeared 
 to him hypocritical, or at least remote. His sobering 
 tastes grew to admire rather the dying declaration of 
 Buddho: "I have held no esoteric doctrines; mine 
 has not been the closed fist of a teacher who keeps 
 something back." Nevertheless, Revato could not 
 
 but reverently admit the existence in others of 
 those deep spiritual phenomena that were alien to 
 himself. 
 
 Strictly speaking, the time most appropriate for 
 practice of the breathing exercise was the Lenten 
 season just ended, but to Revato the mood for 
 attempting it had come with this revival of Nature 
 after clearing off of the rains. 
 
 Thus, with a slender but vivid hope, he betook 
 himself one morning to a thick forest east of Giribba- 
 ja, in a valley between Mounts Vipula and Gijjha- 
 kuto. He had thought of going to the Assattha 
 Cave, near his home, at the base of Mount Vebhara, 
 where Buddho himself had so often meditated, 
 or to that other favorite resort of the Master, the 
 rocky cell on the Vulture s Peak. From the latter, 
 however, the open Northern horizon might entice 
 his eyes to strain through the clear air for the invisi 
 ble peaks of Himava, suggesting pleasurable heavens 
 and also passes to Yonaloka. Nor was either re 
 treat secure from interruption; even in the trackless 
 valley jungle, it was not easy to find a spot remote 
 from the hermitages of other eremites. 
 
 Before sunrise on that day, Revato arose and, 
 having quitted his home fasting, he bathed himself 
 at one of the hot springs which bubbled on either side 
 of the Sarassati rivulet. The notion entertained by 
 many sects in Jambudipa, that purity of soul is 
 promoted by filth of body, was absent from the 
 discipline of Buddho, who permitted his disciples to 
 take steam baths at intervals longer or shorter 
 according to conditions of weather, health and 
 activity. A sense of correspondency between inward 
 and outward cleansing was, however, the efficient 
 cause of Revato s ablutions. 
 
 When he had entered deep into the jungle, he 
 selected a large Assattha tree, the sacred Bodhi 
 kind, and seated himself at its roots, prepared 
 punctiliously to follow the rules. 
 
 "While peacocks and herons mount high in the air, 
 While panthers and tigers lurk round in their lair, 
 
 Give will-power pre-eminent place. 
 Abandon thy body, esteeming it nought, 
 Be agile and steady to gather thy thought 
 
 And fix it in front of thy face. " 
 
 "How practiced," said the Blessed One, "is 
 intent contemplation in breathing; and how, for 
 sooth is it sweet, pleasant, delightful and enduring 
 in the effect produced, perforce allaying bad, evil 
 things and causing them to disappear? Herein, 
 O monks: The monk, retiring to the forest or to the 
 foot of a tree or to an uninhabited spot, sits him 
 down cross-legged, with body erect, placing his 
 thoughts directly in front of him" 
 
 So Revato, after first reverentially taking refuge 
 in the three Gems Buddho, Dhamma, Sangha 
 put himself in just the right posture and harnessed 
 body and mind for their correct evolutions. 
 
 "Thus mindfully he inhales." (Revato drew in a 
 breath, endeavoring the while to fix his thoughts on 
 Equanimity.) "Thus mindfully he exhales." (Re- 
 
 [84] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 vato did likewise.) "Inhaling a long breath, he 
 reflects, I am inhaling a long one. " (Thus did 
 Revato.) "Exhaling a long one, he reflects, I am 
 exhaling a long one. Inhaling a short one, he re 
 flects I am inhaling a short one. Exhaling a short 
 one, he reflects I am exhaling a short one. " 
 
 Revato obeyed the regulations conscientiously, 
 changing between the meditative and the reverential 
 attitude each moment, but so far he felt no effect. 
 However, this was only the beginning, so patiently 
 he continued to follow the stages of the discipline. 
 
 "He exercises, I will inhale conscious of all my 
 body. He exercises, I will exhale conscious of all 
 my body. He exercises, I will inhale with respira 
 tion tranquilized. He exercises, I will exhale, etc. 
 I will inhale feeling joy, etc. I will inhale feeling 
 delight, etc." 
 
 Revato felt neither joy nor delight. The words 
 only mocked him. He might make efforts at 
 tranquilization frantic enough to tear himself to 
 pieces, but he could not convert his discontented 
 heart into a contented one. Still he persisted: 
 
 " I will inhale and exhale experiencing attention 
 and consideration. I will inhale and exhale with 
 attention and consideration tranquilized. I will 
 inhale and exhale, conscious of my mind. I will 
 inhale and exhale with mind rejoicing with mind 
 composed with mind passionless contemplating 
 Impermanence contemplating Desirelessness con 
 templating Cessation contemplating Salvation. 
 Thus one inhales, thus he exhales." 
 
 Revato completed this programme as well as he 
 was able. In attention to the overt acts of respiration, 
 he had followed instructions, but his endeavors to 
 meditate coordinately on moral truths had not 
 succeeded. The psychic horse in the team required 
 constant goading. His thoughts were forced and 
 mechanical, and fugitive at that. He was aware 
 that he had failed to concentrate properly and that 
 his real viewpoint throughout had been that of a 
 critical, almost cynical looker at himself. 
 
 Still, this was only a first attempt; long self-train 
 ing might be necessary. Revato determined that he 
 would coerce his unruly mind and repeat the ex 
 ercises until he succeeded or proved success impossi 
 ble. 
 
 Again and again he applied the formula, some 
 times with signs of progress, sometimes without 
 them. By the time the sun showed noon, he had 
 gone over it more than twenty times. This, he 
 thought, was almost enough proof that he had never 
 been born for "tranquilization of mind in breathing." 
 
 He reflected, however, that what other men had 
 accomplished, he should be able to achieve if he 
 persisted, and therefore prepared himself to devote 
 the whole afternoon and night, if need be, to exer 
 tions. Though hungry and thirstier, he denied him 
 self food, taking only a few swallows of water from a 
 basin formed between two trees that had sprouted 
 from an old stump. 
 
 The afternoon proved a duplicate of the morning 
 except for its greater weariness. By dusk Revato 
 was in a state of exhaustion which bore some faint 
 resemblance to the Jhana trances. The hope that 
 this likeness might mean a genuine identity put him 
 into a nervous tremor, yet a subdued one for he 
 was so tired and drowsy. He had ceased to apply 
 the breathing exercise and was respiring at random. 
 His thoughts were no longer confined to orthodox 
 subjects of meditation but strayed off unchecked. 
 
 The jungle about him shut off all distant prospects. 
 While the sun glow remained, his gaze reached no 
 farther than the rocks in front of him. One huge 
 boulder had been cleft in two, perhaps that very one 
 taken by the blessed Master to symbolize the state 
 of him who is cloven from the company of the faith 
 ful. A separation as complete, it seemed to Revato, 
 had been his first, last and ever. 
 
 As darkness thickened, his attention wandered to 
 the sharp outlines of the tree tops fringing a narrow 
 field of star-strewn sky. At the end of the valley was 
 a glow indicative of the rising moon, but elsewhere 
 the depths of the forest were unlighted save by fire 
 flies and glow-worms near or farther off, which 
 marked the varying translucency of the foliate 
 regions. Among those multiform trees and creepers, 
 now indistinguishable, his mind s eye roved with the 
 appreciation of a native woodlover. Sweet smells, 
 drifting to him from the campakas and candanas, 
 soothed him and floated his fancy along. He told 
 himself that he could hear the minute rustle of the 
 sumana, the great flowered jessamine, in the still 
 air; could feel the fall of celectial mandarava blooms, 
 as upon the new-born and dying Buddho, and with 
 them many other flowers, from kanaka and vakula, 
 from patali and punnaga. 
 
 Greatest of all the forest, the Nigrodha, banyan, 
 spread wide, sheltering his numerous projeny, his 
 support in old age yet doomed to be crushed by his 
 fall. Beside him fluttered the fairy-leaved Assattha 
 the Bodhirukkha the Wisdom Tree, under which 
 Gotamo the Sakiyan had persisted through fort 
 nights of vigil and exertion, like Revato s own, to a 
 complete victory. It was not insignificant that 
 Buddho s tree should be the lady of the woodland, 
 for she represented a religion whose strength lay 
 where woman s virtues do, in humility and for 
 bearance. 
 
 By and by, the hunger of Revato s fasting led his 
 imagination to trees ministrant of food: the amba, 
 the jambu, the tinduka, the labuja or bread-fruit, 
 and the banana. After them he came to the bitter 
 nimba, at which his thoughts lingered longer then 
 under the other fructiferous trees. 
 
 Growing round about, darkened but clear to the 
 mind s eye, were the robust trunks of teak and iron- 
 wood, while on yonder mountain side thickened a 
 forest of sala. At the picture of these timber trees, 
 so useful to builders and architects, Revato s heart 
 leapt, smitten with an intrusive emotion, but by 
 forceful habit he stifled it. He turned his thoughts 
 
 [8 S 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 to another association of the sala, for between its 
 twin-grown trunks had been laid the couch of the 
 dying Tathagato. 
 
 Now Revato s heart wandered off among parijati- 
 kas, coral trees, and simbalis, the soft silk-cotton 
 trees, of Nandana garden in the Heaven of Sense. 
 Again, it returned to the earthly jungle and was 
 contritely fixed upon the latas, creeping vines, of 
 many sorts, which grew as tree parasites, twining 
 and tangling upon large, strong trunks such as the 
 sala, spreading them over with gorgeous flowers 
 but strangling out their robust lives and fating them 
 to an early decay. So tanha, craving, climbs and 
 clings about mankind. 
 
 He felt the members of this woodland growth 
 to be his comrades, citizens with himself in the 
 mysterious republic of life and linked with him in 
 further relations of destiny perhaps deep and far- 
 reaching. He envied the trees. They too must 
 decay, but they would never know it, and some of 
 them might survive him by a thousand years. 
 Theirs was the beauty of life without its misery and 
 dark future, for had not Buddho taught that they 
 are free from our Wheel? Yet might they not be in 
 a wheel of their own? Did their prolific vanity, 
 like that of the sentient world, store up a bad kamma, 
 reserved to work out retribution? Could desire 
 permeate even their insensibility? These were hard 
 questions. 
 
 But since Revato had become too drowsy to hold 
 himself up in continued self-reproach, his mind fell 
 off upon humble low-growing shrubs such as the 
 asoka plant the bitterless. 
 
 Anon he began to remember old tales about the 
 spirits that are sometimes domiciled in trees, and how 
 those near neighbors of our houses offer us many 
 opportunities for reciprocal kindness and helpfulness. 
 From these and other stories, dear to his childhood, 
 taught by the monks and believed by the people, 
 issued a sylvan population of gentle fairies and fierce 
 or benevolent monsters, serpentine Nagas and 
 devouring Yakkhas, winged Garulas and musical 
 Gandhabbas. With them came an impulse to 
 acknowledge their reality an impulse the source 
 and association of which he did not recall, but 
 which urged him to a naive acceptance of this 
 friendly or mischievous company, invisible at the 
 moment but ever lurking and liable to spring out. 
 It was with a bitter sense of emptiness that his 
 incredulity dismissed them. 
 
 All at once, Revato s attention was drawn by his 
 sense of hearing, and the forest became to him alive 
 with noises before unnoticed. Insects and birds, 
 hairy four-footed creatures, were arousing each other 
 by their nocturnal voices. Buzzing around were 
 little gnats, gad-flies, and mosquitoes. Jhallika, 
 crickets, chirped. Confusedly were mingled the 
 "keka" of the peacock; the "uhu" of the uhunkara, 
 hoot-maker owl; the drum-beat of the wood 
 pecker; the gossip of the parrot; the taunt of the 
 kokila, cuckoo; the mutual warnings of monkeys at 
 
 approach of a snake; the crackling dash of deer; the 
 clumsy tramp of an elephant. From afar came the 
 gurgling note of the hangsa, wild goose, or the ruddy 
 goose, the vakkanga. There might be heard also the 
 howls of more ferocious beasts boars, wild dogs, 
 jackals, hyenas or tigers. 
 
 Some deep-voiced animal would call to its mate 
 in tones of loving passion. A little sari bird shrieked 
 in the claws of a sakunagghi, hawk, which was 
 carrying it off to be devoured by her offspring, for 
 their nourishment and growth, that soon they might 
 go forth from the nest, mate and raise future broods 
 of hawks to be fed on other little birds. 
 
 Their tunes were many but their song was one, the 
 song of life, life abounding, life exuberant, life 
 jubilant in the fresh, expansive winter season, eager 
 to perpetuate and multiply itself, eager to increase 
 by destroying others. 
 
 Within the compass of Revato s ear clamoured 
 the population of a world, type and parcel of still 
 larger worlds, all full of the same fatuous craving, 
 striving and attainment mamayita kama the 
 lust of self. This hour an ecstasy of self-realization, 
 the next spoliation, anguish, decay and death; but 
 in death, life continued to repeat the same round of 
 production, suffering and dissolution, ever increasing 
 as it rolls on. 
 
 All playful imaginations, all self-magnifications, 
 in Revato were chased away by pity pity unlimited 
 in its breadth and height and depth, by which he was 
 himself included, but only as one among the myriads, 
 brother to the meanest glow-worm on the grass. 
 
 His mind reverted to the beginningless past from 
 which he believed he had come up through every 
 one of these forms of sentient life around him, 
 feeling in succession all their joys and woes. Thus, 
 by imagination, if not by supernal vision, he attained 
 to the Saint s miraculous retrospect, and this became 
 generalized as the Divine Eye, which rested not on 
 merely personal experiences, but through them 
 watched the flow and permutation of all the universe. 
 
 Ineffably sad as were these dreamy fancies, they 
 shaded off into peace, and thence his emotion began 
 to rise deliciously. Bliss pervaded him, as of the 
 Deva worlds long ago passed through, or perhaps 
 the joy of forgotten infancy. All sorrow melted 
 into happiness, and this moved with an assured 
 rhythm. 
 
 Finally the melody assumed a definite, vocal 
 character. It came from far in the distance, a sound 
 which was not of the forest denizens. It arose from 
 the limit of audition and swelled out as it drew nearer. 
 The sound was a song in men s voices accompanied 
 by reedy pipes. Closer it approached, until the 
 words became distinguishable, words in a foreign 
 tongue, yet not unheard before: 
 
 "Flowing with milk is the ground, and with wine it is flowing, and 
 
 flowing 
 
 Nectar of bees; and a smoke, as of incense of Araby soars; 
 And the Bacchanal, lifting the flame of the pine, ruddy-glowing, 
 Waveth it wide, and with shouts, from the point of the wand as it 
 
 pours, 
 
 [86] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 Challenges revellers straying, on-racing, on-dancing, and throwing 
 Loose to the breezes his curls, while clear through the chorus that 
 
 roars, 
 Cleaveth his shout." 
 
 Now shone the glare of torches. Onward came 
 the bearers along a pathless way, dashing through 
 the thickets and clambering over rocks. They were 
 passing Revato, within the distance to which an 
 average man can throw a clod of earth a group 
 of bearded males in the dress of women, mantled 
 with deer skins. Their heads were crowned with 
 ivy and they bore, beside the torches of resinous 
 wood, wands with blunt, conical ends, which they 
 brandished to their shouts of "Evoe! Evoe!" Re 
 sponsive to this Euan cry, came the applause of 
 "Sadhu! Sadhu!" from low-caste natives who 
 followed them. 
 
 At the front of their band they led a heifer clad 
 in drapery like their own, which beast those behind 
 it were goading and prodding with their wands 
 to urge its clumsy gait through the impeding bushes. 
 
 But the most appalling sight was an emblem borne 
 aloft by the foremost of the party a vile symbol 
 recognizable in the torchlight as having been 
 pilfered from the gateway of a neighboring deva 
 temple. 
 
 Among the rioters Revato saw several whose faces 
 he knew, including Nereus, the boatman, and 
 Aristocrates, the skilful sculptor. 
 
 "Re, Re! Tittha re! Hello, hello! Stop, hello!" 
 called Revato. 
 
 Aristocrates slackened his pace. 
 
 "Kuto agato si tvang? Whence comest thou?" 
 called the Layman." 
 
 "H/c 
 
 fK\nruv, SV otjirore 
 
 |3oXa/," 
 
 chanted Aristocrates. Then he repeated in the 
 vernacular, as a condescension to Revato s ignorance 
 of the nobler tongue: 
 
 "I from Kithairon come, where never fail 
 The glistening silver arrows of the snow." 
 
 By that time he and the humbler oarsman, now 
 oblivious of differences in degree, had seized Revato 
 by the arms with violent joviality and they bore 
 him along in the front of the procession. Singularly, 
 he offered no resistance. They pressed to his 
 lips a flask of wine and he drank a long swallow 
 of the unaccustomed fluid, which went to his 
 head and raised him from the depths to the sum 
 mit of the world. He was no longer tired, he 
 was no longer sorrowful, he was no longer digni 
 fied; he was filled with energy to vent in a frantic 
 dash through the thickets with his hilarious com 
 pany. ^ 
 
 Behind them straggled a party of disreputable 
 pariahs bearing vessels like those of the mysterious 
 soma cult, in which doubtless they had feigned a 
 membership to ally themselves with the Yonas 
 in bibulous rites. Revato could now behold 
 
 them with contemptuous yet kindly amusement, 
 which did not detract from his adventurous en 
 joyment. 
 
 A forced, but unreluctant, convert to this boister 
 ous forest worship, Revato s heart now overflowed 
 from unsuspecting springs of enthusiasm. He had 
 become a participant with all his soul in this festival 
 to the amiable woodland deities; in a celebration, as 
 they would have mortals celebrate, of the fresh 
 young season in its totality of verdure and in its 
 delicious particular manifestations. 
 
 "Glad on the mountains is the worshipper 
 
 When from swift revel-bands 
 
 Upon the earth he falls, 
 
 Wearing the sacred fawn-skin robe, and thirsting 
 
 For blood of goats, eating with joy raw flesh, 
 
 Climbing the Phrygian and Lydian mountains, 
 
 But Bromios the leader is, Evoe!"* 
 
 Across the gullies they rushed, along their sight 
 less path, and up the slopes of Gijjhakuta, whose 
 steepening acclivity they now were fain to clamber 
 more laboriously; sometimes dropping to hands and 
 knees, yet ever forging onward. A luckless Yona was 
 bitten by a snake and fell to the ground in shrieking 
 terror. His companions passed on without stopping 
 for him, but an enthusiast seized the serpent by its 
 neck and carried it along, fondling it. 
 
 They reached the lofty open space on the moun 
 tain and flung down their torches to sputter among 
 the rocks. Then, without delay or ritual, their 
 leader drove a knife into the throat of the panting 
 heifer and the impetuous ones rushed to drink 
 her blood as it spouted, hurling themselves pell- 
 mell and fighting with each other no less than 
 with the struggling animal for the thick, warm 
 beverage. 
 
 Revato recoiled and stood for a moment watching 
 the feast. How familiar were the outlines of the 
 surrounding rocks in the torchglare and moonlight! 
 He did not at first realize the reason; then there 
 darted through him a memory that this was the 
 hallowed scene of Buddho s meditations. The 
 recollection thereof struck into him like the first 
 agonizing thrust of the executioner s stake. 
 
 As a wretch dragging himself away though trans 
 fixed by the impaling timber, he fumbled his way 
 toward the path that led down the ravine to 
 the old city and looked not back after his raving 
 associates. 
 
 Yet their voices followed him. The more moder 
 ate among them still carried by the grand enthusi 
 asm of the orgy, rather than by its beastliness and 
 abominations, continued with their disciplined 
 voices to chaunt the chorus: 
 
 " iKol/Miv irorl 
 vaaov Ta 
 Iv if Oc\l<t>povet vffMv- 
 rai Ovaroiffiv Epwrej 
 
 *This is in Kerr s versification, the foregoing two quotations 
 are Way s and the final one the author s. 
 
 [8 7 ] 
 
THE 
 
 LAYMAN 
 
 R E V A T O 
 
 "Hence, Oh I d hie me to Cyprus, 
 
 Isle of the Foam-born Goddess, 
 
 Range of desirous Erotes, 
 
 Skilful in mortal enchantments! 
 
 Fruitful its rainless meadows, 
 
 Moist in the mazily flowing 
 
 Streams of an alien river. 
 
 What still is the crown-land of beauty? 
 
 Pieria, holden of Muses, 
 
 Slope of Majestic Olympus. 
 
 There shalt thou bring me, O Bromios, 
 
 Bromios, first of the Bacchanals, 
 Lord where the Euan cry soundeth. 
 There, with the Graces, desire also dwelleth, 
 There Bacchanals revel in rites unforbidden." 
 
 The words were strange but the melody was a suf 
 ficient interpreter to him of their yearning aspiration 
 and freedom. This parting song remained with him 
 as a reality while all other experiences of the past 
 day and evening slunk away like a nightmare. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 YUGANTAVATO THE AEON-ENDING TEMPEST 
 
 Before the horse dealer Assamusavadiko, of New 
 Rajagaha, had given his merchandise its morning 
 nutriment, he beheld at his gate Revato, the Cus 
 toms Collector, who addressed him in hasty words: 
 
 "Re! sappuriso, my good fellow, how many 
 yojanas can your best horse travel in a day?" 
 
 "My horse Vayu, Sir, can travel twelve yojanas 
 in a day, Sir, without sweating beyond the saddle." 
 
 "What is his price?" 
 
 "Two thousand five hundred kahapanas, Sir." 
 
 "Bring him here at once, ready to mount. You 
 may call at my office for the money!" 
 
 "Sadhu, Sadhu!" exclaimed the trader, amazed at 
 such simplicity in driving a bargain and fearful lest 
 it would be reconsidered before payment. 
 
 The horse Vayu was accordingly fetched, with sad 
 dle and bridle. Silently Revato sprang upon him 
 and galloped away. 
 
 A familiar bark sounded at his heels. It was the 
 voice of Dukkho. 
 
 "Apagaccha, Apagaccha go away, go away!" 
 commanded Revato. I have permitted thee to 
 follow me everywhere else this whole year. Here thou 
 canst not come. Yahi, yahi go, go!" 
 
 On through the streets he coursed while the 
 startled burghers rushed to their doors to stare 
 after him, till he reached the northern gate. Through 
 that gate he had passed in the same direction, almost 
 exactly a year before, in how different a frame of 
 mind toward how different a world! 
 
 As a result of chance coincidence contributed to 
 by the perennial regularity of monastic habits, the 
 Venerable Kondanno and the Venerable Bharad 
 vajo were starting out that same day for their 
 annual Fall countryside wanderings. Revato over 
 took them less than half a yojana beyond the new 
 town. Coming up to them on a rough gallop, he 
 dismounted and placed Vayu s bridle in Bharad- 
 vajo s hand. 
 
 "Ride him for me, bhante. I cannot proceed in 
 this way any longer. I am in too great a hurry, 
 I will run on foot." 
 
 "You know, avuso, that it is unlawful for me to 
 ride," answered Bharadvajo. 
 
 "Then lead the beast. For I have no time to 
 wait the procrastinations of horses." 
 
 "Where are you going?" 
 
 "ToPataliputta." 
 
 "Turn back, my son, turn back." 
 
 "I cannot." 
 
 "Take this warning, " groaned Bharadvajo: "Last 
 night the Evil One, Namuci Maro and his frightful 
 host beset me in my hut on the Vulture s Peak, as 
 they did the Blessed One in his exertions by the 
 river Neranjara. And what form do you think they 
 assumed? They appeared as Yonakas. Turn back, 
 my son, oh turn back," and the Venerable Bharad 
 vajo began to weep. 
 
 Nothing, however, might now restrain Revato. 
 In such frantic restlessness that he could not con 
 tent himself with the passivity of an equestrian, he 
 compelled upon Venerable Bharadvajo the custody 
 of Vayu and forged ahead by strides which soon 
 distanced him from the clerical party. 
 
 Estimate the possibilities of such a nervous 
 energy, its first intensity, its power of endurance 
 under early winter skies, and credibility will admit 
 that he covered the twelve yojanas of road to 
 Pataliputta by the afternoon of the second day. 
 
 The Hirannabahu river, where he met it, was in 
 greater flood than the year before and he had 
 difficulty in getting past the overflowed region. 
 
 Arrived at the grounds of the palace, he passed 
 the office of his friend Dabbo Kumaputto, the 
 Dhammayutta, who hailed him from within with a 
 vociferous greetings, then added in a lower tone: 
 
 "A prudent measure on your part, Revato, to come 
 and pay your respects to the Regent thus early!" 
 
 "The Regent?" 
 
 "Yes, haven t you heard. Dasaratho has been in 
 control these five days." 
 
 "But what of the Great King Asoko." 
 
 "He is Great King still, but in name only. They 
 will conceal the true situation from him if possible. 
 For the present, Dasaratho calls himself merely 
 Yuvaraja, Junior King." 
 
 "And what will this lead to?" 
 
 [88] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 "A gradual change of policy, no doubt, a return 
 to former conditions. Dasaratho has announced 
 that he does not pretend to be wiser than all other 
 rulers of the earth in methods of governing a people. 
 The chief innovation at present is in the royal 
 almonry office. The Treasury will not hereafter be 
 impoverished to fatten unworthy incompetents 
 whether animals or human beings. Donations to 
 religious orders will be somewhat differently dis 
 tributed. In fact, some attempt may be made to 
 compensate for partiality shown to ours in the past." 
 
 "Yes, for instance?" prompted Revato. 
 
 "The new Yonaka building on the Island," said 
 Dabbo, "which was intended as a sangharama for 
 our Sakiyaputtlya samanas will be turned over to 
 the Niganthas, who will convert the sala into a 
 temple of gods." 
 
 "But that would destroy the significance of its 
 plan and decorations to which so much skill and 
 pains have been devoted." 
 
 "Tata my dear friend" said Dabbo, "you 
 and I as public office holders by favor of the Court, 
 believe that it will not destroy the significance of 
 plan and decoration, but rather that it will adapt 
 the building to the appropriate use for which it was 
 unwittingly conceived and which has remained for 
 the Yuvaraja Dasaratho by his luminous wisdom to 
 discover." 
 
 Revato was so angered at this temporizing speech 
 as to sacrifice all further gratifications of his curiosity 
 by Dabbo. He proceeded at once to the house of 
 Diomedes. 
 
 At the architect s door Revato knocked repeatedly 
 with the ring in the lion s mouth, but could obtain 
 no answer. Finally a neighbor woman called from a 
 window across the way and told him that she thought 
 no one was at home. During the past few days she 
 had seen many carts loaded there with strongly 
 bound bundles presumably filled with household 
 chattels. That day she had observed nothing but the 
 closed port. 
 
 Forthwith Revato went down to the river bank at 
 Gotamo s Ferry where the lonians had been wont 
 to embark for the island. Then, for the first time, 
 he realized the magnitude of the freshet. The 
 tributary rivers reaching to lands which only his 
 fancy knew, had collected, from the late unprec 
 edented rains, huge volumes of water which, after 
 long transit, were now being crowded into the throat 
 of Ganga to be spilled over the lowlands. Already 
 a higher stage had been reached than for many years, 
 several of the city streets were inundated and the 
 flood was rapidly rising. 
 
 The wharf at which the Yonaka boats had been 
 moored was visible only in its highest reach of bank. 
 Their larger boat lay there now, but the little Water 
 Nagl craft was missing. Revato found the old 
 ferryman Naditariko but could obtain from him no 
 important information concerning the foreigners. 
 
 "Make ready your boat and row me to the 
 island," commanded Revato. 
 
 "Impossible, Sir. Look at those waves; see how 
 those trees go down the stream. We should be 
 swept to destruction." 
 
 "Rent me your boat then at any figure and I will 
 go alone." 
 
 Revato thrust into the poor man s hand a gold 
 suvanna which was almost enough to buy the vessel 
 outright; then against tears and prayers of the 
 terrified owner, he launched into the rapids. 
 
 To reach the island or fail, was a matter quick of 
 decision. The current would bear him down upon 
 it in almost no time if by a few vigorous paddle 
 strokes he could supply the cross component of 
 motion. 
 
 Fortune and alertness favored him. Before he 
 realized it, his keel, impelled by the momentum of 
 the passage, was scraping far over the submerged 
 reeds of the island shore. The water had risen 
 about the vihara walls and flooded the courts so 
 that Revato pushed his boat through the gate into 
 the first quadrangle. He noticed the thupa in the 
 middle, which did not seem much higher built than a 
 year before, yet which a second glance showed to 
 be substantially progressing. The gateway lead 
 ing into the second court was sufficiently unob 
 structed to let the boat pass. 
 
 This yard was still unenclosed at the further end, 
 so that one looked down the river over a broad sur 
 face of continuous water. Even through the court, 
 the outward flow was strong. In the centre the 
 sala rose out of the flood. To a column of its porch 
 was moored the little Nagl boat so familiar to 
 Revato. He brought his own alongside and dragged 
 it part way up the flagging, where it stuck so fast 
 that he did not stop to tie it. 
 
 Through water ankle deep on the porch, Revato 
 made his way to the open door of the chapter house 
 and entered. 
 
 Since his first and only previous visit to the build 
 ing, just one year ago, its aspect had not greatly 
 changed; the scaffolding and debris remained; but 
 close observation, even in that dim light, showed an 
 advancement in detail and trimming. Apparently 
 the edifice was now in a condition where little but 
 removal of the rubbish was needed to reveal its 
 perfection. 
 
 The sublime, false Buddho in the centre of the 
 room was seated with full majesty upon his throne. 
 Around were fittings and massive furniture of pre 
 cious and fragrant woods, some of which, as Revato 
 guessed, had been growing last year upon the 
 Rajagaha hills. 
 
 All at once the house became resonant with a 
 mournful sound, a man s deep voice full of unwonted 
 emotion. It was the voice of Diomedes, the archi 
 tect, who lay prostrate before his fair statue. In 
 his own tongue, uncomprehended by Revato, rang 
 out his suppliant words. His tones were almost theat 
 rically modulated, yet glowed with a fervor which 
 attested his ardor. He wept as Revato had thought it 
 shame in a man to weep, yet not in a stage beyond 
 
 [8 9 ] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 self-control, but as one in whom the seasonable expres 
 sion of strong feeling is part of a life system. Prayer 
 of anguish and adoration Revato felt him to be utter 
 ing, prayer to the stone figure that his own brain 
 had imagined and in fashioning which his own hand 
 had wrought. Why had he deserted his country s 
 gods to worship the false likeness of a man who 
 contemned all gods? 
 
 And yet there was in the demeanor of Diomedes 
 something which not only spoke of dignity but 
 whispered of truth. Was it foolishly that in such 
 distress he sought a companionship other than of 
 flesh and blood? For an object to which he might 
 appeal, what would suffice but the highest that he 
 knew? And had not the highest that he knew been 
 put into that image? Even Revato could detect 
 something of its loftiness, and what was he to meas 
 ure the soul of Diomedes? 
 
 To interrupt the devotions would have been a 
 crudity unworthy of a pariah. Revato therefore 
 waited in silence, afraid to make any further 
 motion. He had not, however, reckoned upon the 
 protractedness of Diomedes orisons, which continued 
 until the building darkened by twilight and by a 
 thunderstorm audible within. 
 
 Before the end, Revato felt a warm, moist object 
 on his hand and discovered it to be the tongue of 
 Dukkho. His dog must have tracked him all the 
 way to Pataliputta and swum the raging river, as 
 its bedraggled hide evidenced. Revato quieted him 
 with one of those expressive touches which suffice 
 between sympathetic natures, and they waited 
 together. 
 
 At last the architect rose to his feet. From a 
 recess below the statue he drew a lighted lamp 
 which he elevated and waved before the Buddho 
 with ritual solemnity such as Revato had often 
 observed through the doors of Brahmin temples. 
 Then bending to the floor, he applied the lamp 
 flame to a heap of shavings. A sacrificial altar 
 perhaps. If so, an innocent one, for upon it lay no 
 fleshly being. 
 
 Fire burst out and spread. Revato noticed that it 
 had been built among inflammables leading to the 
 woodwork of the building. Beside the scaffolding, 
 there were other combustibles frame and trim, such 
 as rafters, beams, door jambs, window frames 
 enough, if burned, to ruin the structure. Could it 
 be Diomedes intention to immolate this daughter 
 as dear to him as his first born? The fire s progress 
 soon left no doubt of it. 
 
 With his ethical philosophy of the moment, Revato 
 pondered his proper course of action. The destruc 
 tion of so much property was inherently wrong, for 
 it meant so much waste of a value that might have 
 been used to relieve distress. True, the Buddho 
 image was misleading and evil and capable of no 
 good use, but it was a minor feature of the edifice 
 and possible of elimination. True, also, the Nigan- 
 tha ascetics to whom the building was about to be 
 transferred were tainted with gross errors, but there 
 
 was much good in them nevertheless, and were they 
 as depraved as Namuci Maro, it would be no sin 
 to give them a sheltering roof. Plainly therefore it 
 was a duty to save the building. 
 
 Salvage of property, Revato felt, ought not to be 
 made if it necessitated a dangerous attack upon 
 human life or limb. But this did not preclude 
 forcible restraint if it could be executed harmlessly. 
 
 Rushing to the end of the hall, Revato thrust the 
 bonfire away from the igniting woodwork, then 
 grasped Diomedes by the wrists with all the strength 
 at his command. He might as well have tried to 
 fetter torrential Ganga. With a single contemptu 
 ous motion, like his prototype Herakles, the reputed 
 builder of Pataliputta, Diomedes shook off Revato, 
 who fell into a heap of rubbish. The architect s 
 next act was to repair the damage done to his incen 
 diary enterprise, after which, in the light of the 
 reviving flames, he scrutinized the countenance of 
 Revato, who by that time was risen to his feet. 
 
 "Ah! Revato, the Layman. This is a pleasant 
 surprise. Be assured that I appreciate your con 
 scientious motives. It was a disappointment not 
 to find you in Rajagaha." 
 
 The last remark was uttered in a tone which made 
 Revato cringe. What could be said after that? 
 Revato slunk to the door, intending to find his 
 boat. He had not counted on the change of condi 
 tions since his entry. Utter darkness prevailed and 
 his face was smitten by dashes of rain tangled up in 
 wind. Stepping out, he found himself knee-deep in 
 rushing water. Only by clutching at railings could 
 he move about with any safety. It was impossible 
 to reach the place where he had left his boat. A 
 flash of lightning showed him the empty spot from 
 which it had gone adrift and he perceived that 
 Diomedes craft had also broken loose. Apparently 
 there was no escape from the building. 
 
 He rushed back into the hall where the fire had 
 already gained indefeasible mastery. One side of the 
 room was shrouded with flames. It was no time to 
 dwell on bitterness. 
 
 "Do you intend to perish with your handiwork?" 
 he asked the architect. 
 
 "Not I. My boat awaits me." 
 
 "You are mistaken. It has been carried away by 
 the flood and so has mine." 
 
 It was then that the infinite worldly wisdom of 
 the architect suffered abasement. He realized that 
 he had made a foolish blunder and that the conse 
 quences might be serious. 
 
 " For myself I have no wish to live, but I would not 
 leave my daughter alone in this barbarous land." 
 
 "Let us try to extinguish the fire," said Revato. 
 
 "It has taken too firm hold to tempt my weakness 
 thus," answered Diomedes. "Better let me die 
 than that this, my younger child, be perverted from 
 the divine purpose for which she is by nature fitted. 
 Yet why need we perish? If we remain nere we 
 can evade the fire and run no greater risk than of a 
 little dampness." 
 
 [90] 
 
THE 
 
 LAYMAN 
 
 R E V A T O 
 
 The three waited side by side and watched the 
 progress of the conflagration. As the flames illum 
 ined the face of the false Buddho image, they seemed 
 to evoke a hellish character which had been occulted 
 in the twilit stone. 
 
 Hotter grew the interior of the sala. The men and 
 dog retreated towards its vestibule. The water 
 outside had reached the floor level and was trickling 
 in, to rise at the further end in hissing clouds which 
 mingled with the smoke. There came also the 
 sharper hissing of snakes, at first refugees from the 
 flood and now fugitives from the fire. 
 
 Then a thunderbolt crashed through the roof and 
 split midwise the Buddho statue, which dropped 
 apart on either side of its throne.* 
 
 "Zeus has wreaked the vengeance of the jealous 
 Immortals," said Diomedes. 
 
 A fragment of scaffolding fell on Dukkho and 
 crushed his leg. He howled miserably. Revato 
 could lighten his pain only by compassion. 
 
 "Hark! Aristocrates! Aristocrates!" cried the 
 architect, and darted to the door. 
 
 There entered several Ionian builders, the same 
 whom Revato had left in the orgy on the Vulture s 
 Peak. They had come in the large boat seeking their 
 master. 
 
 Outside, the rest of the crew waited on board, 
 having thrown a line around a porch column. 
 
 In the bow, revealed by the glow through the 
 doorway, crouched Prote, shielding her shoulders 
 from the rain with a workman s mantle, while her 
 hair streamed in the wind. 
 
 "Revato," he thought he heard her say, before 
 he had any idea of her recognition. 
 
 He plunged through the water and stood holding 
 the side of the vessel. 
 
 "Revato, if you are coming ashore, get into the 
 boat," commanded Diomedes with little patience. 
 
 "I have left my dog in the sala. Wait till I 
 fetch him." 
 
 "Pshaw! Be quick about it." 
 
 Aristocrates then excitedly spoke a few words in 
 Ionian to his master. They evidently conveyed 
 some reason for great haste, since Diomedes cried: 
 
 "We cannot waste an instant more. Will you 
 leave the dog or shall we leave you?" 
 
 *Since writing this paragraph, I have noticed a similar idea 
 in a poem by Rabindranath Tagore. 
 
 "I will take my chances with the dog," answered 
 Revato. 
 
 The oarsmen had held their blades poised to take 
 the water. Awaiting no further order, they now 
 swung a concerted stroke which shot the craft out 
 into the swift current. 
 
 In a flash of lightning Revato caught the last 
 glimpse of Prote. Her words to him, if any she 
 spake, were lost. But e er the tempest drowned all 
 hearing, her voice arose shrilly audible with a snatch 
 from one of those suttas which she had taught him 
 to understand: 
 
 "O lamp-bearing Day, and thou portant 
 Gleam of God, before me afresh and afar, 
 
 Lies a new land, a new destiny. 
 Farewell to thee, dear Light." 
 
 And now, left along with his dog, Revato had made 
 the choice of the pilgrim king in the epic of his race. 
 Perhaps for him it was less a courage toward the 
 hazards of the Undiscovered Country than a con 
 fidence in present remaining resource. 
 
 In quick execution of his plans, he lugged to the 
 door of the building some boards and rope sufficient 
 for a raft that would support him and the dog. 
 This he built as Odysseus had constructed his float 
 to venture upon the many-waved sea from the 
 island of Calypso. Having finished his raft, Revato 
 fastened it to the porch, thinking that perhaps he 
 could remain till morning. 
 
 The fire, however, crept to the vestibule, out of 
 which poured flames that rendered lodgment un 
 tenable. The roof crashed in. Volumes of flame 
 belched upward and sparks flew above them. Indo 
 was battling against Aggi, but to-night the trans 
 cendent Sky God had become powerless against the 
 Fire Deity. 
 
 Outside, the current was rushing violently, for it 
 had broken down large portions of the vihara walls 
 and was sweeping directly across the sangharama, 
 which thus had become virtually a part of the open 
 river. The foundations of the sala itself were 
 cracking. 
 
 Revato concluded to delay no longer, but lashed 
 himself fast upon the float with the whining Dukkho. 
 Thus he committed himself as it were, to the Vala- 
 bhamukha to the trough of the ocean about Mount 
 Sineru when smitten by the storm of an epoch. 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 SALVAGE 
 
 Now it was so, that the Venerable Bharadvajo 
 and the Venerable Kondanno, after being passed by 
 Revato on the road from Rajagaha, had continued 
 their journey toward Pataliputta. Bharadvajo was 
 leading the horse Vayu by the bridle which Revato 
 had placed in his hand. 
 
 "Why do you not ride, bhante?" inquired 
 Kondanno. 
 
 "Why should I shift my labor upon another? 
 The horse has its own weight to carry as I have 
 mine. Moreover, would it not be contrary to the 
 commandment?" 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 "If you do not care to ride, bhante," said Kon- 
 danno, "then I will. Did not Bhagava freely allow 
 that a mendicant may, if he choose, walk on the 
 water without dividing it, as if on solid ground, or 
 may travel cross-legged through the sky like birds 
 on wing ? The name of this animal is Vayu, Wind; 
 surely, therefore, I shall be following the Blessed 
 One s words if I fly over the earth upon him." 
 
 "As you see fit, bhante," assented Bharadvajo. 
 "Perhaps it is better that you should ride, since 
 four feet will destroy the lives of less tiny beings 
 than six." So Kondanno mounted the horse. 
 _ As they went along_, the Venerable Kondanno 
 riding while Bharadvajo walked beside him, the 
 people whom they met turned and looked hard at 
 the younger monk. 
 
 "Shameless," they cried, "is this Sakyaputtlya 
 Samana this samanako contemptible ascetic! 
 Wicked is he. How can he profess to be walking in 
 the Dhamma, walking religiously, truthful, virtuous 
 and excellent? Not for him is Samanaship! Not for 
 him is Brahmanaship!* No concern of his in 
 Samanaship! No concern of his in Brahmanaship! 
 Wherein is his Samanaship? Wherein is his Brah 
 manaship? Lost is his Samanaship! Lost is his Brah 
 manaship! Dussilo vata bho! Alas how wicked! 
 The younger man rides while the old man walks." 
 
 Kondanno did not like the murmuring of the 
 people, but he continued to ride until they came to a 
 pool on the bank of an overflowed stream. Then 
 thought Kondanno: "I will apply that part of the 
 Blessed One s permission which relates to water; I 
 will ride Vayu through the pond." 
 
 In the middle Vayu hesitated, then stopped and 
 began to paw the water with his off front foot. 
 Kondanno, being inexperienced in the ways of 
 horses, indolently commanded Vayu to proceed; 
 instead of which the animal lay down and rolled in 
 the pond, compelling his rider to do likewise. After 
 that Kondanno preferred to walk, allowing Bharad 
 vajo to lead Vayu. 
 
 The bhikkhus this year did not follow the direct 
 road to Pataliputta but thinking to encounter less 
 difficulty from floods, they fetched a compass several 
 yojanas to the eastward, past the Kapotika San- 
 gharama, the Pigeon Monastery. This had been 
 built by Asoko in commemoration of the event when 
 Bodhisatto, assuming the form of that bird, had 
 given to himself to save the life of a fowler s family. 
 From that point the mendicants turned northward 
 to strike Ganga nadi a yojana or two below the 
 Capital. The second night they spent in the open 
 and were exposed to the fury of the storm of light 
 ning, wind and rain. Kondanno fretted not a little 
 at the drenching, winced at each flash and began to 
 confess his sins at every thunder clap, but Bharad 
 vajo comforted himself with gathas of stoical old 
 saints: 
 
 *Brahmanaship here denotes neither Brahmin caste nor 
 Brahmin religion but Buddhist sainthood. He is a Brahmin that 
 is one inwardly. 
 
 "They clamor in the bellowing air, 
 
 Like artisans in sound; 
 My heart is kept without a care 
 
 In unity profound. 
 
 "The lightnings dart, the winds are shrill, 
 
 And groans the shaken ground; 
 They grow by contemplation still, 
 
 And calm is all around. 
 
 "The deva rains like rippling song; 
 
 With sweet humility 
 My lodge is roofed; my heart is strong. 
 
 Then, Cloud-God, rain on me." 
 
 Early in the morning they passed on to the shore 
 of Ganga. Falling still were a few sparse, belated 
 drops of the storm, and in the west curved the many- 
 colored Indadhanu the bow of Indo. Along the 
 flooded banks were lodged numerous trees and 
 fragments of dwellings; also corpses of cattle and 
 mankind already fouling the air. 
 
 Presently Bharadvajo heard the howling of a dog, 
 and coming closer, found a raft of boards whereto the 
 animal was tied, as was also the body of a man, 
 apparently dead. The man was the Layman 
 Revato. 
 
 The mendicants set their unconscious friend upon 
 his horse together with his broken-legged dog, and 
 continued their way toward the Cock Garden 
 Monastery. Before they had gone far the motion of 
 the journey restored in Revato some sign of life, 
 whereupon they halted and treated him as best they 
 could before proceeding. 
 
 Upon arrival, the two invalids were assigned 
 to the infirmary where they were assiduously cared 
 for by a monk who, before leaving the world, had 
 been court physician. Dukkho was soon around 
 again on three legs; the fourth dropped off. Revato 
 also was skilfully treated with steam and medicated 
 baths, anointing, massage and stimulation by 
 aromatic vapors in his nostrils, not to mention 
 internal doses, so that in a short time he had revived 
 sufficiently to converse. 
 
 PRISONERS 
 
 The first coherent utterance that Revato made 
 was this: "Send for the public boatman, the Sudda 
 Naditariko at the wharf by Gotamo s Ferry. 
 
 So the brethren, at Bharadvajo s request, fetched 
 the boatman Naditariko, and when he had come 
 Revato paid him the full value of his lost boat. 
 Then Naditariko begged of Revato in a whisper that 
 he might speak to him in private, and when the 
 monks reluctantly had left the room, the ferryman 
 said: 
 
 "After you went out in my boat, Sir, the YonI 
 lady and the other Yonas came and took their large 
 boat away. The lady left with me a lekha, a writing, 
 saying that if you came back I should give it to you; 
 if not destroy it. Here it is." 
 
 The sealed packet contained two leaves, one 
 written in Magadhese, the other in Yonaka charac 
 ters. The former ran as follows: 
 
 [92] 
 
THE 
 
 LAYMAN 
 
 R E V A T O 
 
 "Prote, to Revato the Layman: You remember 
 when last we met no not the last time but the time 
 which let us regard as the last there stood before us 
 a great disaster, a calamity to the world, which we 
 strove to avert. That evil fortune has now come to 
 pass, yet there is still a possibility of defeating it, 
 which I cannot explain to you but in which I need 
 your aid. You must transmit the letter that accom 
 panies this to certain persons in the palace, which 
 you can do through your friends the mendicants 
 without arousing suspicion. Let it be delivered if 
 possible to the High Minister of Religion, per 
 sonally; if not, then to the Third Municipal Com 
 missioner of Alien Residents, but to no one else. 
 I should say, hand it to the King himself, but what 
 hope is there that he would heed it?" 
 
 Thus abruptly closed the hastily-written letter. 
 Revato dismissed the bearer, feeing him liberally to 
 seal his silence, and then considered his proper course 
 of action. 
 
 It was not surprising that Prote, with her acquaint 
 ance in high circles, especially as one of the Ionian 
 race so influential upon Aryan affairs, should have 
 deemed herself equipped for political intrigue and 
 should have employed it in an attempt to defeat 
 the Dasaratho conspiracy. Revato remembered her 
 familiarity with the Dhamma Mahamatto at their 
 meeting by the bridge. The counterplot, however, 
 would doubtless lead to bloodshed, which price 
 Asoko had expressly refused to pay for his throne. 
 Would it be right for Revato to further such a pur 
 pose by transmission of the message? He thought not. 
 In this quandary he adopted the course of shift 
 ing responsibility. He laid the matter before 
 Bharadvajo, who, if anyone, must smuggle Prote s 
 document into the palace, and left it for him to do 
 as he should see fit. After listening to all Revato s 
 moral objections with his usual distaste for fine 
 drawn argument outside of the traditions, the old 
 man declared for the letter s delivery. To comply 
 with the request was, he thought, the fulfilment of a 
 sacred trust and, more than that, an act of kindness 
 to the sender. If, as Revato believed, it was in 
 tended to perpetuate the regime of the holy Dhamma 
 what could be a more worthy object? And that evil 
 would have to be done to promote this good result, 
 was mere conjecture. Besides, he was not sure that 
 force in such a case would be unjustified. On this 
 point Buddho s teachings were open to differences of 
 interpretation. 
 
 Thus the man of peace, who to save himself would 
 not have harmed a single leg of a centipede, became 
 the willing promoter of a bloodthirsty plot. By his 
 privileged and unsuspicious access to the palace 
 privacy, he was enabled to deliver the letter accord 
 ing to its intention. Never, however, came any news 
 of a result. The incident was closed except in 
 Revato s conscience. 
 
 There were destined to be times when would 
 flash upon Revato the enormity of his act, if ap 
 praised by the consequences that might have 
 
 [93 
 
 followed it, and he was conscious that the failure 
 of those outcomings affected his guilt not a particle. 
 Yet he felt that this escape would color the judgment 
 of men upon him, even of those who sanctioned no 
 violence; for no one consistently weighs intentions 
 apart from results. Aware, then, that his conduct, 
 even if fully known to everyone, would incur little 
 censure, he was unable adequately to rebuke him 
 self. So weak is the strongest human will that the 
 most independent and fastidious moralist irresistibly 
 defers to public estimation. 
 
 The burning sala had been watched all night by 
 those among the people of Pataliputta who were not 
 engaged in saving their own possessions from the 
 flood or in seeking to appropriate the flotsam of 
 others. Morning showed the sangharama as a heap 
 of ruins hardly visible above the water which had 
 cooperated with the fire in its destruction. There 
 went up at first a cry of sympathy for Diomedes, 
 the architect; then of questioning why he and his 
 fellows were not among the crowd by the waterside. 
 Soon it became known that they were nowhere in 
 the city. By the third day word came that their 
 large boat had been found on the other side of the 
 river. Then gradually arrived from the Licchavi 
 country rumors of a Yonaka caravan which had 
 passed northward along the road leading through 
 Kptigama, Nadika and Vesall, to the foothills of 
 Himavanta and thence to all the countries of the 
 West. 
 
 Suspicion had by this time identified the lonians 
 with the arson of the sala. It was seized by the 
 enemies of the old regime, by which the Yonakas had 
 been patronized, to inflame the time-serving populace 
 against that race. The many who long had muttered 
 against Asoko for giving them so few festivals and 
 entertainments now had their public, if vicarious, 
 revenge. The house of Diomedes was broken open; 
 such of his furniture and art works as he had left 
 behind were cast out into the street. Personal 
 assaults were made upon certain of his compatriots 
 who remained in the city. On the whole, however, 
 the habitual mildness and self-restraint of the 
 Aryan people kept them from such extremities of 
 violence as would have been reached by a western 
 people equally impassioned. 
 
 A reward of a hundred gold suvannas was offered 
 by the regent Dasaratho, in the name of Asoko, 
 Piyadassi, for apprehension of the incendiary. Had 
 Revato s adventure become noised abroad in detail, 
 it could not but have placed him in peril. None of 
 the monks at the Kukkutarama, except Bharadvajo, 
 was aware of his voyage to the island, though they 
 knew enough to ask some embarrassing questions, 
 but the ferryman Nadltariko had beheld his passage. 
 Others, no doubt, had seen him in the boat and might 
 now recall the fact significantly. There was nothing 
 for him to do but expect the worst and hope for the 
 best. 
 
 Time passed by without fulfillment of his fears, 
 and, since each day lessened the danger, he came to 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 feel reasonably safe. He was constantly harassed, 
 however, with doubts whether he ought not to 
 betray himself by correcting some deceitfully evasive 
 statements which inadvertently he had made in 
 regard to his casting up by the river. The right 
 to profit by these deceptions he never satisfactorily 
 settled. 
 
 Revato dwelt for months at the Kukkutarama in 
 care of the brethren, who considered him unable as 
 yet to return home. His rough voyage had left in 
 him an effect not clearly to be explained, yet which 
 became dolorously manifest in his head when he 
 attempted any exertion. Word was sent by a 
 caravan to his mother at Rajagaha that she might 
 look for his arrival any day, and this was followed by 
 others of the same tenor, but without realization. 
 The Venerable Bharadvajo also remained at the 
 abbey, but the Venerable Kondanno had crossed the 
 river as soon as the flood sufficiently subsided and 
 proceeded on his wanderings northwest. "I am 
 off for a long journey this winter," he said, 
 "to Savatthi, to Hatthinipura perhaps farther yet." 
 
 One Sabbath day, when all the brethren at the 
 Kukkutarama were assembled for recitation of the 
 Patimokkha, the great Confession, a servant of the 
 lower class came from the palace bearing a message 
 from the royal prisoner. 
 
 "It was once my great joy," the message ran, "to 
 bestow upon saints of the sangharama gifts worthy of 
 a universal monarch. Of late I have sought to do 
 the same; I have commanded my treasurer to send 
 you large sums of money. Did you receive them? 
 I feared not. Then I sent you the gold and silver 
 vessels from my table. Did they reach you? I 
 despatched after them the earthen dishes that were 
 all I had left wherefrom to eat. Did they likewise 
 miscarry? I asked my ministers, Who is king of this 
 country? They answered me, Your Majesty is 
 king. Why did they say from their kindness that 
 which is untrue? I am fallen from my high estate. 
 There is nothing left whereof I may dispose as 
 sovereign save this amalaka fruit. I send it, there 
 fore, Brethren, to you. Behold, it is my last gift; 
 to this have come the riches of the Emperor of 
 Jambudipa. My royalty and my power have de 
 parted; deprived of health, of physic and of physi 
 cians, no comfort is left me save from the Assembly of 
 the Saints. Eat this fruit which is offered with the 
 intent tkat the whole Sangha may partake of it, 
 my last gift." 
 
 The servant, one at least faithful to his abased 
 master, delivered the amalaka fruit to the monks. 
 In reverent compliance with the request of its giver, 
 they divided it in portions minute enough for dis 
 tribution among the whole great assembly. The 
 ritual service in which they had been engaged was 
 suspended in order to partake of this pinda, truly 
 sacramental in its character and intent, with a 
 solemnity which perhaps no company of holy men 
 
 had felt since those on whom fell the words of the 
 dying Buddho. 
 
 To Revato, a mere auditor of the Chapter s 
 devotions, intrusive as he felt himself, was vouch 
 safed a share in this feast. 
 
 THE CALL OF YONALOKA 
 
 In the late summer time, when the rains were 
 soon to commence, the Venerable Kondanno, after 
 his eight months of wandering, returned to the Cock 
 Garden abbey. He had travelled farther than ever 
 before, to the head waters of the great rivers among 
 the northwestern mountains, even as far as the 
 subject province of Gandhara. Those regions 
 swarmed with Yonas inhabiting towns, such as 
 Sagala and the great Takkasila, which was said to be 
 laid out like their own cities in the original Yonaloka. 
 He had much to relate of the wonderful vanities there 
 looked upon and of the progress that the Dhamma 
 was making among the unsaved. He had himself 
 entered unbidden and preached in the Yonas Temple 
 of the Sun at Takkasila and had made a few con 
 verts before being chased and stoned by the mob. 
 Outside of the city was a still larger idol house built 
 of beautiful porphyry and surrounded with columns. 
 It had in the center a pool kept full by streams; and 
 inside, around the shrine, were wonderful pictures 
 representing the battles of Alasando and the Porava 
 king. In this temple a Yona had accosted him by 
 his name saying, "Bho Kondanno," but because 
 addressed in such familiar Bhovddi terms, without the 
 reverence due him, Kondanno had vouchsafed no 
 reply. 
 
 At Sagala he had received an alms of a Yonaki 
 whose excremental carcass was glossed over with a 
 transitory show of beauty seductive to behold. She 
 had asked him whence he came. "Nassa vasall, 
 Perish, vile woman!" he had first answered; but 
 after importunity had condescended to give her the 
 desired information. She had then enquired whether 
 he knew anything about Revato, called Yuvano, 
 and upon learning of that layman s rescue after his 
 adventure, as Kondanno understood it, she had 
 seemed disburdened. Her father was tarrying at 
 Sagala to finish a shrine of some ephemeral heavenly 
 devata with whose name Kondanno had not troubled 
 to charge his memory. After that, she hoped, they 
 would return to her own Yonaloka. She had com 
 missioned Kondanno thus: "Say to the Layman 
 Revato: The Yonaki Prote greets you by me, and 
 tell him that there is this side of Transmigration a 
 sukha-sukka land, a country where both happiness 
 and purity together dwell." 
 
 More than this, perhaps, Kondanno could have 
 told him about Prote, but Revato forbore to enquire. 
 It was hardest for him to withold the vital question, 
 how long must she remain in Sagala before Diomedes 
 work would be accomplished and she pass forth to be 
 lost forever in that distant western land obliterative 
 to him of identity, like the Arupaloka, the Formless 
 World? 
 
 [94] 
 
THE LAYMAN R E V A T O 
 
 As Kondafmo left him, he was lying in a little 
 black-washed parivena, cell, upon a low bed resting 
 on cords passed through holes in the side frames, a 
 small wool-stuffed pillow supporting his head. The 
 latticed window had been furnished with mosquito 
 curtains to add to his comfort. He strove to bring 
 himself face to face with his thoughts. He had 
 staked his destiny upon the expansive life, hoping 
 against reason that it would reward him with light 
 and freedom, and now it had abandoned him to his 
 fate in the old contractive life to which he had 
 proved recreant No, rather, the new life had not so 
 much abandoned him as left him in a position where 
 he should voluntarily renounce it forever. This 
 was what made him dizzy and faint not Prote s 
 flight, but her tarrying. 
 
 Through the sultry afternoon he lay in the little 
 vihara while his mind split into separate streams like 
 Ganga nadi at its mouth. The strongest of these 
 thought currents diverged from him as Ganga 
 sometimes leaves its channel. His own self became 
 his spectator and criticized his emotional experiences. 
 Again, it centred its attention upon a speck of dust, 
 which swung from a bambu clothes pole above him 
 by a filament of cobweb, until this became to him 
 the most absorbing object in the world. 
 
 Toward evening, when the air grew cooler, some 
 one brought Revato a bowl of rice milk and this 
 slight diversion was the signal for a reaction of 
 
 feeling and purpose, as had been a similar ministry 
 by Sujata, the herdsman s daughter, to the fainting 
 Bodhisatto beside the river Neranjara. "I will 
 cast in my all with the great venture!" exclaimed 
 Revato inwardly; "I am gaining strength and can 
 travel. I will hasten to Yonaloka and will discover 
 the saving Truth." 
 
 This frame of mind was, however, of short dura 
 tion. Objections, one by one, presented themselves 
 and he despaired of fulfilling the plan. Its restless 
 ness remained in him and he felt a compelling stress 
 to be up and moving, if not to Sagala then some 
 where else. Longer passivity would throw him into 
 convulsions. 
 
 "When, bhante, will you return to Rajagaha?" 
 he asked of the Venerable Bharadvajo that evening. 
 
 "Not until you are strong enough to go with me, 
 my son," was the response. 
 
 "I shall be able and ready to start to-morrow 
 morning," was Revato s firm declaration. 
 
 So the next day, after procuring a cart in which to 
 convey Revato, the Venerable Bharadvajo and the 
 Venerable Kondanno set out with him and returned 
 to Rajagaha. They took him to his home and left 
 him with his mother, the lady Sundari, who her 
 self was in failing health. His house was not far 
 from the sangharama in Jivako s Mango Grove, 
 where there was a monk celebrated for medical 
 skill. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 THE ESTUARY 
 
 The cloister in the Jivakambavana had always 
 worn for Revato an air of homely familiarity, next to 
 his own house. Traditions of the donor of the 
 grove, that zealous young lay disciple, the physician 
 Jivako Komarabhacco his very name Jivako sug 
 gestive of the life which he sustained had imbued 
 this umbrageous precinct with suggestions of the 
 healing craft. It had never formally become a 
 sotthisala, hospital, such as Piyadassi and as the 
 heads of wealthy burgher families established here 
 and there in order that the diseased, maimed and 
 crippled, orphans and destitute might get the medi 
 cines and food which they needed and might remain 
 till they became better. Forms of external benevo 
 lence such as this were a way in which the devotion 
 of the laity expressed itself under guidance of the 
 monks rather than a function of the Order itself. 
 
 At this time, however, there happened to be 
 resident at Jivako vihara a brother who before his 
 ordination had been distinguished as a physician, 
 and when afflicted mortals came to the convent, 
 drawn both by his reputation and by Jivako s 
 historic name, they were not turned away, but the 
 place became quite a centre of curative charity. 
 
 During the long, slowly moving epoch of his life 
 that he now entered, Revato was destined to 
 become like a habitual inmate of the Mango Grove. 
 While he continued to reside at home, it became the 
 goal of almost daily pilgrimages, for its distance just 
 limited the amplitude of his unaided locomotion and 
 furnished the one diversion in an otherwise monoto 
 nous existence. During long periods, increasingly 
 frequent, the monks kept him at the sangharama 
 under their constant care. 
 
 The monastery was a busy clearing house of news, 
 and Revato, little as now as he was himself con 
 cerned, overheard reports of the great public affairs 
 throughout Jambudipa. The regent Dasaratho had 
 made no sharp changes in its government. At the 
 outset he disappointed the Niganthas who got only 
 the ruins of the Parayana sangharama, destroyed by 
 flood and fire. Diplomatically, he continued to 
 patronize the other sects, such as the Brahminists, 
 the Ajivakas and the Buddhists also, to whom, in 
 compensation for the Parayana, he dedicated certain 
 costly hewn caverns, to hold as long as sun and moon 
 should endure. Certain much-heralded reductions 
 were made in taxation, such as an abolition of the 
 
 [95] 
 
THE 
 
 LAYMAN 
 
 R E V A T O 
 
 custom house at Rajagaha, which was obsolescent 
 and a bugbear only to a few rich traders, but in other 
 ways the burdens on the common people became 
 greater than before. Murmurs, however, were 
 drowned in cheers, since Dasaratho restored the old 
 festivals and amusements, discouragement of which 
 had been the greatest grievance against Asoko. 
 
 There was perceptible generally a retraction from 
 former ideals, a tendency downward toward the level 
 of oppression and cruelty on which kings find a 
 common footing. Kalinga, together with Andha, 
 revolted, rebuilt its independent throne of tyranny 
 and threatened an invasion of Magadha. This early 
 loss of the province subjugated by Asoko in the one 
 bloody act of his reign could not fail of moral 
 suggestiveness, even while one must remember that 
 the greatest consequences in morals are neither 
 spectacular nor obvious. 
 
 The humiliation of this successful Kalingan 
 rebellion in the South was effectively charged by 
 courtiers and Brahmins upon the unmilitary policy 
 of the past. Already, moreover, rumors began to 
 come in from northern countries beyond Himavanta, 
 of barbarous tribes, numerous as the sands of 
 intervening deserts, whose restlessness was alarming 
 the nearby Yonaka nations, and who, if their huge 
 mass should get in motion, might be carried by its 
 momentum down the rivers of Ariya Land. These 
 arguments, employed upon the populace, were more 
 real in the logic of nations than those which generally 
 are available to work up a war spirit: though, for 
 that matter, any argument, or none at all, answers 
 the purpose equally well. 
 
 Such obsolescence of social goodness, such rapid 
 decadence of an epoch the most nearly perfect that 
 the country had ever known, could not but breed in 
 Revato a despondency, a disinterest in reform which, 
 had he still been active in affairs, must have damp 
 ened his endeavors, but which, in his present passive 
 state, was outwardly inconsequential. This dis 
 couragement prevailed in him despite his faith that 
 good kamma can never be blighted but will come to 
 fruition in one way if not in another. 
 
 During his long frequency at the Mango Grove, 
 Revato was often reminded how Buddho had defined 
 the qualities of a sick person difficult to wait upon, 
 and their contrary virtues, to wit: that the patient 
 should do what was good for him, know how much 
 to eat, take his medicine, acquaint his nurse with his 
 condition and endure pain with fortitude. Likewise 
 the Teacher had explained the essentials of a good 
 nurse: knowledge to prescribe for and treat the 
 patient, courage for the various unpleasant tasks of 
 the sick chamber, also wisdom to instruct, arouse 
 and gladden the invalid with comfortable words of 
 religion. This last duty the young deacon who 
 waited upon Revato, when some ill-turn brought 
 him low enough to require actual attendance, took 
 to heart, exhorting him earnestly, not without dif 
 fidence, yet from the vantage ground which even 
 the lowest in holy orders should occupy toward 
 
 1 
 
 the wisest layman. Revato heard the boy s prattle 
 good-naturedly, nor betrayed how his spiritual 
 loneliness was enhanced by listening across the gulf 
 between them. 
 
 With eyes attentive to sights ignored when 
 interests had been many, Revato would now watch 
 the miserable creatures who came to the monastery 
 for relief and departed with a degree of comfort 
 at which he marveled. It was no vanity, no illusion, 
 that had taught men the use of a hundred and more 
 clever forms of surgical instruments, each with its 
 peculiar adaptation to some exigency of the mortal 
 frame, even to the dark recesses of bowels and 
 brain. Nor was there less of wonder in the tender 
 ness which supplemented knife and nostrum, 
 allaying even the apprehended pain of the incision. 
 At the convent were brethren whom of old he had 
 despised for their bigotry and shallowness, yet 
 whom now he found cause self-reproachfully to 
 admire for their skill and gentleness, their patience 
 and their heroism in the most disagreeable offices. 
 
 To look upon these sights made him realize, what 
 he had before admitted theoretically, the true and 
 transcendent worth of alleviating human suffering. 
 He realized, too, more than ever, the value of all 
 effort, whether by research or humble practice, 
 which conduces to this ministry. Such personal 
 devotion alone kept the world from becoming an 
 utter hell. 
 
 In his undisturbed musings the Layman re- 
 examined his old views of right and wrong. That 
 element in his earlier philosophy which now most 
 unhesitatingly he confirmed was its repugnance 
 toward cruelty, its insistence upon kindness as the 
 foundation of all good. Saintly raptures he coveted 
 less than ever. "The world is full of futile mysti 
 cism," he told himself, "but who can show a case 
 of futile goodness; that is to say, kindness." All 
 virtues, he now felt, draw their force from their 
 kindliness, their joy-giving tendencies. If we must 
 often follow them blindly, it is because we accept 
 them as beneficent in the main and admit that we 
 are humanly too ignorant to depend solely on our own 
 conjectures of what is, or is not, kind. Even truthful 
 ness and honesty now Revato acknowledged to 
 exist through some obscure relation to kindness. 
 Their solemnity, however, remained to him. In 
 theory he might fancy a way out of his old problems 
 by letting down the bars of absolute rectitude, he 
 might have allowed it to another, but he could not 
 confidently have done it for himself. 
 
 Again, he told himself that his fault had been 
 selfishness, and that, could he have thrown himself 
 into disinterested service of others, his sky would 
 have been cleared. This was noble common sense 
 indeed, yet he doubted if it sufficiently considered 
 the pathological nature of his peculiar clouds. Such 
 a disinterestedness might have succeeded so far as 
 it diverted him, extinguishing his self-centered 
 cravings, but would not the altruistic concerns have 
 formed new desires and led to even greater worri- 
 
 [96] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 ments, to compulsions toward sacrificing others 
 far harder than sacrificing himself? 
 
 When his mind became too tired to follow these 
 abstruse conjectures he fell back to a simple con 
 templation of the bedrock, kindness. From the old 
 Aryan root mitra, a friend, had come the enriched, 
 softened Pali word mettd, a clear, all-compassing 
 friendliness of heart. It was to be the distinctive 
 characteristic of that next Buddha Metteyyo who 
 should come to restore the world after the culmina 
 tion of the present degenerating age. Revato re 
 membered the enumeration of merits which entitled 
 men to behold him. Among such favored ones were 
 they who in their longing should make gift of only a 
 handful of flowers, a mouthful of food; those also to 
 whom well doing was a delight. Could, by any 
 means, he, Revato, be accounted worthy, in some 
 future birth, to greet this Messiah? 
 
 Among the monks and their adherents Revato s 
 sober manners earned him no mean reputation for 
 sanctity. He conformed punctiliously to the formal 
 rules for householders, even taking upon himself 
 many of those intended for novices and members of 
 the Order. They generously admitted him to pecul 
 iar privileges of fellowship, notwithstanding he had 
 no formal status among them. 
 
 But in his heart he felt few corresponding conso 
 lations. He was conscious of an apathy, a critical 
 spectatorship, toward all that was sacred. Whereas 
 his earlier struggles with religion had been deficient 
 in some elements of sincerity, they had nevertheless 
 been characterized by a certain earnestness very 
 intense in its way and actuated by a persistent 
 vitality of effort. Now, however, he seemed to be 
 spiritually dead. It was a natural result, he told 
 himself, with more or less truth, of his dalliance 
 with desire, his headstrong pursuit of folly. He 
 knew that it had been contributed to also by his 
 perennial lack of intellectual humility, by his con 
 tempt for old beliefs, his rashness in speculations. 
 
 In a belated ghastly attempt to atone for the 
 past, he now strove to thrust his mind beneath the 
 yoke of accredited doctrines; he tried to apply 
 for himself those definite methods prescribed for 
 salvation by discipline persistence in the eight 
 fold path, rupture of the ten fetters. But he was 
 aware through it all of a dilettantism, a mock- 
 heroism in the part that was played by his would-be 
 self, and observed by his natural, contemplative self. 
 
 There are many who will say that Revato s 
 gathering darkness might have been illumined if 
 only he could have felt the effect of certain spiritual 
 lights needful to ordinary men a definite God, a 
 clear outlook beyond the grave, active work for 
 humanity. But the existence of mental clouds which 
 are opaque to these illuminants is well recognized 
 when seen in obvious lunacy, and no man can 
 surely judge what condition of mind is, or is not, 
 spiritually translucent. 
 
 Yet in his dejection, his disillusionment, detach 
 ment, there was a victory of self-mastery which under 
 
 other conditions might have become a power for 
 good. Could he have mixed once more with the 
 world, well and strong, his life might have become 
 one of exquisite tenderness, a ministry of pity if 
 not of hope, and the more vital if, instead of jocu 
 larity, which is common enough, his mood had been 
 an unutterable compassion. But such a possibility 
 was now gone to waste and lay in the mountainous 
 dust heap of the what-might-have-been. 
 
 Among the host of his ancient doubts and ap 
 prehensions, not dead but sleeping, often one or 
 another would awake; forgotten wounds would re 
 open. 
 
 On a certain Uposatha day, the fourteenth of the 
 half month, the chapter resident at the Mango 
 Grove had met in their assembly hall to unite in the 
 general confession of innocency. Revato was seated 
 propped against a pillar, behind the samaneras, 
 novices, maintaining the distance of two and one- 
 half cubits required of a layman, according to the 
 rule of exclusion as tolerantly construed. A thin- 
 faced Elder repeated the warning charge: "He who 
 has committed an offence may confess it; if there 
 be no offence, you shall remain silent; from your 
 being silent I shall understand that the reverend 
 brethren are free from offences." 
 
 Then began the recitation of the Patimokkha, 
 commencing with the four Parajikas, or mortal sins, 
 the second of which is any "taking of an ungiven 
 thing," which were followed by the three-fold adjura 
 tion to reveal guilt. The leader made the usual 
 pause, expecting only the silence in which the 
 enumeration of each degree of wrong was commonly 
 received, since the monks were supposed already 
 to be clear by private confession. But the congrega 
 tion was startled by a nervous, hoarse voice from the 
 back of the room: 
 
 "Apatti hang Guilty, I." 
 
 The Brethren understood Revato well enough to 
 overlook this interruption of their solemn service. 
 Few placed any credence in the self-accusation. 
 Though they did not understand its occasion, they 
 assumed that it was some self-tormenting vagary on 
 his part. 
 
 Revato was actually in the throes of a sharp 
 return of his old difficulty relating to the custom 
 house. It was a matter of many months since he had 
 dropped out of his office, and the unsettled moral 
 obligations only once in a while arose from the buried 
 past to confront him. When, by pondering, he re 
 stored their distinctness, their perplexities remained 
 as insoluble as ever. To be sure, he had little of life 
 now at stake, whatever might have been the outcome. 
 But he could not take advantage of this fact to 
 shirk the humiliations which he had foreseen as 
 incident to his attempts at restitution. Moreover, 
 his dependent ease and indolence seemed a sin. He 
 had no claim to be supported in luxury by the world, 
 but rather owed a duty to all mankind of sacrificing 
 his pleasure, his comfort, to lighten their burdens. 
 This had never before been so clear to him as now 
 
 [97] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 when weakness compelled him to be a recipient of 
 services, rather than a bestower. 
 
 When, formerly, Revato had in imagination 
 followed to a logical conclusion the surrender of his 
 livelihood, he had felt himself bearing through the 
 streets which knew him the bhikkhu s bowl without 
 the bhikkhu s honor. Now, in an unlucky moment, 
 this baneful picture rearose. His mood of conscience 
 suggested that, although his lack of assurance 
 deterred him from yet attempting the pecuniary 
 renunciation, he should not thus evade its shameful 
 consequences to himself. 
 
 For a time he could summon neither physical nor 
 moral strength to act upon his impulse, but as each 
 morning he watched the monks start forth with their 
 bowls slung in net purses and saw them return with 
 provisions for the bhatta, he was sharply reminded 
 of his unfulfilled duty and was thus allowed no 
 opportunity to forget it. Finally, with an energy of 
 nervous excitement, he arose one morning from a 
 sleepless bed, borrowed from a monk a cracked bowl, 
 presuming not however to put on the yellow robe 
 which was its mate, and stole forth from the vihara 
 unobserved. He was next heard of in the thick of 
 the old city, tottering from house to house to suppli 
 cate mutely the dole of life. At his heels was his 
 three-legged dog. The people that knew him by sight 
 thought him mad, while others, compassionate of 
 his ematiation, heaped his bowl with pindas. In 
 this condition he was found by the Reverend 
 Bharadvajo, who led him back to the convent. 
 
 Incidents such as this marked only rare victories 
 of his accusing conscience. For the most part, he 
 drifted from day to day taking no measures toward 
 making those vast restitutions which he still assumed 
 to be the goal of his life. One reason was the languor 
 of his physical and mental disease into which the 
 temperamental inertia of his more healthy years had 
 merged. On the whole, he now suffered less con 
 stantly from these old wounds than from his dis 
 ability of heart to engage in sincere devout medita 
 tion although the latter, he feared, was bound up 
 in the former. 
 
 He could not, or would not bend to that complete 
 resignation of mind in which the fond past might be 
 remembered with no shadow of expectancy. 
 Throughout the first three months after his return 
 to Giribbaja, while rain-clouds constantly pastured 
 upon the country, he was ever mindful of the season 
 when winds of Himavanta would huddle them in a 
 flock upon the fold of ocean. By that time he might 
 be strong to travel and the road to Sagala was well- 
 marked. The self-struggle that this must involve, 
 he postponed toward the vague day of departure. 
 When the moon entered the mansion where that 
 day might have awaited, Revato s bodily in 
 ability was kind to him by settling the question for 
 him. 
 
 The journeying of time thereafter was so quiet 
 that, before he realized it, the dreaded endless 
 period had come when Sagala was no longer a goal 
 
 and when all that had made it a goal must be lost 
 in the farther West whether 
 
 "Cyprus holds thee, Panormos yet, or Paphos." 
 
 But so dreamy had his moods by this time become 
 that they harbored fancies of still more adventurous 
 pilgrimages of discovery and reunion. The personal 
 cravings were melting away, were fusing into yearn 
 ings for the ideal. There arose before him those 
 islands, washed by hoary waves, on whose green 
 banks goodness and beauty, pity and joy, justice 
 and success dwelt in harmony. 
 
 Once and again, while he grew more feeble, he 
 would leap from his couch in the exhilaration of 
 some uplifting emotion and exclaim: "It is time to 
 start." Then gradually, as he realized the futility, 
 he would sink back with fancy crushed but still 
 germinal. From his invalid s mat he would strain 
 his eyes toward unbeheld Mandara, that western 
 mountain which is the home of the setting sun. 
 
 The news of Asoko s deposition and decline had 
 crept to the shores of the eastern sea and across the 
 expanse to Tambapannidipa where the Thera 
 Mahindo was perfecting his work of conversion. 
 Here also the Then Sanghamitta had come, not like 
 Sita of old into amorous captivity, but gladly bring 
 ing a slip from the Mahabodhi tree of Uruvela to be 
 planted and to stand forever in the Mahamega 
 garden at Anuradhapura. She was dwelling there 
 still as abbess of the Hatthalaka vihara. 
 
 Now, by precept and example of Buddho, attend 
 ance on a sick parent may override the duties of the 
 religious life. So the Then said, "I return to 
 Pataliputta." Followed to the shore by the monarch 
 of Lanka and his people, who permitted her to go 
 only upon promises of return, she took ship for the 
 coasts of Jambudipa. After long perils she landed 
 at the port of Tamalipi. Thence the Then" made 
 her way to the Capital in time to console her father s 
 last hours and to stand beside the funeral pyre. 
 She then decided not to return at once to the island 
 but to pass a season in retreat at Giribbaja, where 
 she took up her residence at a convent of the bhik- 
 khunlsangha in the Veluvana. 
 
 Revato saw her as she came with a party of sisters 
 escorted by old Bharadvajo on a visit to the Mango 
 Grove, there to derive stimulus from its hallowed 
 memories and especially to study the skilful methods 
 of treating afflicted patients. Bharadvajo pointed 
 out to her Revato, as he lay on his mat under his 
 customary tree. She stopped and spoke to him in 
 a manner which evidenced previous information and 
 interest concerning him. That was the beginning 
 of an acquaintance which lasted throughout her 
 residence at the nunnery in the Veluvana, whence 
 she often came to the JIvakambavana, sometimes 
 lingering there in earnest conversation with Revato. 
 
 The lady Sanghamitta Friend of the Society 
 a name not hers from infancy but acquired with her 
 blessed office appeared to Revato in beautiful dis 
 similarity from all other women he had known. 
 
 [98] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 Those wise rules laid down by the Blessed One to 
 guard the modest reserve and feminine dependence 
 of the Sisterhood seemed in her case almost an im 
 pertinence. Her beneficent experience, taken with 
 her native purity, was all the law she needed, con 
 trolled by which she could live in the open and make 
 her sweet influence pervasive. In her presence the 
 discipline became irrelevant, obsolete. She did not 
 in fact violate any formal rule of conduct her 
 reverence for the Dhamma and its lord was too 
 humble for that but had she done so no one would 
 have thought it evil and nothing that she could have 
 done would have been evil. 
 
 Thus came into Revato s experience a new, though 
 belated, friendship which, more than anything else 
 in the world, soothed and ennobled it. In her aloof, 
 but tender companionship, her deep, clear insight, 
 penetrating further than anyone else had ever done 
 into the caverns of his soul, he realized how rich may 
 be the compensations which the impoverishing Law 
 of Righteousness has to offer. While of old he had 
 been able somewhat to calm his tempestuous heart 
 in a negative way by thinking of his self-denying 
 Master, here now was a positive appeasement of his 
 restlessness in a guise more concessive to his human 
 ity. A pang might find him when he compared this 
 sober benediction of the chastened present with a 
 certain shining vision of the sometime past, but for 
 the most part, he was willing to be content with 
 this new apparition while it remained, aware that it 
 also must vanish. At the end of Lent the royal nun 
 made her last greetings and returned forever to 
 Tambapannidipa. In that progressive emptying 
 which is the nature of human life, she passed forth 
 as another had gone before, leaving a new void to be 
 filled by the rising tide of an existence which was 
 pure memory and meditation. 
 
 All this time Dukkho, the lame dog, had remained 
 with Revato. The creature was showing more signs 
 of age he had always been old, it appeared and 
 spent most of his time in sleeping. He no longer 
 followed his master s step but sought quiet corners 
 where he dozed for days at a time. His unaccount 
 able fits of whining were now infrequent. There 
 seemed to be even an indifference to his benefactor, 
 an indifference of decay, when the enfeebled body 
 becomes selfish for its own sustenance, and the 
 noblest of emotions fail in the sluggish mind. 
 
 As months and years went by Revato himself 
 grew physically weaker, yet without pain or percept 
 ible organic disease, his case baffling the best medical 
 skill at Rajagaha. Perhaps his malady was nothing 
 less than an appropriate success of his long struggle 
 for extirpation of desire, of clinging, of ambition, 
 which emotions, whether appraised by the Ariyan or 
 Ionian estimate, are admitted to be the springs of 
 life. 
 
 The submission, such as it was, became more 
 possible from Revato s final conviction that the out 
 come of his career could by no means have been 
 materially changed. His efforts to support his 
 
 aspirations upon his old preoccupations had been 
 like trying to make a mustard seed stand on the 
 point of an awl. His relations to the world had been 
 affected by traits of mind which, whether right or 
 wrong, were as fixed as those of the incurably insane. 
 The problems he had sought to solve, whether or not 
 in their nature capable of elucidation for others, 
 had been necessarily opaque to him. This he 
 should not have admitted from the beginning. 
 Man must never accept defeat until the end, or if it 
 is so plainly written in him that he cannot ignore it, 
 then his endeavor must be to wear that defeat with 
 all possible compensations and sweetness. But 
 looking back impartially from the close, as Revato 
 was entitled to do, he perceived how inevitable had 
 been the failure of his adjustment to earth. As this 
 conclusion allayed the irritation of regret for mis 
 takes and wasted opportunities, it permitted some 
 degree of resignation and even tranquility. 
 
 Already his soul seemed to itself a peta, a ghost of 
 the dead, lingering among scenes of his life and 
 dwelling in his body as petas sometimes lodge in 
 corpses, an independent haunting visitant. His 
 earliest learning had been from the old collection of 
 ghost stories, fascinatingly awful to him then, but 
 later deemed foolish. Now, as they came back to 
 him, they were easy and pleasant to let roll through 
 his mind. The unphilosophical, irresponsible gliding 
 about of the sad petas thin as sere leaves and their 
 silent acceptance of the ball or nivapa, the alms 
 set out for them, now pacified Revato, and he was 
 continually slipping into self-identification with 
 them. To observers he seemed tranquil, satisfied; 
 actually, his self-tormenting faculties were jaded. 
 Their lassitude permitted his mind to sink deeper and 
 deeper into those channels where thought flows on 
 without being broken into ideas of things. 
 
 Pleasure no longer tempted him nor sorrow dis 
 turbed. Observation had faded, reflection was 
 dying out. He hardly still perceived, and his 
 consciousness had become little more than a mental 
 sensation. This perhaps was not far from the 
 Arupaloka, the Formless World, or even the region 
 of the Ineffable. 
 
 As in the severed, remote past, he had drifted 
 down the Golden-Armed River, he and Prote, in the 
 Nagl boat borne along with unperceived motion, like 
 the stars which floated in celestial Ganga so now 
 he was drifting down the River of Life, on which no 
 stars looked, with that same languor of movement 
 which marked not the passage, whether fast or slow. 
 Thus he floated on and on till the unwatched shores 
 receded on either side and a swell came in from the 
 sea, meeting the downward current and rocking 
 him drowsily with its interminate undulations. 
 
 The approach of sleep all men know; the entrance 
 thereupon no man ever perceived. One may 
 critically study his own preparations to fall asleep, 
 but he cannot carry his inquiry to the door of slumber. 
 Thus it is with death. That phenomenon in the 
 experience of each is observed only from the hither 
 
 [99] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 side. Near as we may approach in anticipation, we 
 go not through the gate until we are canceled from 
 the sum of human knowledge. Others who yester 
 day were looking toward it with us have already 
 made the fatal experiment, but what is that to us? 
 We watched them as they passed beyond yet we saw 
 nothing, we heard nothing. So when we go through, 
 Earth will be none the wiser. Of ourselves or of 
 another, the complete history cannot be written. 
 
 With that inward life of Revato which we have 
 so far followed privileged to an intimacy almost of 
 identity, beholding all things through his eyes we 
 
 cannot remain until the end. We leave it tossing 
 easily upon the wide bay that opens seaward, idling 
 about for a little while or for a longer while before 
 it drifts off upon the shadowy Great Ocean. Has it 
 approached indeed the stormy Samudaya, beyond 
 which lies green Aparagoyana, the island of the 
 West? There is an Ocean of Sangsara, there is an 
 Ocean of Nibbana, but whatever this ocean may be, 
 its name is known only to him who sails forth upon 
 it in his rudderless craft. 
 
 Revata- Upasaka-Suttang Nitthitang 
 
 PARAVARA EPILOGUE 
 
 (Three centuries later) 
 
 Two foot-travelers in alien dresses rusty from 
 long journeys were making their way down the 
 valley of Ganga river. Both were light-skinned and 
 heavily bearded; but one was gray-haired and 
 acquiline of feature, the other straight-nosed and 
 brown, curly haired. They could speak the Sanskrit 
 tongue but indifferently well and still less fluently 
 the Prakrit vernaculars, so their acquisition of local 
 knowledge as they passed along was limited. 
 
 They observed, however, in the ruins of cities and 
 in the jungles newly spreading over farm lands, 
 evidence of recent wars, in which innumerable Saka 
 and Mongol barbarians had swarmed across the 
 northern deserts, through the high mountain passes 
 and over the well watered plains in the river valleys, 
 carrying everything before them and establishing 
 their despotism over an empire of culture. The 
 wanderers learned that these conquering tribesmen 
 had in turn yielded to the vanquished a spiritual 
 victory. They had embraced the religion of their 
 subjects, although perverting it with an admixture 
 of their own idolatrous practices. It had softened 
 and humanized them to a marvelous degree but the 
 reaction had so changed the character of the religion 
 itself that from a simple puritanism it was becoming 
 a gorgeous ritual with temples and gods. 
 
 Much of this the younger traveler, Biophiles, 
 learned from men of his own blood and language 
 whom he found settled in some of the earlier traversed 
 lands. They had been there before the barbarian 
 invasion and, like the wild tribesmen, they had 
 succumbed to the native religion, repudiating their 
 ancestral faith with its beauty and cultural value. 
 At this, however, Biophiles failed to make the 
 expected moan, since he also had forsworn his 
 country s gods. 
 
 The wanderers had now passed down to a territory 
 which the barbarian invasion had indeed swept but 
 from which it had receded with less effect. In this 
 region they saw and heard of singular prosperity. 
 The people appeared happy, their conduct seemed 
 good and examples of cruelty were not apparent. It 
 
 was told that the taxes were fairly assessed and the 
 penal laws almost ridiculously lenient. The death 
 penalty was obsolete and even animal life was held 
 sacred against every hand but an outcaste s. Men 
 drank no inebriating liquor. Those who could 
 afford to be bountiful gave alms to establish in 
 firmaries for the needy and forlorn. Even a sojourner 
 could not fail to notice in the moral atmosphere a 
 difference from other countries, and if he had crossed 
 the vast empires west of the mountains, this difference 
 was to him overwhelming. Such a happy singularity 
 could only be accounted for as an ancient heritage. 
 
 "One might almost believe," remarked the elder 
 man, "that here had reigned Melchizedek, the king 
 of Peace, made like unto the Son of God." 
 
 The pilgrims, however, took note of their sur 
 roundings in that reserved manner which estimates 
 everything by its usefulness in furthering a certain 
 definite purpose. Their object was not to acquire 
 knowledge, but to impart it. 
 
 Passing still through this country of good cheer 
 and following the southern bank of Ganga, they 
 reached a great capital city where were palaces of 
 vast area and many massive monuments carved 
 with grotesque native figures. They stood before 
 beautiful edifices, temples of one and another pagan 
 sect, at which Biophiles face lighted up and he 
 exclaimed: 
 
 "This is home, O Jehonadab. My countrymen 
 have been here before us. Unknowingly they have 
 built a house which shall be inhabited by the living 
 God." 
 
 "The living God dwelleth not in temples made 
 with hands, Biophiles." 
 
 It was dusk when they reached the eastern side of 
 the city, unsettled as yet upon an abiding place for 
 the night. To a way-faring man a wealthy town is 
 less hospitable than the open country. Though they 
 had learned to avail themselves of the friendly 
 village rest houses, they knew not how to find such 
 a place in the metropolis. They decided to pass 
 beyond its walls before the gates should close for the 
 night. 
 
 [100] 
 
THE LAYMAN REV A- T;,a \ // ; : \ *\ \ / - 
 
 On the eastern outskirts of the city was a shady 
 park containing a high dome of masonry and a large 
 block of buildings. Spare-bodied, shaven-headed 
 men in tawny gowns draped over one shoulder, were 
 coming and going through the large gateway that 
 admitted to an inner court. 
 
 "Shall we not ask for supper and lodging here?" 
 suggested Jehonadab. 
 
 "When I was of your age," he continued musingly, 
 "I dwelt in the deserts east of Jordan river. There, 
 solitary or in companies, were many holy men living 
 after the manner of these whom we see here, striv 
 ing to subdue the lusts of the flesh and lusts of the 
 eye and pride of life. Our fellowship was not with 
 the priests in the temple, who despise the stranger, 
 but with the called of God out of every nation. 
 Among us came John and outdid us all in self- 
 macerations. There sojourned with us at times the 
 Messiah himself. He knew like us the severance of 
 family ties, the emaciating fare of the desert, the 
 vigil in solitudes among wild beasts. From our 
 hands He received the baptism with which to go forth 
 among men, His body to be soiled with the city, His 
 soul to remain pure as the desert air. 
 
 "These brethren, here," continued Jehonadab, 
 "if they are like others of their Order whom I have 
 observed, are not given unto austerity only, but to 
 righteousness and compassion. Now it seems to me, 
 if the Master were with us that He would lodge with 
 them gladly; that He would find among them men 
 after His heart and that He would receive from them 
 refreshment both of body and of spirit. " 
 
 The strangers application for entertainment was 
 received by the monks with manifest surprise, indi 
 cating that it was somewhat unusual in that city 
 with its public inns and officials appointed for the 
 oversight of sojourners. They met the request, how 
 ever, with all kindness, brought water and towels for 
 the swollen feet, oil for a soothing chrism and fresh 
 garments to replace the travel-stained dress. Then 
 followed a simple supper, it being assumed that the 
 visitors were unhampered by the Order s own meal 
 time restrictions. 
 
 Later they were invited to the vihara of the Chief 
 Thera, or Abbot. He summoned to aid in conversa 
 tion a certain monk, who, before he left the world, 
 had been ambassador to one of the Hellenized coun 
 tries and was fluent in Yonaka speech. The abbot 
 himself came and, speaking through this interpreter, 
 said: 
 
 "You are welcome, friends, to share such things 
 as we possess rice from a begging bowl; hard 
 couches in a bare cell. Tell us, however, the object 
 that has brought you so far from home as Jam- 
 budipa." 
 
 "We have come, " answered Jehonadab, "to pro 
 claim our religion among them who know it not. 
 Such a journey for such a purpose no doubt seems to 
 you a strange thing." 
 
 "Why should it seem a strange thing, Sirs?" 
 replied the abbot. "Did not our commissioners 
 
 carry the Blessed Dhamma into your countries? 
 You will here find many Brahmins and others who 
 may profit by what you bring. As for us, we already 
 possess the truth, but we will gladly attend to what 
 you have to tell. You are therefore welcome to this 
 ancient dwelling of homeless mendicants and to the 
 great Amalaka Fruit monument." 
 
 "For what reason do you call it the Amalaka 
 Fruit monument?" inquired Biophiles. 
 
 "Because on this spot Devanam-Piyo Piyadassi, 
 the same who had sent his envoys of the Dhamma 
 to your land, when he was stricken in years and had 
 been deprived of his dominion, bestowed upon the 
 brethren of that day the single amalaka which was 
 all he had left. "Now pray tell me, Sir," asked the 
 abbot civilly addressing Jehonadab, "how many 
 rains have fallen upon you since you abandoned the 
 household life to walk in the Paths of your Law. " 
 
 "It is twenty years ago now, that the Lord called 
 me to follow Him," answered Jehonadab simply. 
 
 "And you, friend?" turning to Biophiles. 
 
 "I am not under law," replied the young man; 
 "under Grace I have been for only two years. But 
 do not say that I have abandoned the household life. 
 I have at home a wife and children to whom I hope, 
 please God, some day to return." 
 
 "Ah!" exclaimed the abbot, able otherwise to 
 cloak his disapprobation. "And since I began as a 
 learner is twice the time that you both together 
 have spent. But it is not only time which signifies. 
 Now," he concluded, "is the hour for evening medi 
 tations and I must leave you a while. Doubtless 
 you have similar duties to perform in accordance 
 with your own discipline." 
 
 Later in the evening the abbot rejoined Jehonadab 
 and announced his readiness to hear whatever the 
 travelers had to relate. Biophiles had already fallen 
 asleep, for his energetic, restless days left much need 
 of recuperation. Jehonadab, however, sat up and 
 conversed with the thera long into the night. They 
 spoke freely of those vital concerns to which both 
 their lives were devoted and which they followed 
 with so similar a spirit that the difference of expres 
 sions was no barrier to sympathy. Jehonadab dis 
 coursed most of the newly arisen Enlightened One, 
 for proclamation of Whose truth he had undertaken 
 this mission. The abbot marveled at his recital and 
 exclaimed: "I had hoped to live until the day of 
 Metteyyo Buddho, the Buddhoof Kindness, and this 
 can be no less than he." 
 
 From the human phases of his religion, in which 
 the thera was already like-minded, Jehonadab 
 passed on to explain those tenets to which the 
 Dhamma afforded no parallel: union of Universal 
 Power with Personal solicitude and approachability; 
 transmutation of pain to blessing; abnegation 
 which is rest in Another; remediability of imperfect 
 performance; hope for the weak-hearted as well as 
 for the strong; widening aspiration. To these 
 avowals the abbot listened appreciatively, yet with 
 a reserve which veiled any disposition to appropriate 
 
 [101] 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 them, any questioning of those contrary preoccupa 
 tions long held with so pure a conscience. 
 
 Jehonadab did not press these considerations 
 farther at that time but was content to dwell upon 
 the masterful Personality Who had been expressed 
 anticipatorily in the Sakiya prophet. He talked 
 from memory about That One Who had banqueted 
 in sybaritic halls, yet had known and approved the 
 way of poverty and fasting; Who had honored the 
 marriage feast, yet had made and commended the 
 celebate s renunciation; Who had worn Himself with 
 humane activities, yet had spoken not a word to 
 encourage worldly culture and progress; Who had 
 submitted and taught submission to authorities, yet 
 Who had defied them to the death; Who was the 
 Prince of Peace, yet the Lord of Hosts hosts of them 
 that patiently suffer violence; Who had proclaimed 
 liberty from the Law, yet demanded a righteousness 
 above that of the scrupulous Pharisee; Who had 
 taught a new worldly widsom, yet regarded the 
 world as a passing show; Who had founded a King 
 dom which was within it but not of it; Who had come 
 to bring more abundant life, yet conditioned disciple- 
 ship on the repudiation and hatred of life. Yea, and 
 so complexly fecund had been his germinal utter 
 ances that they were springing everywhere into 
 luxuriant growth, differing in foliage and fruit 
 according to the soil into which they had fallen. 
 Men of dissimilar races, feelings and habits were 
 drawing from His teachings the principles with 
 which to animate and develop those elements of 
 most originality in their own natures. 
 
 "I have often thought," remarked the abbot, 
 "that there are at work in the moral world two 
 opposite forces. With one force man represses his 
 inclinations, by the other he assists them. The first 
 is seen by the rising sun, the other attends its going 
 down. In some hearts they dwell together, but are 
 perpetually at war. It seems that in your Enlight 
 ened One they both must have dwelt, and for once 
 lived at peace. Is not this true?" 
 
 "It is true," answered Jehonadab. 
 
 "If you are not too weary," said the abbot, "I 
 will tell you a story I had, when a young samanera, 
 from my superior, to whom it came down in the 
 Order, through the lips of saints long since in pari- 
 nibbana. It is a story such as only we quiet, pon 
 dering ones would care to tell or hear." 
 
 "Pray, proceed," answered Jehonadab. 
 
 Then, so well as it had been understood and long 
 handed down; so clearly as finally it could be trans 
 mitted through an interpreter, the abbot related to 
 Jehonadab the story of the Layman Revato. 
 
 Before he finished, the false dawn had glowed and 
 faded; the light of morning was ready to break. 
 
 "It occurs to me," said the thera wistfully, after 
 he had ended the tale, "that if Revato could have 
 learned the doctrines of your Enlightened One, the 
 discordant motives which sounded within him 
 might have been brought into harmony and the 
 problems which crushed him down might have been 
 solved. Is not this true?" 
 
 "An impulse," replied Jehonadab, "urges me to 
 tell you that it is true; but a still voice reminds me 
 that my religion is not to be recommended by any 
 presumptuous claim. The perfected harmony of 
 my Master could exist only in His completeness. It 
 was broken when he passed from earth and to restore 
 it will be an age-long task. He came to inspire men 
 for the work of overcoming the world, not to give 
 them a magic formula for a world already con 
 quered. And what is the world? Is it only earth 
 and water and stones and trees? Is it merely the 
 opposition of wicked men? No, it includes realms 
 of mind and spirit, of wisdom and duty with their 
 own peculiar difficulties. He told us many things 
 for our guidance, but how many more there are that 
 He had no time to tell! Many questions He an 
 swered, but how many questions will hereafter arise 
 that could not have been imagined in His day and 
 ours! How numerous will be the perplexities that 
 are bedded from birth in the soul of their unfortunate 
 bearer like a crooked bone in his body! Our Lord 
 has begun for us the age-long task of refashioning 
 human life. However much He will aid us, it was 
 not His promise that the work would be done before 
 labor to the death. Often an elaborate plan will 
 prove defective; many a structure reared with travail 
 will tumble in ruins before it is done; life-long we may 
 have to toil as vaguely as a blind horse in a mill; 
 those workmen who were born and live in despair 
 may die therein. I firmly believe that the Master 
 Mind will, by this very disorganization and waste, 
 somewhere achieve a perfect result. I trust that 
 there is a goal for the race of man even here on earth, 
 although that is a matter of hope rather than of 
 assurance. But at any rate, He will not withhold 
 their wages from those bewildered servants who have 
 made of their work an arduous failure." 
 
 [102] 
 
MAPS AND GLOSSARY 
 
THE 
 
 LAYMAN 
 
 R E V A T O 
 
 3 
 
GLOSSARY 
 
 Following is a selected list of Pali words which will aid the 
 reader. It has been the practice throughout this book to employ 
 the Pali, rather than the Standard Sanskrit form. Furthermore, 
 in agreement with the judgment of Neumann and of Edmunds, 
 though contrary to common usage, the actual nominative ending 
 "o" for masculine nouns is followed, so far at least as personal 
 names are concerned. I trust that scholars will not be unduly 
 severe upon me for having assumed Pali as the spoken language 
 of Magadha. 
 
 Ajivaka Member of a sect of ascetics in Buddho s time. They 
 have been regarded as a Brahminical order, but this is now 
 disputed. 
 
 Arahat (Araha) A Saint. 
 
 Ariya An Aryan, here limited to an Aryan Hindu. 
 
 Assattha The Pipphala, Bodhi, Ficus Religiosa, Wisdom 
 Tree. 
 
 Atta Self; the soul, or spirit, in a sense denied by Buddho as 
 against the Brahmins. 
 
 Avuso Friend! A familiar form of address. 
 
 Ball A religious offering, as of food to tree deities. 
 
 Bhagava The Blessed One, Buddho. 
 
 Bhante, Bhadante Your Reverence! Plural, Bhadanta. 
 
 Bhatta A meal. Specifically breakfast, the monk s one daily 
 meal. 
 
 Bhikkhu Beggar; Buddhist mendicant (title of honor). 
 
 Bodhisatto A being destined to attain Buddahood; applied to 
 Buddho in former births. 
 
 Buddho The Enlightened One. 
 
 Brahmana A Brahmin. The name is applied not only to 
 Brahmins proper, but by the Buddhists, in a spiritual sense, 
 to their own saints. Moreover, since many Buddhists were 
 Brahmins by caste, judgment must be used in interpreting 
 the name where it occurs. 
 
 Candala A man of mean caste, or outcaste. 
 
 Deva A god; in Buddhism, virtually a mere angel. 
 
 Dhamma Nature; thing; law; technically, the Buddhist religion. 
 
 Gandhara A country in the region of the modern Candahar, 
 Afghanistan, and probably including some of northwest 
 India. It was a meeting ground of the Buddhist and Greek 
 civilizations. 
 
 Gatha A verse or stanza. 
 
 Gijjhakuta The Vulture s Peak Mountain, at Rajagaha. 
 
 Giribbaja The Hill Stronghold, old Rajagaha. 
 
 Gotamo (Skt. Gautama) Buddho s family name. 
 
 Himavanta, Himava, Himacala Himalaya. 
 
 Jambudipa The Rose Apple Tree Island, of Buddhist cos 
 mography, but practically the Buddhist name for India. 
 
 Jambusando The Rose Apple Grove, a term for Jambudipa. 
 
 Jataka A birth story, of which there is a collection containing 
 nearly 550, narrating Buddho s exploits in former incarna 
 tions. 
 
 Jino The Conqueror, applied to Buddho and also to Mahaviro 
 founder of the Niganthas, or Jains. 
 
 Kamma (Skt. Karma) Deed, work; technically, the continuing 
 power of past deeds over our destiny. 
 
 Kamo Wish; lust; Cupid. 
 
 Kappa An aeon. 
 
 Khattiya (Skt. Kshatriya) A man of the warrior caste or secular 
 nobility, to which Buddho belonged. 
 
 Lanka Ceylon. 
 
 Magadha The country of which Rajagaha had been capital, 
 and which formed the nucleus of the empire. 
 
 Moriya (Skt. Maurya) The Peacock dynasty, to which Asoko 
 belonged. 
 
 Muni A sage. 
 
 Nibbana (Skt. Nirvana) Extinction of evil and of the properties 
 of being. It may be entered in this life. Whether at death 
 it means total annihilation has not been settled. It must, of 
 course, be distinguished from the Vedantist Nirvana, which 
 is absorption in God. 
 
 Nadi A river. 
 
 Nigantha The Unfettered, a Jain. 
 
 Pabbajja Giving up the world to become a monk. 
 
 Pali That particular dialect of Sanskrit in which the Southern 
 Buddhist canon has been preserved. Traditionally, it was 
 the Magadha vernacular, which is now disproved, and no 
 one knows just where it was spoken. It may, however, have 
 been used as the common literary language of Buddhism at 
 about the period of Asoko. Strictly speaking, Pali denotes 
 the Buddhist canon, rather than the language. 
 
 Parajika Involving defeat; applied to the four great rules whose 
 violation was punished by excommunication from the 
 Order. They are subjects of special treatises in the Vinaya, 
 or canon law book. 
 
 Paraloka The Next World. 
 
 Parinibbana Perfection of Nibbana, death of a Saint. 
 
 Pataliputta City of the Trumpet Flower Sons, capital of 
 Asoko s empire. The modern Patna. 
 
 Pinda Food given in the alms bowl. 
 
 Piyadassi (Piyadasi) Title by which Asoko was known in his 
 edicts; believed to signify virtually "His Majesty." 
 
 Pukkusa A Pukkasa, outcaste or Pariah. 
 
 Rajagaha The King s House, former capital of Magadha. It 
 comprised two neighboring towns, the name more properly 
 applying to the newer one. This book has more to do with 
 the older one and its environs. 
 
 Saddhamma Good Doctrine, Holy Law, True Religion, Buddh 
 ism. 
 
 Sadhu Good; apparently sometimes used in applause. 
 
 Saka A Scythian, this vague term signifying tribes supposedly 
 of Turanian blood, yet whose possible identity, in one case, 
 with the Saxons in Asia is a curious speculation. 
 
 Sakiya, Sakya Gotamo Buddho s clan. (Were we to accept its 
 derivation from Saka, we might argue that he was of Saxon 
 blood.) 
 
 Sakyaputtlya Samana Sakya-Son Ascetic, a common term for 
 monks of the Buddhist Order. 
 
 Sala The timber tree Shorea Robusta. 
 
 Sala House, room; hall in monastery. 
 
 Samana An ascetic; a Buddhist monk. 
 
 Samanera A novice. 
 
 Sangsara Reincarnation. 
 
 Sangha Assembly, Society, Brotherhood, Buddhist Order of 
 Monks. 
 
 Sanghariima Society Garden, that is to say, the enclosure and 
 buildings comprising a monastery. 
 
 Sattha Teacher, Master, epithet for Buddho. 
 
 Sudda A Sudra, member of the fourth, or laboring, caste, of 
 non-Aryan blood. 
 
 Sutta A "thread" of discourse; a book. 
 
 Takkasila A city in northwestern India famous as a Brahmin 
 university town and often identified with the Taxila of the 
 Greek writers. 
 
 Tambapannidipa Ceylon. 
 
 Tata My dear, my good sir. 
 
 Tathagato A name applied to Buddho and commonly used by 
 him for himself in the third person, as Christ spoke of "The 
 Son of Man." The resemblance is still closer if we accept 
 that interpretation by which it would mean the "Likewise- 
 Goer," "Passer Away," "He Who Goes the Way of All 
 Flesh." According to later opinion, it signifies "The At 
 tained One." 
 
THE LAYMAN REVATO 
 
 Thera An Elder, Senior Monk. Vihara Dwelling; monastery cell; later, monastery as a whole. 
 
 Thupa Stupa, tope, dagoba, domed monument enshrining a Yati Devotee of the Nigantha, or Jain, order. 
 
 relic. Yojana A measure of distance, seven miles, perhaps, but un- 
 Upasaka A Buddhist lay adherent. certain. 
 
 Vassa Rain; the rainy season from June to October; Lenten Yona, Yonaka, or Yavana Ionian, Greek, foreign. (I have 
 
 retreat. assumed Yonaki as the feminine form.) 
 
 Vesiya A courtesan. Yonaloka the Ionian world, applicable to Graeco-Indian col- 
 Vessa A Vaisya, member of the third, or burgher, caste, the onies and presumably to Greece proper. 
 
 lowest of Aryan blood. Yuvana Young. 
 
 [106] 
 
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