Nagananda 4.16

4.16

jāyante ca mriyante ca mādṛśāḥ kṣudrajantavaḥ /
parārthebaddhakakṣāṇāṃ tvādṛśāmudbhavaḥ kutaḥ? //

Śankhachúda.
How different from the world in general is the mind of this magnanimous one! For this good man, moved by pity, gives up for the sake of another as though it were but a straw, that life, for the sake of which, in olden times, Viśvámitra ate dog's flesh, like a dog-cooker; and Nádíjangha was slain by Gautama, even though he had done a kindness to him; and this Garuda, son of Kaśyapa, daily eats Nágas. (Addressing the hero.) O magnanimous one, unfeigned compassion for me has been fully shown by thee in the determination to give up thyself; but do not obstinately insist on it. Low-born people like me are born and die; but whence are those produced like thee, who gird up their loins for the sake of others? What, then, is the use of this fixed determination? Let this resolution be abandoned.