usand
leagues,--pursued after him even into the strange land to which he had
come to hear the words of the Universal Teacher. Accursed beauty! surely
framed by the Tempter of tempters, by Mara himself, for the perdition of
the just! Wisely had Bhagavat warned his disciples: "O ye Cramanas,
women are not to be looked upon! And if ye chance to meet women, ye must
not suffer your eyes to dwell upon them; but, maintaining holy reserve,
speak not to them at all. Then fail not to whisper unto your own
hearts, 'Lo, we are Cramanas, whose duty it is to remain uncontaminated
by the corruptions of this world, even as the Lotos, which suffereth no
vileness to cling unto its leaves, though it blossom amid the refuse of
the wayside ditch.'" Then also came to his memory, but with a new and
terrible meaning, the words of the Twentieth-and-Third of the
Admonitions:--

"Of all attachments unto objects of desire, the strongest indeed is the
attachment to form. Happily, this passion is unique; for were there any
other like unto it, then to enter the Perfect Way were impossible."

How, indeed, thus haunted by the illusion of form, was he to fulfil the
vow that he had made to pass a night and a day in perfect and unbroken
meditation? Already the night was beginning! Assuredly, for sickness of
the soul, for fever of the spirit, there was no physic save prayer. The
sunset was swiftly fading out. He strove to pray:--

"_O the Jewel in the Lotos!_

"Even as the tortoise withdraweth its extremities into its shell, let
me, O Blessed One, withdraw my senses wholly into meditation!

"_O the Jewel in the Lotos!_

"For even as rain penetrateth the broken roof of a dwelling long
uninhabited, so may passion enter the soul uninhabited by meditation.

"_O the Jewel in the Lotos!_

"Even as still water that hath deposited all its slime, so let my soul,
O Tathagata, be made pure! Give me strong power to rise above the
world, O Master, even as the wild bird rises from its marsh to follow
the pathway of the Sun!

"_O the Jewel in the Lotos!_

"By day shineth the sun, by night shineth the moon; shineth also the
warrior in harness of war; shineth likewise in meditations the Cramana.
But the Buddha at all times, by night or by day, shineth ever the same,
illuminating the world.

"_O the Jewel in the Lotos!_

"Let me cease, O thou Perfectly Awakened, to remain as an Ape in the
World-forest, forever ascending and descending in search of the fruits