thee rich in children and rich in milk; rich in seed, in milk, in
fat, in marrow, and in offspring. I shall bring to thee a thousand pure
springs, running towards the pastures that give food to the child.

TO THE WATERS AND LIGHT OF THE STARS

As the sea Vouru-kasha is the gathering place of the waters, rising up
and going down, up the aerial way and down the earth, down the earth and
up the aerial way: Thus rise up and roll along! thou in whose rising and
growing Ahura Mazda made everything that grows. Up! rise up, ye deep
Stars, that have in you the seed of waters; rise up above Hara
Berezaiti, and produce light for the world, and mayest thou, O man! rise
up there, if thou art to abide in Garo-nmanem, along the path made by
Mazda, along the way made by the gods, the watery way they opened. Thus
rise up and roll along! ye in whose rising and growing Ahura Mazda made
everything that rises. In your rising, away will the Kahvuzi fly and
cry; away will the Ayehi fly and cry; away will the Gahi, who follows
the Yatu, fly and cry.

THE DHAMMAPADA

Translation by F. Max Mueller

INTRODUCTION

The "Dhammapada," or "Path to Virtue," is one of the most practical
ethical hand-books of Buddhism. It is included in the canon of
Buddhistic Scriptures, and is one of the Eastern books which can be read
with delight to-day by those who are classed as general readers. It is
divided into twenty-six chapters, and the keynote of it is struck by the
sentence "The virtuous man is happy in this world, and he is happy in
the next; he is happy in both. He is happy when he thinks of the good he
has done; he is still more happy when going on the good path." The first
step in the "good path" is earnestness, for as the writer says,
"Earnestness is the path of immortality (Nirvana), thoughtlessness the
path of death; those who are in earnest do not die, those who are
thoughtless are as if dead already." Earnestness, in this connection,
evidently means the power of reflection, and of abstracting the mind
from mundane things. There is something very inspiring in the sentence,
"When the learned man drives away vanity by earnestness, he, the wise,
climbing the terraced heights of wisdom, looks down upon the fools: free
from sorrow he looks upon the sorrowing crowd, as one that stands on a
mountain looks down upon them that stand upon the plain." This reminds
us of Lucretius,

"How sweet to stand, when tempests tear the main,