The anger and amazement of the Brahmins may be conceived when, on returning
equipped with fresh implements of flagellation, they discovered the
salubrious condition of their victim. Their scourges would probably have
undergone conversion into halters, had they not been accompanied by a royal
officer, who took the really triumphant martyr under his protection, and
carried him off to the palace. He was speedily conducted to the young
prince's couch, whither a vast crowd attended him. The hour of noon not
having yet arrived, Ananda discreetly protracted the time by a seasonable
discourse on the impossibility of miracles, those only excepted which
should be wrought by the professors of the faith of Buddha. He then
descended from his pulpit, and precisely as the sun attained the zenith
laid his hand upon the bosom of the young prince, who instantly revived,
and completed a sentence touching the game of dice which had been
interrupted by his catalepsy.

The people shouted, the courtiers went into ecstasies, the countenances of
the Brahmins assumed an exceedingly sheepish expression. Even the king
seemed impressed, and craved to be more particularly instructed in the law
of Buddha. In complying with this request, Ananda, who had made marvellous
progress in worldly wisdom during the last twenty-four hours, deemed it
needless to dilate on the cardinal doctrines of his master, the misery of
existence, the need of redemption, the path to felicity, the prohibition to
shed blood. He simply stated that the priests of Buddha were bound to
perpetual poverty, and that under the new dispensation all ecclesiastical
property would accrue to the temporal authorities.

"By the holy cow!" exclaimed the monarch, "this is something like a
religion!"