The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c9.20

c9.20

Thus, in Yuvañjaya Jâtaka (IV. 119 sq.) it is narrated how the heir-presumptive one day drives early in his carriage and goes with a brilliant following to a delightful spot in the park. And as he sees dew-drops sparkling like pearls in a necklace on the leaves of the trees, on blades of grass and in the webs of the spiders he asks the driver of the carriage what they are. "They are dew-drops, O King, which arise in cold weather," the latter replies. In the evening, when the heir to the throne comes again, the dew has disappeared; he asks the driver, "Friend, where are the dew-drops, I don't see them any more?" "O King, when the sun rises they vanish and disappear in the earth." When the prince hears this, he cries out in grief, " Even this life,¹ this being is like the dew-drop which hangs from the top of the blade of grass; I will take leave of my parents and become an ascetic before disease, age and death overcome me." Thus, a dew-drop produces in him the thought of the non-reality of existence;² he goes home to his father who sits in great pomp in the Council Hall, accosts him with reverence and requests to be allowed to adopt the homeless condition: