The Sword of Song

THE THREE CHARACTERISTICS 73 a family of Nats in a big tree at A nuradhapura had a little stranger, very welcome to Mamma and Papa Nat. “Blessed indeed was the fam ily. Five- and-forty feet1 away stood a most ancient a nd holy dagoba: and the children of light would gather round it in the cool of the evening, or in the misty glamour of dawn, and turn f orth in love and pity towards all mankind—nay , to the smallest grain of dust tossed on the utmost storms of the Sahara ! “Blessed and more blessed ! For one day came a holy Bikkhu from the land of the Peacock,2 and would take up his abode in t he hollow of their very tree. And little Perdu’ R Abu us ed to keep the mosquitoes away with the gossamer of his wings, so that the good man might be at peace. “Now the British Governm ent abode in that land, and when it heard that there was a Bhikkhu living in a tree, and that the v illage folk brought him rice and onions and gramo- phones, it saw that it must not be. “And little Perdu’ R Abu heard them talk; and learnt the great s ecret of Imper- manence, and of Sorrow, and the my stery of Unsubstantiality. “And the Government evicted the Bhikkhu ; and set guard, quite like the end of Genesis iii., and cut down the tree, and all the Nats perished. “Jehjaour heard and trembled. Perdu’ R Abu was only three years old. VIII. “It really seemed as if fate was agains t him. Poor Jehjaour ! In despair he cried to his partner, ‘O Ganesha, in the world of Gods only we shall be safe. Let him be born as a flute-girl before Indra’s throne !’ ‘Difficult is the task,’ replied the alarm ed deity, ‘but I will use all m y influence. I 1 The Gover nment, in th e intersts of Bud- dhists themselves, r eserves all gr ound within 50 feet of a dagoba. The incident described in this section actually occurred in 1901. 2 Siam. know a thing or two about Indra, for example——’ “It was done. Beautiful was the young girl’s face as s he s prang mature from the womb of Matter, on her life-journey of an hundred thousand y ears. Of all Indra’s flute-girls she played and sang the sweetest. Yet ever some remembrance, dim as a pallid ghost that fleets down the long avenues of deodar and moonlight, stole in her brain; and her song was ever of love and death and music from beyond. “And one day as she sang thus the deep truth stole into being and she knew the Noble Truths. So she turned her flute to the new song, when—horror !—there was a mosquito in the flute. ‘Tootle ! Tootle !’ she began. ‘Buzz! Buzz!’ went the mosquito from the very vitals of her delicate tube. “Indra was not unprovided with a disc.1 Alas ! Jehjaour, art thou already in the toils ? She had only lived eight months. IX. “ ‘How y ou bungle !’ growled Ganesha. ‘Fortunately we are better off this time. Indra has been guillotined for his dastardly murder; so his place is vacant.’ ‘Eurekas !’ yelled the m agus, ‘his very virtue will save him from his predecessor’s fate.’ “Behold Perdu’ R Abu then as Indra ! But oh, dear m e! what a m emory he was getting ! ‘It seems to me,’ he mused, ‘that I’ve been changing a lot lately . W ell, I am virtuous—and I read in Crowley’s new translation of the Dhammapada 2 that virtue is the thing to keep one steady. So I think I may look forward to a tenure of my mahakalpa in alm ost Arcadian sim plicity. Lady Bhavani, did you say, boy ? Yes, I am at home. Bring the betel!’ ‘Jeldi !’ he added, with some dim recollection of the 1 A whirling disc is Indra’s symoblic weapon. 2 He abandoned this. A few fr agments are reprinted in his Oracles.