49. 'Understanding this,âtakamâlâ _S_ibis, make your riches fruitful by gifts and by spending[36]. This is the path leading to glory and future happiness both in this world and in the next.
[36] The purport of this royal precept may be illustrated by the corresponding parts of the narrative in the Pâli _G_âtaka. The precept is there given twice, in prose and in verse, see Fausböll's _G_âtaka IV, p. 411, 22, and p. 412, 7.
50. 'Wealth is a contemptible thing, because it is pithless; yet it has one virtue, that it can be given away by him who aims at the welfare of the creatures; for if given away, it becomes a treasure (nidhâna), otherwise its ultimate object is only death (nidhana).'
So, then, it is by means of hundreds of difficult hardships that the Lord obtained this excellent Law for our sake; for this reason its preaching is to be heard with attention. This story is also to be told on account of the high-mindedness of the Tathâgata, just as the foregoing[37]. Likewise when discoursing of compassion, and when demonstrating the result of meritorious actions appearing already in this world: 'in this manner the merit, gathered by good actions, shows already here (in this world) something like the blossom of its power, the charming flowers of increasing glory.'
In the list of the contents of the Avadânakalpalatâ which Somendra added to that poem of his father Kshemendra, I do not find our avadâna, unless it should happen to be included in No. 91, which deals with a king of the _S_ibis. But the edition which is being published in the Bibl. Indica is not yet so far advanced. For the rest, like the story of the tigress, it is alluded to in the second pallava, verse 108: 'And in my _S_ibi-birth I gave away both my eyes to a blind man, and with (the gift of) my body preserved a pigeon from the danger caused by a falcon.'
III. THE STORY OF THE SMALL PORTION OF GRUEL.
(Comp. the Pâli _G_âtaka, No. 415, Fausb. III, 406-414; Divyâvadâna VII, p. 88, Cowell's ed.; Kathâsarits. XXVII, 79-105.)
Any gift that proceeds from faith of the heart and is bestowed on a worthy recipient produces a great result; there does not exist at all anything like a trifling gift of that nature, as will be taught by the following.