[71] In the original they are not called bâla, as above, Story VII, stanza 22, but by the nearly synonymous term of manda. Still there may be a slight difference between both appellations. Bâla meant at the outset 'child, childish, ignorant;' manda, 'slow, feeble, sick, dull, lazy.' Cp. Suttanipâta, verses 666, 728, 820, and 1051. Now considering that king's love of charity and wishing to do harm to him, they approached him at the time of his audience, and asked him for a meal. The king rejoiced, ordered his officers who stood in charge of such matters: 'Go and quickly present the Brâhmans with a delicious meal.' The Yakshas, however, were not ready to accept the meal served to them, though it might have suited the royal table, but spurning it, as tigers would green grass, said they did not feed on such dishes. On hearing which, the king went to them saying: 'But what sort of repast will agree with your digestion, that something of the kind may be fetched?' The Yakshas answered: 16. 'Raw human flesh, freshly cut off and still warm, and human blood, O lotus-eyed monarch, is the food and drink of Yakshas, O you who are strict in keeping your engagements.' After which, they reassumed their own disfigured and frightful features, exhibiting their mouths rendered ferocious by large teeth, their eyes fierce and red, flaming and squinting, their flat noses, wide-opened and misshapen. Their hair and beard had the tawny colour of flames, and their complexion was as dark as clouds big with rain. Looking at them, the king knew them to be goblins[72], not men, and understood that for that reason they did not like the food and drink served by his orders. [72] Lit. 'to be Pi_s_â_k_as,' apparently a general term. The different classes of goblins, Yakshas, Râkshasas, Pi_s_â_k_as, are often confounded; in stanza 27 the general appellation is Râkshasas. In Story IX, verse 66, yaksha and pi_s_â_k_a are used promiscuously in the sense of 'ogre.' In the sixth story of the Pâli _G_âtaka (translated by Rhys Davids in his Birth Stories, p. 180) the water-sprite is sometimes called rakkhaso, sometimes yakkho. 17. And according to his compassionate nature and his pure-heartedness, the pity of the monarch towards them increased by this reflection. Absorbed with commiseration and pitying those Yakshas, he entered surely upon this thought: 18, 19. 'For a merciful man such food and drink is not only hard to be found, but it were also to be searched for day after day. Oh, the immense grief it would cause him! A cruel man may be either able to get it for them, or not. If not able, his effort would have no other effect than that of mere destruction; if able, what can be more miserable than such a one constantly exercising that evil practice?