Their noble forms resplendent increased
the glory of that garden grove; now taking off the five distinctive
ornaments, alighting from their chariots, they advanced afoot. Slowly
thus, with bated breath, their bodies reverent they advanced. Then they
bowed down and worshipped Buddha's foot, and, a great multitude, they
gathered round the lord, shining as the sun's disc, full of radiance.
There was the lion Likkhavi, among the Likkhavis the senior, his noble
form bold as the lion's, standing there with lion eyes, but without the
lion's pride, taught by the Sakya lion, who thus began: "Great and
illustrious personages, famed as a tribe for grace and comeliness! put
aside, I pray, the world's high thoughts, and now accept the abounding
lustre of religious teaching. Wealth and beauty, scented flowers and
ornaments like these, are not to be compared for grace with moral
rectitude! Your land productive and in peaceful quiet--this is your
great renown; but true gracefulness of body and a happy people depend
upon the heart well-governed. Add but to this a reverent feeling for
religion, then a people's fame is at its height! a fertile land and all
the dwellers in it, as a united body, virtuous! To-day then learn this
virtue, cherish with carefulness the people, lead them as a body in the
right way of rectitude, even as the ox-king leads the way across the
river-ford.
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