The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c6.40

c6.40

XII. Another time (*Jât.* 46 and 268), a gardener, wishing to take his holiday, has charged the monkeys which haunt his garden to water it in his stead. And in fact they set about it with pitchers (pl. VI, 2); but on a suggestion of their king, who by nature prefers to do things methodically and does not intend his water to be wasted, they begin by pulling up every shrub in the nursery, so as to measure by the length of its roots the exact quantity of water which it will require. The Bodhisattva is the « wise man », who enters by the left and surprizes them while thus occupied. He does not restrict himself to stating that hell is paved with good intentions : there is no lack of moralizing, also, about the stupidity of the king of the monkeys : if he is the most intelligent, what must be thought of the rest of the troop?