Note 6 — The Story of the Vīra Tree Fish-Owls1
Reading edition
After that, when the King asked them, “How do you get a living?” they say, “Aniccan̥ dukkhan̥!6 When Your Majesty is ruling you obtain all things, and get a subsistence [in that way]. We are not thus. For us seven brothers, at one place there are rice-fields [extending] over sixty yālas.7 At yet [another] place there are nine amuṇas. The others indeed I am unable to mention separately. The whole [of the cultivators] of these rice-fields having come near us, after having asked [permission from] us work [in them], and bring and give the paddy at our very house.” He wove and told a great many [such] lies.