24. He became enamoured of the lotus of the lake, and sat silent upon its thorny stalk on the water; for such is the fondness of fools, even for what is painful to them. 25. The lake was often infested by elephants, who tore and trampled over the beds of lotus bushes; because it is a pleasure to the malignant base, to lay waste the fair works of God. (The black big and bulky elephants, are said to be invidious of the fair and pretty lotuses; hence the elephant is used as symbolical of the devil, the destroyer of all good). 26. The fond bee meets the fate of its fondling lotus, and is crushed under the tusk of the elephant, as the rice is ground under the teeth. (Such is the fate of overfondness for the fair). 27. The little bee seeing the big body and might of the mighty elephant, took a fancy of being as such; and by his imagining himself as so, he was instantly converted to one of the like kind (not in its person but in the mind). (Thus is a lesson, that no one is content with himself, but wishes to be the envied or desired being). 28. At last the elephant fell down into a hollow pit, which was as deep and dry as the dried bed of a gulf; as a man falls into the profound and inane ocean of this world, which is overcast by an impervious darkness around. (The troublesome world is always compared with a turbulent and darksome ocean). 29. The elephant was a favourite of the prince for his defeating the forces of his adversaries; and he routed about at random with his giddy might, as the lawless Daitya robbers wander about at night. 30. He fell afterwards under the sword of the enemy, and pierced all over his body by their deadly darts; as the haughty egoism of the living body, drops down in the soul under the wound of right reason. 31. The dying elephant having been accustomed to see swarms of bees, fluttering over the proboscis of elephants, and sipping the ichor exuding from them, had long cherished the desire of becoming a bee, which he now came to be in reality. 32. The bee rambled at large amidst the flowery creepers of the forest, and resorted again to the bed of lotuses in the lake; because it is hard for fools to get rid of their fond desire, though it is attended with danger and peril. 33. At last the sportive bee was trampled down and crushed under the feet of an elephant, and become a goose, by its long association with one in the lake. 34. The goose passed through many lives, till it became gander at last, and sported with the geese in the lake. 35. Here it came to bear, the name of the gander that served as the vehicle of Brahmá, and thenceforth fostered the idea of his being so, as the yolk of an egg fosters a feathered fowl in it. 36. As it was fostering this strong desire in itself, it grew old and decayed by disease, as a piece of wood is eaten up by inbred worms; then as he died with his consciousness of being the bird of Brahmá, he was born as the great stork of that God in his next birth.