THE JĀTAKA OR STORIES OF THE BUDDHA'S FORMER BIRTHS-4

THE JĀTAKA

OR

STORIES OF THE BUDDHA'S FORMER BIRTHS

No. 10.

SUKHAVIHĀRI-JĀTAKA.

[140] "The man who guards not."--This story was told by the Master while in the Anūpiya Mango-grove near the town of Anūpiya, about the Elder Bhaddiya (the Happy), who joined the Brotherhood in the company of the six young nobles with whom was Upāli 1. Of these the Elders Bhaddiya, Kimbila, Bhagu, and Upāli attained to Arahatship; the Elder Ānanda entered the First Path; the Elder Anuruddha gained all-seeing vision; and Devadatta obtained the power of ecstatic self-abstraction. The story of the six young nobles, up to the events at Anūpiya, will be related in the Khaṇḍahāla-jātaka 2.
The venerable Bhaddiya, who used in the days of his royalty to guard himself as though he were appointed his own tutelary deity, bethought him of the state of fear in which he then lived when he was being guarded by numerous guards and when he used to toss about even on his royal couch in his private apartments high up in the palace; and with this he compared the absence of fear in which, now that he was an Arahat, he roamed hither and thither in forests and desert places. And at the thought he burst into this heartfelt utterance--"Oh, happiness! Oh, happiness!"

This the Brethren reported to the Blessed One, saying, "The venerable Bhaddiya is declaring the bliss he has won."
"Brethren," said the Blessed One, "this is not the first time that Bhaddiya's life has been happy; his life was no less happy in bygone days."
The Brethren asked the Blessed One to explain this. The Blessed One made clear what had been concealed from them by re-birth.

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Once on a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta was born a wealthy northern brahmin. Realising the evil of lusts and the blessings that flow from renouncing the world, he abjured lusts, and retiring to the Himalayas there became a hermit and won the eight Endowments. His following waxed great, amounting to five hundred ascetics. Once when the rains set in, he quitted the Himalayas and travelling along on an alms-pilgrimage with his attendant ascetics through village and town came at last to Benares, where he took up his abode in the royal pleasaunce as the pensioner of the king's bounty. After dwelling here for the four rainy months, he came to the king to take his leave. But the king said to him, "You are old, reverend sir. Wherefore should you go back to the Himalayas'? Send your pupils back thither [141] and stop here yourself."
The Bodhisatta entrusted his five hundred ascetics to the care of his oldest disciple, saying, "Go you with these to the Himalayas; I will stop on here."
Now that oldest disciple had once been a king, but had given up a mighty kingdom to become a Brother; by the due performance of the rites appertaining to concentrated thought he had mastered the eight Endowments. As he dwelt with the ascetics in the Himalayas, one day a longing came upon him to see the master, and he said to his fellows, "Live on contentedly here; I will come back as soon as I have paid my respects to the master." So away he went to the master, paid his respects to him, and greeted him lovingly. Then he lay down by the side of his master on a mat which he spread there.
At this point appeared the king, who had come to the pleasaunce to see the ascetic; and with a salutation he took his seat on one side. But though he was aware of the king's presence, that oldest disciple forbore to rise, but still lay there, crying with passionate earnestness, "Oh, happiness! Oh, happiness!"
Displeased that the ascetic, though he had seen him, had not risen, the king said to the Bodhisatta, "Reverend sir, this ascetic must have had his fill to eat, seeing that he continues to lie there so happily, exclaiming with such earnestness."
"Sire," said the Bodhisatta, "of old this ascetic was a king as you are. He is thinking how in the old days when he was a layman and

lived in regal pomp with many a man-at-arms to guard him, he never knew such happiness as now is his. It is the happiness of the Brother's life, and the happiness that Insight brings, which move him to this heartfelt utterance." And the Bodhisatta further repeated this stanza to teach the king the Truth:--

The man who guards not, nor is guarded, sire,
Lives happy, freed from slavery to lusts.

[paragraph continues] [142] Appeased by the lesson thus taught him, the king made his salutation and returned to his palace. The disciple also took his leave of his master and returned to the Himalayas. But the Bodhisatta continued to dwell on there, and, dying with Insight full and unbroken, was re-born in the Realm of Brahma.

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His lesson ended, and the two stories told, the Master shewed the connexion linking them both together, and identified the Birth by saying,--"The Elder Bhaddiya was the disciple of those days, and I myself the master of the company of ascetics."
[Note. For the Introductory Story compare Cullavagga, VII. l. 5--.]

Footnotes

32:1 Cf. Oldenberg's Vinaya, Vol. in pp. 180-4 (translated at p. 232 of Vol. XX. of the Sacred Books of the East), for an account of the conversion of the six Sākyan princes and the barber Upāli.
32:2 No. 534 in Westergaard's list; not yet edited by Fausböll.

No. 11.

LAKKHAṆA-JĀTAKA.

"The upright man."--This story was told by the Master in the Bamboo-grove near Rājagaha about Devadatta. The story of Devadatta 1 will be related, up to the date of the Abhimāra-employment, in the Khaṇḍahāla-jātaka 2; up to the date of his dismissal from the office of Treasurer, in the Cullahaṃsa-jātaka 3; and, up to the date of his being swallowed up by the earth, in the Sixteenth Book in the Samudda-vāṇija-jātaka 4.
For, on the occasion now in question, Devadatta, through failing to carry the Five Points which he had pressed for, had made a schism in the Brotherhood and had gone off with five hundred Brethren to dwell at Gayā-sīsa. Now, these Brethren came to a riper knowledge; and the Master, knowing this, called the
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two chief disciples 1 and said, "Sāriputta, your five hundred pupils who were perverted by Devadatta's teaching and went off with him, have now come to a riper knowledge. Go thither with a number of the Brethren, preach the Truth to them, enlighten these wanderers respecting the Paths and the Fruits, and bring them back with you."
They went thither, preached the Truth, enlightened them respecting the Paths and the Fruits, and next day [143] at dawn came back again with those Brethren to the Bamboo-grove. And whilst Sāriputta was standing there after saluting the Blessed One on his return, the Brethren spoke thus to him in praise of the Elder Sāriputta, "Sir, very bright was the glory of our elder brother, the Captain of the Truth, as he returned with a following of five hundred Brethren; whereas Devadatta has lost all his following."
"This is not the only time, Brethren, when glory has been Sāriputta's on his return with a following of his kinsfolk; like glory was his too in bygone days. So too this is not the only time when Devadatta has lost his following; he lost it also in bygone days."
The Brethren asked the Blessed One to explain this to them. The Blessed One made clear what had been concealed by re-birth.

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Once on a time in the city of Rājagaha in the kingdom of Magadha there ruled a certain king of Magadha, in whose days the Bodhisatta came to life as a stag. Growing up, he dwelt in the forest as the leader of a herd of a thousand deer. He had two young ones named Luckie and Blackie. When he grew old, he handed his charge over to his two sons, placing five hundred deer under the care of each of them. And so now these two young stags were in charge of the herd.
Towards harvest-time in Magadha, when the crops stand thick in the fields, it is dangerous for the deer in the forests round. Anxious to kill the creatures that devour their crops, the peasants dig pitfalls, fix stakes, set stone-traps, and plant snares and other gins; so that many deer are slain.
Accordingly, when the Bodhisatta marked that it was crop-time, he sent for his two sons and said to them, "My children, it is now the time when crops stand thick in the fields, and many deer meet their death at this season. We who are old will make shift to stay in one spot; but you will retire each with your herd to the mountainous tracts in the forest and come back when the crops have been carried." "Very good," said his two sons, and departed with their herds, as their father bade.
Now the men who live along the route, know quite well the times at which deer take to the hills and return thence. And [144] lying in wait in hiding-places here and there along the route, they shoot and kill numbers of them. The dullard Blackie, ignorant of the times to travel and the
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times to halt, kept his deer on the march early and late, both at dawn and in the gloaming, approaching the very confines of the villages. And the peasants, in ambush or in the open, destroyed numbers of his herd. Having thus by his crass folly worked the destruction of all these, it was with a very few survivors that he reached the forest.
Luckie on the other hand, being wise and astute and full of resource, never so much as approached the confines of a village. He did not travel by day, or even in the dawn or gloaming. Only in the dead of night did he move; and the result was that he reached the forest without losing a single head of his deer.
Four months they stayed in the forest, not leaving the hills till the crops were carried. On the homeward way Blackie by repeating his former folly lost the rest of his herd and returned solitary and alone; whereas Luckie had not lost one of his herd, but had brought back the whole five hundred deer, when he appeared before his parents. As he saw his two sons returning, the Bodhisatta framed this stanza in concert with the herd of deer:--

The upright kindly man bath his reward.
Mark Luckie leading back his troop of kin,
While here comes Blackie shorn of all his herd.

[145] Such was the Bodhisatta's welcome to his son; and after living to a good old age, he passed away to fare according to his deserts.

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At the close of his lesson, when the Master had repeated that Sāriputta's glory and Devadatta's loss had both had a parallel in bygone days, he shewed the connexion linking the two stories together and identified the Birth, by saying, "Devadatta was the Blackie of those days; his followers were Blackie's following; Sāriputta was the Luckie of those days, and his following the Buddha's followers; Rāhula's mother was the mother of those days; and I myself was the father."
[Note. See Dhammapada, p. 146, for the above verse and for a parallel to the Introductory Story of this Jātaka.]

Footnotes

34:1 See Cullavagga, VII. 1--et seqq. The "Five Points" of Devadatta are there given (VII. 3. 14) as follows:--"The Brethren shall live all their life long in the forest, subsist solely on doles collected out of doors, dress solely in rags picked out of dust-heaps, dwell under trees and never under a roof, never eat fish or flesh." These five points were all more rigid in their asceticism than the Buddha's rule, and were formulated by Devadatta in order to outbid his cousin and master.
34:2 Cf. p. 32, note 2.
34:3 No. 533.
34:4 No. 466.
35:1 The two chief disciples, of whom only one is named in the text, were Sāriputta (surnamed 'the Captain of the Faith') and Moggallāna, two Brahmin friends, originally followers of a wandering ascetic, whose conversion to Buddhism is related in the Mahāvagga, I. 23--. Unlike this Jātaka, the Vinaya account (Cullavagga, VII. 4) of the re-conversion of the backsliders gives a share of the credit to Moggallāna.

No. 12.

NIGRODHAMIGA-JĀTAKA.

"Keep only with the Banyan Deer."--This story was told by the Master while at Jetavana about the mother of the Elder named Prince Kassapa. The daughter, we learn, of a wealthy merchant of Rājagaha was deeply rooted in goodness and scorned all temporal things; she had reached her final existence, and within her breast, like a lamp in a pitcher, glowed her sure hope of winning
 ] Arahatship. As soon as she reached knowledge of herself, she took no joy in a worldly life but yearned to renounce the world. With this aim, she said to her mother and father, "My dear parents, my heart takes no joy in a worldly life; fain would I embrace the saving doctrine of the Buddha. Suffer me to take the vows."
"What, my dear? Ours is a very wealthy family, and you are our only daughter. You cannot take the vows."
Having failed to win her parents' consent, though she asked them again and again, she thought to herself, "Be it so then; when I am married into another family, I will gain my husband's consent and take the vows." And when, being grown up, she entered another family, she proved a devoted wife and lived a life of goodness and virtue 1 in her new home. Now it came to pass that she conceived, though she knew it not.
There was a festival proclaimed in that city, [146] and everybody kept holiday, the city being decked like a city of the gods. But she, even at the height of the festival, neither anointed herself nor put on any finery, going about in her every-day attire. So her husband said to her, "My dear wife, everybody is holiday-making; but you do not put on your bravery."
"My lord and master," she replied, "the body is filled with two-and-thirty component .parts. Wherefore should it be adorned? This bodily frame is not of angelic or archangelic mould; it is not made of gold, jewels, or yellow sandal-wood; it takes not its birth from the womb of lotus-flowers, white or red or blue; it is not filled with any immortal balsam. Nay, it is bred of corruption, and born of mortal parents; the qualities that mark it are the wearing and wasting away, the decay and destruction of the merely transient; it is fated to swell a graveyard, and is devoted to lusts; it is the source of sorrow, and the occasion of lamentation; it is the abode of all diseases, and the repository of the workings of Karma. Foul within,--it is always excreting. Yea, as all the world can see, its end is death, passing to the charnel-house, there to be the dwelling-place of worms 2 [147]. What should I achieve, my bridegroom, by tricking out this body? Would not its adornment be like decorating the outside of a close-stool?"
"My dear wife," rejoined the young merchant, "if you regard this body as so sinful, why don't you become a Sister?"
"If I am accepted, my husband, I will take the vows this very day." "Very good," said he, "I will get you admitted to the Order." And after he had shewn lavish bounty and hospitality to the Order, he escorted her with a large following to the nunnery and had her admitted a Sister,--but of the following of Devadatta. Great was her joy at the fulfilment of her desire to become a Sister.
As her time drew near, the Sisters, noticing the change in her person, the swelling in her hands and feet and her increased size, said, "Lady, you seem about to become a mother; what does it mean?"
"I cannot tell, ladies; I only know I have led a virtuous life."
So the Sisters brought her before Devadatta, saying, "Lord, this young gentle-woman, who was admitted a Sister with the reluctant consent of her husband, has now proved to be with child; but whether this dates from before her admission to the Order or not, we cannot say. What are we to do now?"
Not being a Buddha, and not having any charity, love or pity, Devadatta thought thus: "It will be a damaging report to get abroad that one of my Sisters is with child, and that I condone the offence. My course is clear;--I must expel this woman from the Order." Without any enquiry, starting forward as if to thrust aside a mass of stone, he said, "Away, and expel this woman!"
Receiving this answer, they arose and with reverent salutation withdrew to their own nunnery. But the girl said to those Sisters, "Ladies, Devadatta the Elder is not the Buddha. My vows were taken not under Devadatta, but under

the Buddha, the Foremost of the world. Rob me not of the vocation I won so hardly; but take me before the Master at Jetavana." So they set out with her for Jetavana, and journeying over the forty-five leagues thither from Rājagaha, came in due course to their destination, where with reverent salutation to the Master, they laid the matter before him.
Thought the Master, "Albeit the child was conceived while she was still of the laity, yet it will give the heretics an occasion to say that the ascetic Gotama [148] has taken a Sister expelled by Devadatta. Therefore, to cut short such talk, this case must be heard in the presence of the king and his court." So on the morrow he sent for Pasenadi king of Kosala, the elder and the younger Anātha-piṇḍika, the lady Visākhā the great lay-disciple, and other well-known personages; and in the evening when the four classes of the faithful were all assembled--Brothers, Sisters, and lay-disciples, both male and female--he said to the Elder Upāli, "Go, and clear up this matter of the young Sister in the presence of the four classes of my disciples."
"It shall be done, reverend sir," said the Elder, and forth to the assembly he went and there, seating himself in his place, he called up Visākhā the lay-disciple in sight of the king, and placed the conduct of the enquiry in her hands, saying, "First ascertain the precise day of the precise month on which this girl joined the Order, Visākhā; and thence compute whether she conceived before or since that date." Accordingly the lady had a curtain put up as a screen, behind which she retired with the girl. Spectatis manibus, pedibus, umbilico, ipso ventre puellæ, the lady found, on comparing the days and months, that the conception had taken place before the girl had become a Sister. This she reported to the Elder, who proclaimed the Sister innocent before all the assembly. And she, now that her innocence was established, reverently saluted the Order and the Mater, and with the Sisters returned to her own nunnery.
When her time was come, she bore the son strong in spirit, for whom she had prayed at the feet of the Buddha Padumuttara ages ago. One day, when the king was passing by the nunnery, he heard the cry of an infant and asked his courtiers what it meant. They, knowing the facts, told his majesty that the cry came from the child to which the young Sister had given birth. "Sirs," said the king, "the care of children is a clog on Sisters in their religious life; let us take charge of him." So the infant was handed over by the king's command to the ladies of his family, and brought up as a prince. When the day came for him to be named, he was called Kassapa, but was known as Prince Kassapa because he was brought up like a prince.
At the age of seven he was admitted a novice under the Master, and a full Brother when he was old enough. As time went on, he waxed famous among the expounders of the Truth. So the Master gave him precedence, saying, "Brethren, the first in eloquence among my disciples is Prince Kassapa." Afterwards, by virtue of the Vammīka Sutta 1, he won Arahatship. So too his mother, the Sister, grew to clear vision and won the Supreme Fruit. Prince Kassapa the Elder shone in the faith of the Buddha [149] even as the full-moon in the mid-heaven. Now one day in the afternoon when the Tathāgata on return from his alms-round had addressed the Brethren, he passed into his perfumed chamber. At the close of his address the Brethren spent the daytime either in their night-quarters or in their day-quarters till it was evening, when they assembled in the hall of Truth and spoke as follows: "Brethren, Devadatta, because he was not a Buddha and because he had no charity, love or pity, was nigh being the ruin of the Elder Prince Kassapa and his reverend mother. But the All-enlightened Buddha, being the Lord of Truth and being perfect in charity, love and pity, has proved their salvation." And as they sat there telling the praises of the Buddha, he entered the hall with all the grace of a Buddha, and asked, as he took his. seat, what they were talking of as they sat together.
"Of your own virtues, sir," said they, and told him all.

"This is not the first time, Brethren," said he, "that the Tathāgata has proved the salvation and refuge of these two: he was the same to them in the past also."
Then, on the Brethren asking him to explain this to them, he revealed what re-birth had hidden from them.

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Once on a time, when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta was born a deer. At his birth he was golden of hue; his eyes were like round jewels; the sheen of his horns was as of, silver; his mouth was red as a bunch of scarlet cloth; his four hoofs were as though lacquered; his tail was like the yak's; and he was as big as a young foal. Attended by five hundred deer, he dwelt in the forest under the name of King Banyan Deer. And hard by him dwelt another deer also with an attendant herd of five hundred deer, who was named Branch Deer, and was as golden of hue as the Bodhisatta.
In those days the king of Benares was passionately fond of hunting, and always had meat at every meal. Every day he mustered the whole of his subjects, townsfolk and countryfolk alike, to the detriment of their business, and went hunting. Thought his people, "This king of ours stops all our work. Suppose we were [150] to sow food and supply water for the deer in his own pleasaunce, and, having driven in a number of deer, to bar them in and deliver them over to the king!" So they sowed in the pleasaunce grass for the deer to eat and supplied water for them to drink, and opened the gate wide. Then they called out the townsfolk and set out into the forest armed with sticks and all manner of weapons to find the deer. They surrounded about a league of forest in order to catch the deer within their circle, and in so doing surrounded the haunt of the Banyan and Branch deer. As soon as they perceived the deer, they proceeded to beat the trees, bushes and ground with their sticks till they drove the herds out of their lairs; then they rattled their swords and spears and bows with so great a din that they drove all the deer into the pleasaunce, and shut the gate. Then they went to the king and said, "Sire, you put a stop to our work by always going a-hunting; so we have driven deer enough from the forest to fill your pleasaunce. Henceforth feed on them."
Hereupon the king betook himself to the pleasaunce, and in looking over the herd saw among them two golden deer, to whom he granted immunity. Sometimes he would go of his own accord and shoot a deer to bring home; sometimes his cook would go and shoot one. At first sight of the bow, the deer would dash off trembling for their lives, but after receiving two or three wounds they grew weary and faint and were slain. The herd of deer told this to the Bodhisatta, who sent for Branch and said, "Friend, the deer are being destroyed in great numbers; and, though they

cannot escape death, at least let them not be needlessly wounded. Let the deer go to the block 1 by turns, one day one from my herd, and next day one from yours,--the deer on whom the lot falls to go to the place of execution and lie down with its head on the block. In this wise the deer will escape wounding." The other agreed; and thenceforth the deer whose turn it was, used to go [151] and lie down with its neck ready on the block. The cook used to go and carry off only the victim which awaited him.
Now one day the lot fell on a pregnant doe of the herd of Branch, and she went to Branch and said, "Lord, I am with young. When I have brought forth my little one, there will be two of us to take our turn. Order me to be passed over this turn." "No, I cannot make your turn, another's," said he; "you must bear the consequences of your own fortune. Begone!" Finding no favour with him, the doe went on to the Bodhisatta and told him her story. And he answered, "Very well; you go away, and I will see that the turn passes over you." And therewithal he went himself to the place of execution and lay down with his head on the block, Cried the cook on seeing him, "Why here's the king of the deer who was granted immunity! What does this mean?" And off he ran to tell the king. The moment he heard of it, the king mounted his chariot and arrived with a large following. "My friend the king of the deer," he said on beholding the Bodhisatta, "did I not promise you your life? How comes it that you are lying here?
"Sire, there came to me a doe big with young, who prayed me to let her turn fall on another; and, as I could not pass the doom of one on to another, I, laying down my life for her and taking her doom on myself, have laid me down here. Think not that there is anything behind this, your majesty."
"My lord the golden king of the deer," said the king, "never yet saw I, even among men, one so abounding in charity, love and pity as you. Therefore am I pleased with you. Arise! I spare the lives both of you and of her."
"Though two be spared, what shall the rest do, O king of men?" "I spare their lives too, my lord." "Sire, only the deer in your pleasaunce will thus have gained immunity; what shall all the rest do?" "Their lives too I spare, my lord." "Sire, deer will thus be safe; but what will the rest of four-footed creatures do?" [152]. "I spare their lives too, my lord." "Sire, four-footed creatures will thus be safe; but what will the flocks of birds do?" "They too shall be spared, my lord." "Sire, birds will thus be safe; but what will the fishes do, who live in the water?" "I spare their lives also, my lord."
After thus interceding with the king for the lives of all creatures, the

Great Being arose, established the king in the Five Commandments, saying, "Walk in righteousness, great king. Walk in righteousness and justice towards parents, children, townsmen, and countryfolk, so that when this earthly body is dissolved, you may enter the bliss of heaven." Thus, with the grace and charm that marks a Buddha, did he teach the Truth to the king. A few days he tarried in the pleasaunce for the king's instruction, and then with his attendant herd he passed into the forest again.
And that doe brought forth a fawn fair as the opening bud of the lotus, who used to play about with the Branch deer. Seeing this his mother said to him, "My child, don't go about with him, only go about with the herd of the Banyan deer." And by way of exhortation, she repeated this stanza:

Keep only with the Banyan deer, and shun
The Branch deer's herd; more welcome far
Is death, my child, in Banyan's company,
Than e’en the amplest term of life with Branch.

Thenceforth, the deer, now in the enjoyment of immunity, used to eat men's crops, and the men, remembering the immunity granted to them, did not dare to hit the deer or drive them away. So they assembled in the king's courtyard and laid the matter before the king. Said he, "When the Banyan deer won my favour, [153] I promised him a boon. I will forego my kingdom rather than my promise. Begone! Not a man in my kingdom may harm the deer."
But when this came to the ears of the Banyan deer, he called his herd together and said, "Henceforth you shall not eat the crops of others." And having thus forbidden them, he sent a message to the men, saying, "From this day forward, let no husbandman fence his field, but merely indicate it with leaves tied up round it." And so, we hear, began a plan of tying up leaves to indicate the fields; and never was a deer known to trespass on a field so marked. For thus they had been instructed by the Bodhisatta.
Thus did the Bodhisatta exhort the deer of his herd, and thus did he act all his life long, and at the close of a long life passed away with them to fare according to his deserts. The king too abode by the Bodhisatta's teachings, and after a life spent in good works passed away to fare according to his deserts.

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At the close of this lesson, when the Master had repeated that, as now, so in bygone days also he had been the salvation of the pair, he preached the Four Truths. He then shewed the connexion, linking together the two stories he had told, and identified the Birth by saying,--"Devadatta was the Branch Deer of

those days, and his followers were that deer's herd; the nun was the doe, and Prince Kassapa was her offspring; Ānanda was the king; and I myself was King Banyan Deer."
[Note. This Jātaka is referred to in Milindapañho (page 289 of Rhys Davids' translation), and is figured in Plates XXV. (1) and XLIII. (2) of Cunningham's Stūpa of Bharhut several illegible words in the copytext--JBH See also Julien's Huen Thsang, ii. 361. For the stanza and the Introductory Story see Dhammapada, pp. 327-330.]

Footnotes

37:1 Or, perhaps, "was beautiful."
37:2 A long string of repulsive stanzas as to the anatomy of the body is here omitted.
38:1 The 23rd Sutta of the Majjhima Nikāya.
40:1 For dhammagaṇḍikā see Jāt. II. 124; III. 41.

No. 13.

KAṆḌINA-JĀTAKA.

"Cursed be the dart of love."--This story was told by the Master while at Jetavana about the temptation caused to Brethren by the wives of their mundane life. This will be related in the Indriya-jātaka 1 in the Eighth Book. Said the Blessed One to the Brother, "Brother, it was because of this very woman that in bygone days you met your death and were roasted over glowing embers." The Brethren asked the Blessed One to explain this. The Blessed One made clear what had been concealed from them by re-birth.
[154] (Henceforth we shall omit the words respecting the Brethren's request for an explanation and the making clear what had been concealed by re-birth; and we shall only say "told this story of the past." When only this is said, all the rest is to be supplied and repeated as above,--the request, the simile of setting free the moon from the clouds, and the making clear what had been concealed by re-birth.)

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Once on a time in the kingdom of Magadha the king was reigning in Rājagaha, and when the crops were grown the deer were exposed to great perils, so that they retired to the forest. Now a certain mountain-stag of the forest, having become attached to a doe who came from near a village, was moved by his love for her to accompany her when the deer returned home from the forest. Said she, "You, sir, are but a simple stag of the forest, and the neighbourhood of villages is beset with peril and danger.
So don't come down with us." But he because of his great love for her would not stay, but came with her.

When they knew that it was the time for the deer to cone down from the hills, the Magadha folk posted themselves in ambush by the road; and a hunter was lying in wait just by the road along which the pair were travelling. Scenting a man, the young doe suspected that a hunter was in ambush, and let the stag go on first, following herself at some distance. With a single arrow the hunter laid the stag low, and the doe seeing him struck was off like the wind. Then that hunter came forth from his hiding place and skinned the stag and lighting a fire cooked the sweet flesh over the embers. Having eaten and drunk, he took off home the remainder of the bleeding carcass on his carrying-pole to regale his children.
Now in those clays the Bodhisatta was a fairy dwelling in that very grove of trees, and he marked what had come to pass. "’Twas not father or mother, but passion alone that destroyed this foolish deer [155]. The dawn of passion is bliss, but its end is sorrow and suffering,--the painful loss of hands, and the misery of the five forms of bonds and blows. To cause another's death is accounted infamy in this world; infamous too is the land which owns a woman's sway and rule; and infamous are the men who yield themselves to women's dominion." And therewithal, while the other fairies of the wood applauded and offered perfumes and flowers and the like in homage, the Bodhisatta wove the three infamies into a single stanza, and made the wood re-echo with his sweet tones as he taught the truth in these lines:

Cursed be the dart of love that works men pain!
Cursed be the land where women rule supreme!
And cursed the fool that bows to woman's sway!

Thus in a single stanza were the three infamies comprised by the Bodhisatta, and the woods re-echoed as he taught the Truth with all the mastery and grace of a Buddha [156].

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His lesson ended, the Master preached the Four Truths, at the close whereof the love-sick Brother was established in the Fruit of the First Path. Having told the two stories, the Master shewed the connexion linking the two together, and identified the Birth.
(Henceforward, we shall omit the words 'Having told the two stories,' and simply say 'shewed the connexion...;' the words omitted are to be supplied as before.)
"In those days," said the Master, "the love-sick Brother was the mountain-stag; his mundane wife was the young doe, and I was myself the fairy who preached the Truth shewing the sin of passion."
[Note. See page 330 of Benfey's Pañca-Tantra.]

Footnotes

42:1 No. 423.

No. 14.

VĀTAMIGA-JĀTAKA.

"There's nothing worse." This story was told by the Master while at Jetavana, about the Elder Tissa, called Direct-alms the Less. Tradition says that, while the Master was dwelling at the Bamboo-grove near Rājagaha, the scion of a wealthy house, Prince Tissa by name, coming one day to the Bamboo-grove and there hearing a discourse from the Master, wished to join the Brotherhood, but, being refused because his parents would not give their consent, obtained their consent by following Raṭṭha-pāla's 1 example and refusing food for seven days, and finally took the vows with the Master.
About a fortnight after admitting this young man, the Master repaired from the Bamboo-grove to Jetavana, where the young nobleman undertook the Thirteen Obligations 2 and passed his time in going his round for alms from house to house, omitting none. Under the name of the Elder Tissa Direct-alms the Less, he became as bright and shining a light in Buddhism as the moon in the vault of heaven.
A festival having been proclaimed at this time at Rājagaha, the Elder's mother and father laid in a silver casket the trinkets he used to wear as a-layman, and took it to heart, bewailing thus,--"At other festivals our son used to wear this or that bravery as he kept the festival; and he, our only son, has been taken away by the sage Gotama to the town of Sāvatthi. Where is our son sitting now or standing?" Now a slave-girl who came to the house, noticed the lady of the house weeping, and asked her why she was weeping; and the lady told her all.
"What, madam, was your son fond of?" "Of such and such a thing," replied the lady. "Well, if you will give me authority in this house, I'll fetch your son back." "Very good," said the lady in assent, and gave the girl her expenses and despatched her with a large following, saying, "Go, and manage to fetch my son back."
So away the girl rode in a palanquin to Sāvatthi, where she took up her residence in the street which the Elder used to frequent for alms. [157] Surrounding herself with servants of her own, and never allowing the Elder to see his father's people about, she watched the moment when the Elder entered the street and at once bestowed on him an alms of victual and drink. And when she had bound him in the bonds of the craving of taste, she got him eventually to seat himself in the house, till she knew that her gifts of food as alms had put him in her power. Then she feigned sickness and lay down in an inner chamber.
In the due course of his round for alms at the proper time, the Elder came to the door of her house; and her people took the Elder's bowl and made him sit down in the house.
When he had seated himself, he said, "Where is the lay-sister?" "She's ill, sir; she would be glad to see you."
Bound as he was by the bonds of the craving of taste, he broke his vow and obligation, and went to where the woman was lying.

Then she told him the reason of her coming, and so wrought on him that, all because of his being hound by the bonds of the craving of taste, she made him forsake the Brotherhood; when he was in her power, she put him in the palanquin and came back with a large following to Rājagaha again.
All this was noised abroad. Sitting in the Hall of Truth, the Brethren discussed the matter, saying, "Sirs, it is reported that a slave-girl has bound in the bonds of the craving of taste, and has carried off, the Elder Tissa the Less, called Direct-alms." Entering the Hall the Master sat down on his jewelled seat, and said, "What, Brethren, is the subject of discussion in this conclave?" They told him the incident.
"Brethren," said he, "this is not the first time that, in bondage to the craving of taste, he has fallen into her power; in bygone days too he fell into her power in like manner." And so saying, he told this story of the past.

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Once on a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares he had a gardener named Sañjaya. Now there came into the king's pleasaunce a Wind-antelope, which fled away at the sight of Sañjaya, but the latter let it go without terrifying the timid creature. After several visits the antelope used to roam about in the pleasaunce. Now the gardener was in the habit of gathering flowers and fruits and taking them day by day to the king. Said the king to him one day, "Have you noticed anything strange, friend gardener, in the pleasaunce?" "Only, sir, that a Wind-antelope has come about the grounds." "Could you catch it, do you think?" "Oh, yes; if I had a little honey, I'd bring it right into your majesty's palace."
The king ordered the honey to be given to the man and he went off with it to the pleasaunce, where he first anointed with the honey the grass at the spots frequented by the antelope, [158] and then hid himself. When the antelope came and tasted the honied grass it was so snared by the lust of taste that it would go nowhere else but only to the pleasaunce. Marking the success of his snare, the gardener began gradually to show himself. The appearance of the man made the antelope take to flight for the first day or two, but growing familiar with the sight of him, it gathered confidence and gradually came to eat grass from the man's hand. He, noting that the creature's confidence had been won, first strewed the path as thick as a carpet with broken boughs; then tying a gourd full of honey on his shoulder and sticking a bunch of grass in his waist-cloth, he kept dropping wisps of the honied grass in front of the antelope till at last he got it right inside the palace. No sooner was the antelope inside than they shut the door. At sight of men the antelope, in fear and trembling for its life, dashed to and fro about the hall; and the king coming down from his chamber above, and seeing the trembling creature, said, "So timid is the Wind-antelope that for a whole week it will not revisit a spot where it has so much as seen a man; and if it has once been frightened anywhere, it never goes back there again all its life long. Yet,

ensnared by the lust of taste, this wild thing from the jungle has actually come to a place like this. Truly, my friends, there is nothing viler in the world than this lust of taste." And he put his teaching into this stanza:--

There's nothing worse, men say, than taste to snare,
At borne or with one's friends. Lo! taste it was
That unto Sañjaya deliver’d up
The jungle-haunting antelope so wild.

And with these words he let the antelope go back to its forest again.

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[159] When the Master had ended his lesson, and had repeated what he had said as to that Brother's having fallen into that woman's power in bygone days as well as in the present time, he shewed the connexion and identified the Birth, by saying, "In those days this slave-girl was Sañjaya, Direct-alms the Less was the wind-antelope, and I myself was the King of Benares."

Footnotes

44:1 See Raṭṭhapāla-sutta in the Majjhima-Nikāya (No. 83), translated in the Ceylon R. A. S. Journal, 1847. See also Vinaya, Vol. III. pages 13 and 148.
44:2 These are meritorious ascetic practices for quelling the passions, of which the third is an undertaking to eat no food except alms received direct from the giver in the Brother's alms-bowl. Hence "ticket-food" (Jātaka No. 5) was inadmissible.





 

Om Tat Sat
                                                        
(Continued...) 

(My humble salutations to Sreeman Professor E B Cowell ji and also Sreeman Robert Chalmers  for the collection)