What your heart inclines you now to do, let it
be quickly done and well completed! The uncertain and the lustful heart
goes wandering here and there, but the pure eyes of virtue opening, the
heart comes back and rests!" The nobleman accepting Buddha's teaching,
his kindly heart receiving yet more light.
He invited Upatishya, his excellent friend, to accompany him on his
return to Kosala; and then going round to select a pleasant site, he saw
the garden of the heir-apparent, Geta, the groves and limpid streams
most pure. Proceeding where the prince was dwelling, he asked for leave
to buy the ground; the prince, because he valued it so much, at first
was not inclined to sell, but said at last:--"If you can cover it with
gold then, but not else, you may possess it."
The nobleman, his heart rejoicing, forthwith began to spread his gold.
Then Geta said: "I will not give, why then spread you your gold?" The
nobleman replied, "Not give; why then said you, 'Fill it with yellow
gold'?" And thus they differed and contended both, till they resorted to
the magistrate.
Meanwhile the people whispered much about his unwonted charity, and Geta
too, knowing the man's sincerity, asked more about the matter: what his
reasons were. On his reply, "I wish to found a Vihara, and offer it to
the Tathagata and all his Bhikshu followers," the prince, hearing the
name of Buddha, received at once illumination, and only took one-half
the gold, desiring to share in the foundation: "Yours is the land," he
said, "but mine the trees; these will I give to Buddha as my share in
the offering.
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