ལས་བརྒྱ་ཐམ་པ་པ 35.2

35.2

who was well proportioned, pleasing to the eye, and beautiful. At the elaborate feast celebrating his birth they named him Deluded.

They reared young Deluded on milk, yogurt, butter, ghee, and milk solids, and as he grew up he studied letters, tallying, and arithmetic; the study of seals, lending, deposits, and commerce; and the examination of cloth, jewels, gems, incense, medicine, elephants, horses, and arms and armor. He became skilled in writing, skilled at reading, learned, decisive, and industrious, a master of the eight types of examination.

One day his body became completely covered in boils the size of mustard seeds. The boils swelled and burst, and his body became a continuous mass of sores. His father provided the healers with everything they needed for them to cure him, but they were unable to do so, and the worse it got, the more the blood and pus seeped out, until it produced an awful stench. After they covered his whole body with different kinds of fragrant water and draped him with clothes, he healed.

Now when his brothers saw this, they changed his name. They said, “Our little brother healed when we draped him in clothes and ornaments. Therefore, his name will be Covered.” After that some knew him as Deluded and some knew him as Covered.

One day the young man’s parents died, and afterward he helped with all their work, but whatever work he did—whether it was work in the fields,²²⁰ work as a merchant, or work on the boats—something always broke and was incomplete. So the householder Deluded thought, “Whatever work I do here—