The Monk and the Snake

"The act of intimating" is: having seen cowherds, asking, "Are these calves milk-calves or buttermilk-calves?"; when told, "They are milk-calves, venerable sir," saying, "They can't be milk-calves — if they really were, the monks would be getting some milk too" — making an intimation by such means, reported to the children's parents, so as to bring about the giving of milk and the like.

It is said that a monk who regularly visited a certain family, wishing to eat, entered the house and sat down. Seeing him, the housewife, unwilling to give anything, said, "There is no rice," and went off to a neighbor's house as if to borrow some. The monk, too, entering the inner room and looking around, saw sugarcane in the corner behind the door, jaggery in a bowl, pieces of salted fish in a basket, rice in a pot, and ghee in a jar; having seen these, he came out and sat down again. The housewife came back, saying, "I couldn't get any rice." The monk said, "Lay sister, I already saw the sign beforehand that today the alms would not turn out well." "What was that, venerable sir?" "I saw, in the corner behind the door, what looked like a piece of sugarcane — a snake. Looking for something to strike it with, I saw a stone like the lump of jaggery in the bowl. When I struck it with the stone, the snake raised a hood like the pieces of salted fish in the basket. Wanting to bite the stone, it showed teeth like the rice in the pot. And then, enraged, it spat venom-mixed spittle from its mouth like the ghee poured into the jar." She thought, "There's no fooling this shaveling," and gave him the sugarcane, cooked the rice, and gave him everything — the ghee, the jaggery, and the fish as well.