“Then again when I was
the king of deer named Ruru,
in appearance I was like burnished gold,
focused on the highest ethics.
There was a pleasant, delightful region,
free of humans,
so I went there and stayed
on a lovely bank of the Ganges.
Then a man upstream,
harassed by creditors,
fell into the Ganges, thinking,
‘I live or I die!’
Day and night in the Ganges
he was swept along the stream,
crying out pitifully,
along the middle of the Ganges.
When I heard the sound
of his pitiful crying,
I stood on the Ganges bank
and asked, ‘What man are you?’
When asked he explained
to me his own deed:
‘I was so scared of my creditors,
I jumped in the great river!’
Taking pity on him,
surrendering my own life,
I entered and dragged him out
in the darkness of the night.
When I knew he had recovered,
I said to him,
‘I ask of you one favor:
tell no-one about me.’
But once he had returned to the city,
for the sake of money he told when asked.
Taking the king,
he drew close to me.
All that I had done
was related to the king.
When the king heard this,
he fitted his arrow, thinking,
‘Right here I shall kill
this ignoble betrayer of a friend.’
I protected him,
substituting myself:
‘Let him be, great king.
I shall carry out your pleasure.’
I guarded my ethics,
not my life.
For then I was ethical,
because it was solely for awakening.”