Note 12 — Chapter CXXIV

There Śaśin saw a boy crying at the door of a house, with a warm12 rice-pudding on a plate in front of him, and he said, “Dear me! this is a foolish child not to eat the pudding in front of him, but to vex himself with useless weeping.” When the child heard this, he wiped his eyes, and said laughing, “You fools do not know the advantages I get by crying. The pudding gradually cools and so becomes nice, and another good comes out of it; my phlegm is diminished thereby. These are the advantages I derive from crying; I do not cry out of folly; but you country bumpkins are fools because you do not see what I do it for.”