16, 17. On seeing her, the Bodhisattva, though composed in mind, was shaken with compassion by the suffering of his fellow-creature, as the lord of the mountains (Meru) is by an earthquake. It is a wonder, how the compassionate, be their constancy ever so evident in the greatest sufferings of their own, are touched by the grief, however small, of another! And his powerful pity made him utter, agitation made him repeat to his pupil, the following words manifesting his excellent nature: 'My dear, my dear,' he exclaimed, 18. 'Behold the worthlessness of Sa_m_sâra! This animal seeks to feed on her very own young ones. Hunger causes her to transgress love's law. 19. 'Alas! Fie upon the ferocity of self-love, that makes a mother wish to make her meal with the bodies of her own offspring! 20. 'Who ought to foster the foe, whose name is self-love, by whom one may be compelled to actions like this? 'Go, then, quickly and look about for some means of appeasing her hunger, that she may not injure her young ones and herself. I too shall endeavour to avert her from that rash act.' The disciple promised to do so, and went off in search of food. Yet the Bodhisattva had but used a pretext to turn him off. He considered thus: 21. 'Why should I search after meat from the body of another, whilst the whole of my own body is available? Not only is the getting of the meat in itself a matter of chance, but I should also lose the opportunity of doing my duty. 'Further, 22-24. 'This body being brute, frail, pithless, ungrateful, always impure, and a source of suffering, he is not wise who should not rejoice at its being spent for the benefit of another. There are but two things that make one disregard the grief of another: attachment to one's own pleasure and the absence of the power of helping. But I cannot have pleasure, whilst another grieves, and I have the power to help; why should I be indifferent? And if, while being able to succour, I were to show indifference even to an evildoer immersed in grief, my mind, I suppose, would feel the remorse for an evil deed, burning like shrubs caught by a great fire. 25. 'Therefore, I will kill my miserable body by casting it down into the precipice, and with my corpse I shall preserve the tigress from killing her young ones and the young ones from dying by the teeth of their mother. 'Even more, by so doing