The Old Woman’s Black Bull. “_Whene’er the load be heavy._”--This the Master told while at Jetavana, about the Double Miracle. That and the Descent from Heaven will be explained in the Birth Story of the Sarabha Antelope, in the Thirteenth Book. The Supreme Buddha performed on that occasion the Double Miracle, remained some time in heaven, and on the Great Day of the Pavāraṇā Festival[315] descended at the city of Saŋkassa, and entered Jetavana with a great retinue. When the monks were seated in the Lecture Hall, they began to extol the virtue of the Teacher, saying, “Truly, Brethren! unequalled is the power of the Tathāgata. The yoke the Tathāgata bears none else is able to bear. Though the Six Teachers kept on saying, ‘We will work wonders! We will work wonders!’ they could not do even one. Ah! how unequalled is the power of the Tathāgata!” When the Teacher came there, he asked them what they were discussing, and they told him. Then he said, “O mendicants! who should now bear the yoke that I can bear? For even when an animal in a former birth I could find no one to drag the weight I dragged.” And he told a tale. * * * * * Long ago, when Brahma-datta was reigning in Benares, the Bodisat returned to life as a bull. Now, when it was still a young calf, its owners stopped a while in an old woman’s house, and gave him to her when they settled their account for their lodging. And she brought him up, treating him like a son, and feeding him on gruel and rice. He soon became known as “The old woman’s Blackie.” When he grew up, he roamed about, as black as collyrium, with the village cattle, and was very good-tempered and quiet. The village children used to catch hold of his horns, or ears, or dewlaps, and hang on to him; or amuse themselves by pulling his tail, or riding about on his back. One day he said to himself, “My mother is wretchedly poor. She’s taken so much pains, too, in bringing me up, and has treated me like a son. What if I were to work for hire, and so relieve her distress!” And from that day he was always on the look out for a job. Now one day a young caravan owner arrived at a neighbouring ford with five hundred bullock-waggons. And his bullocks were not only unable to drag the carts across, but even when he yoked the five hundred pair in a row they could not move one cart by itself. The Bodisat was grazing with the village cattle close to the ford. The young caravan owner was a famous judge of cattle, and began looking about to see whether there were among them any thoroughbred bull able to drag over the carts. Seeing the Bodisat, he thought he would do; and asked the herdsmen-- “Who may be the owners, my men, of this fellow? I should like to yoke him to the cart, and am willing to give a reward for having the carts dragged over.” “Catch him and yoke him then!” said they. “He has no owner hereabouts.”