經律異相 47.111

47.111

昔國王遊獵。作於場塹以捕群鹿。時有鹿王將鹿數億。次食美草入其場內。守者閉門。往白於王。王大歡喜。鹿王即知。自念。群鹿所以來者由我一身耳。當作方計以濟眾命。即以身橫伏塹上。使群鹿蹈背而出。足傷其背皮肉了盡。唯有骨在。忍痛濟之皆已得出。勢自上岸四向顧視。唯有一鹿不知求出。鹿王命呼乃來得出。於是鹿王命絕墮塹（出十卷譬喻經第八卷）。

In the past, a king went hunting and constructed an enclosure with a moat to trap a herd of deer. At that time, a deer king leading hundreds of millions of deer followed a trail of sweet grass and entered the enclosure. The guards closed the gate and went to report to the king. The king rejoiced greatly. The deer king immediately realized this and thought to himself, 'The reason this herd of deer has come here is due to me alone. I must devise a plan to save their lives.' He then laid his body across the moat so that the herd of deer could tread on his back to escape. Their hooves injured his back until the skin and flesh were completely worn away, leaving only bones. Enduring the pain, he saved them all so that they had escaped onto the bank. He then climbed onto the bank himself and looked around in the four directions, seeing only one deer that did not know how to seek a way out. The deer king called out to it, and only then did it come forth and escape. Thereupon the deer king's life ended, and he fell into the moat (Extracted from the Shijuan piyu jing, fascicle 8).