Verse 6

¹Now as Rahugana, lord of Sindhu and Sauvira, was on the road, at the bank of the Iksumati, while the head of his party was looking for men to carry the palanquin, that fine brahmin was brought there by fate and found. Here is a stout young man with his limbs knit tight, they said, fit to take the yoke like an ox or an ass. So he was seized by force along with those already taken for the work, though it was not his to do; and that great man carried the palanquin. ²Since the fine brahmin was watching an arrow's length of ground ahead and setting his feet by that, the men's pace did not hold together. Rahugana felt his palanquin going crooked and said to the men carrying him: Bearers, step well. Why is the litter going so unevenly?

³Then, hearing their master's words with blame in them, and afraid in their minds of the fourth measure, they let him know: ⁴God among men, we are not careless. We keep to your rules and carry well. This man, though he has only now been set to it, does not walk quickly. We cannot carry along with him. ⁵A fault in one of a company must surely become a fault in all who are joined with him: so the king Rahugana settled it when he heard the poor men speak. He had waited on his elders, but his own nature was too strong for him, and a little anger rose in him; and with his mind covered over by passion he spoke to that man whose light of Brahman did not plainly show, like a fire under ash.

⁶How sad, brother. Plainly you are worn out. You have carried this long road a great while, and alone. You are not very stout, your limbs are not knit tight, and old age has come upon you too, friend, and these others do not share it. He was mocked in this way at length; but he had laid no false notion of I and mine upon that unreal thing, a particular arrangement put together by ignorance out of substances and strands and works and stored leanings, which was his own last body; he had become Brahman, and he carried the palanquin in silence as before.