THE JĀTAKA OR STORIES OF THE BUDDHA'S FORMER BIRTHS-15

THE JĀTAKA

OR

STORIES OF THE BUDDHA'S FORMER BIRTHS

No. 63.

TAKKA-JĀTAKA.

"Wrathful are women."--This story was told by the Master while at Jetavana, about another passion-tost Brother. When on being questioned the Brother confessed that he was passion-tost, the Master said, "Women are ingrates and treacherous; why are you passion-tost because of them?" And he told this story of the past.

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Once on a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta, who had chosen an anchorite's life, built himself a hermitage by the banks of the Ganges, and there won the Attainments and the Higher Knowledges, and so dwelt in the bliss of Insight. In those days the Lord High Treasurer of Benares had a fierce and cruel daughter, known as Lady Wicked, who used to revile and beat her servants and slaves. And one day they took their young mistress [296] to disport herself in the Ganges; and the girls were playing about in the water, when the sun set and a great storm burst upon them. Hereon folks scampered away, and the girl's attendants, exclaiming, "Now is the time to see the last of this creature!" threw her right into the river and hurried off. Down poured the rain in torrents, the sun set, and darkness came on. And when the attendants reached home without their young mistress, and were asked where she was, they replied that she had got out of the Ganges but that they did not know where she had gone. Search was made by her family, but not a trace of the missing girl could be found.
Meantime she, screaming loudly, was swept down by the swollen stream, and at midnight approached where the Bodhisatta dwelt in his hermitage. Hearing her cries, he thought to himself, "That's a woman's voice. I must rescue her from the water." So he took a torch of grass and by its light descried her in the stream. "Don't be afraid; don't be afraid!" he shouted cheerily, and waded in, and, thanks to his vast strength, as of an elephant, brought her safe to land. Then he made a fire for her in his hermitage and set luscious fruits of divers kinds before her. Not till she had eaten did he ask, "Where is your home, and how came you to fall in the river?" And the girl told him all that had befallen her. "Dwell here for the present," said he, and installed her in his hermitage, whilst for the next two or three days he himself abode in the open air. At the end of that time he bade her depart, but she was set on waiting till she had made the ascetic fall in love with her; and would not go. And as time went by, she so wrought on him by her womanly grace and wiles that he lost his Insight. With her he continued to dwell in the forest. But she did not like living in that solitude and wanted to be taken among people. So yielding to her importunities he took her away with him to a border village, where he supported her by selling dates, and so was called the Date-Sage 1. And the villagers paid

him to teach them what were lucky and unlucky seasons, and gave him a hut to live in at the entrance to their village.
Now the border was harried by robbers from the mountains; and they made a raid one day [297] on the village where the pair lived, and looted it. They made the poor villagers pack up their belongings, and off they went--with the Treasurer's daughter among the rest--to their own abodes. Arrived there, they let everybody else go free; but the girl, because of her beauty, was taken to wife by the robber chieftain.
And when the Bodhisatta learned this, he thought to himself, "She will not endure to live away from me. She will escape and come back to me." And so he lived on, waiting for her to return. She meantime was very happy with the robbers, and only feared that the Date-sage would come to carry her away again. "I should feel more secure," thought she, "if he were dead. I must send a message to him feigning love and so entice him here to his death." So she sent a messenger to him with the message that she was unhappy, and that she wanted him to take her away.
And he, in his faith in her, set out forthwith, and came to the entrance of the robbers' village, whence be sent a message to her. "To fly now, my husband," said she, "would only be to fall into the robber chieftain's hands who would kill us both. Let us put off our flight till night." So she took him and hid him in a room; and when the robber came home at night and was inflamed with strong drink, she said to him, "Tell me, love, what would you do if your rival were in your power?"
And he said he would do this and that to him.
"Perhaps he is not so far away as you think," said she. "He is in the next room."
Seizing a torch, the robber rushed in and seized the Bodhisatta and beat him about the head and body to his heart's content. Amid the blows the Bodhisatta made no cry, only murmuring, "Cruel ingrates! slanderous traitors!" And this was all he said. And when he had thus beaten, bound, and laid by the heels the Bodhisatta, the robber finished his supper, and lay down to sleep. In the morning, when he had slept off his over-night's debauch, he fell anew to beating the Bodhisatta, who still made no cry but kept repeating the same four words. And the robber was struck with this and asked why, even when beaten, he kept saying that. [298]
"Listen," said the Date-Sage, "and you shall hear. Once I was a hermit dwelling in the solitude of the forest, and there I won Insight. And I rescued this woman from the Ganges and helped her in her need, and by her allurements fell from my high estate. Then I quitted the forest and supported her in a village, whence she was carried off by robbers. And she sent me a message that she was unhappy, entreating

me to come and take her away. Now she has made me fall into your hands. That is why I thus exclaim."
This set the robber a-thinking again, and he thought, "If she can feel so little for one who is so good and has done so much for her, what injury would she not do to me? She must die." So having reassured the Bodhisatta and having awakened the woman, he set out sword in hand, pretending to her that he was about to kill him outside the village. Then bidding her hold the Date-Sage he drew his sword, and, making as though to kill the sage, clove the woman in twain. Then he bathed the Date-Sage from head to foot and for several days fed him with dainties to his heart's content.
"Where do you purpose to go now?" said the robber at last.
"The world," answered the sage, "has no pleasures for me. I will become a hermit once more and dwell in my former habitation in the forest."
"And I too will become a hermit," exclaimed the robber. So both became hermits together, and dwelt in the hermitage in the forest, where they won the Higher Knowledges and the Attainments, and qualified themselves when life ended to enter the Realm of Brahma.

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After telling these two stories, the Master chewed the connexion, by reciting, as Buddha, this stanza:--

Wrathful are women, slanderers, ingrates,
The sowers of dissension and fell strife!
Then, Brother, tread the path of holiness,
And Bliss therein thou shalt not fail to find.

[299] His lesson ended, the Master preached the Truths, at the close whereof the passion-tost Brother won the Fruit of the First Path. Also, the Master identified the Birth by saying, "Ānanda was the robber-chief of those days, and I myself the Date-Sage."

Footnotes

156:1 There is a play here upon the word takka, which cannot well be rendered in English. The word takka-paṇḍito, which I have rendered 'Date Sage,' would--by itself--mean 'Logic Sage,' whilst his living was got takkaṁ vikkinitvā 'by selling dates.' There is the further difficulty that the latter phrase may equally well mean by selling buttermilk.'

No. 64.

DURĀJĀNA-JĀTAKA.

"Think’st thou."--This story was told by the Master while at Jetavana, about a lay-brother. Tradition says that there dwelt at Sāvatthi a lay-brother, who was stablished in the Three Gems and the Five Commandments, a devout lover of the Buddha, the Doctrine and the Brotherhood. But his wife was a sinful and wicked woman. On days when she did wrong, she was as meek as a slave-girl bought for a hundred pieces; whilst on days when she did not do

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wrong, she played my lady, passionate and tyrannical. The husband could not make her out. She worried him so much that he did not go to wait on the Buddha.

One day he went with perfumes and flowers, and had taken his seat after due salutation, when the Master said to him:--"Pray how comes it, lay-brother, that seven or eight days have gone by without your coming to wait upon the Buddha?" "My wife, sir, is one day like a slave-girl bought for a hundred pieces, while another day finds her like a passionate and tyrannical mistress. I cannot make her out; and it is because she has worried me so that I have not been to wait upon the Buddha."

Now, when he heard these words, the Master said, "Why, lay-brother, you have already been told by the wise and good of bygone days that it is hard to understand the nature of women." And he went on to add "but his previous existences have come to be confused in his mind, so that he cannot remember." And so saying, he told this story of the past.

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Once on a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta came to be a teacher of world-wide fame, with five hundred young brahmins studying under him. [300] One of these pupils was a young brahmin from a foreign land, who fell in love with a woman and made her his wife. Though he continued to live on in Benares, be failed two or three times in his attendance on the master. For, you should know, his wife was a sinful and wicked woman, who was as meek as a slave on days when she had done wrong, but on days when she had not done wrong, played my lady, passionate and tyrannical. Her husband could not make her out at all; and so worried and harassed by her was he that he absented himself from waiting on the Master. Now, some seven or eight days later he renewed his attendances, and was asked by the Bodhisatta why he had not been seen of late.

"Master, my wife is the cause," said he. And he told the Bodhisatta how she was meek one day like a slave-girl, and tyrannical the next; how he could not make her out at all, and how he had been so worried and harassed by her shifting moods that he had stayed away.

"Precisely so, young brahmin," said the Bodhisatta; "on days when they have done wrong, women humble themselves before their husbands and become as meek and submissive as a slave-girl; but on days when they have not done wrong, then they become stiff-necked and insubordinate to their lords. After this manner are women sinful and wicked; and their nature is hard to know. No heed should be paid either to their likes or to their dislikes." And so saying, the Bodhisatta repeated for the edification of his pupil this Stanza:--

Think’st thou a woman loves thee?--be not glad.
Think’st thou she loves thee not?--forbear to grieve.
Unknowable, uncertain as the path
Of fishes in the water, women prove.

[301] Such was the Bodhisatta's instruction to his pupil, who thenceforward paid no heed to his wife's caprices. And she, hearing that her misconduct had come to the ears of the Bodhisatta, ceased from that time forward from her naughtiness.

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So too this lay-brother's wife said to herself, "The Perfect Buddha himself knows, they tell me, of my misconduct," and thenceforth she sinned no more.

His lesson ended, the Master preached the Truths, at the close whereof the lay-brother won the Fruit of the First Path. Then the Master shewed the connexion and identified the Birth by saying--"This husband and wife were also the husband and wife of those days, and I myself the teacher."

No. 65.

ANABHIRATI-JĀTAKA.

"Like highways."--This story was told by the Master while at Jetavana, about just such another lay-brother as the last. This man, when on enquiry he assured himself of his wife's misconduct, came to words with her, with the result that he was so upset that for seven or eight days he failed in his attendance. One day he came to the monastery, made his bow to the Blessed One and took his seat. Being asked why he had been absent for seven or eight days, he replied, "Sir, my wife has misconducted herself, and I have been so upset about her that I did not come."

"Lay-brother," said the Master, "long ago the wise and good told you not to be angered at the naughtiness found in women, but to preserve your equanimity this, however, you have forgotten, because re-birth has hidden it from you." And so saying, he told--at that lay-brother's request--this story of the past.

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Once on a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta was a teacher of world-wide reputation, as in the foregoing story. And a pupil of his, finding his wife unfaithful, was so affected by the discovery that he stayed away for some days, but being asked one day by his teacher what was the reason of his absence, he made a clean breast of it, Then said his teacher, "My son, there is no private property in women: they are common to all. [302] And therefore wise men knowing

their frailty, are nod excited to anger against them." And so saying, he repeated this stanza for his pupil's edification:--

Like highways, rivers, courtyards, hostelries,
Or taverns, which to all alike extend
One universal hospitality,
Is womankind; and wise men never stoop
To wrath at frailty in a sex so frail.

Such was the instruction which the Bodhisatta imparted to his pupil, who thenceforward grew indifferent to what women did. And as for his wife, she was so changed by hearing that the teacher knew what she was, that she gave up her naughtiness thenceforth.

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So too that lay-brother's wife, when she heard that the Master knew what she was, gave up her naughtiness thenceforth.

His lesson ended, the Master preached the Truths, at the close whereof the lay-brother won the Fruit of the First Path. Also the Master shewed the connexion and identified the Birth by saying, "This husband and wife were also the husband and wife of those days, and I myself the brahmin teacher."

No. 66.

MUDULAKKHAṆA-JĀTAKA.

"Till Gentle-heart was mine."--This story was told by the Master while at Jetavana, about concupiscence. Tradition says that a young gentleman of Sāvatthi, [30;3] on hearing the Truth preached by the Master, gave his heart to the Doctrine of the Three Gems. Renouncing the world for the Brother's life, he rose to walk in the Paths, to practise meditation, and never to slacken in his pondering over the theme he had chosen for thought. One day, whilst he was on his round for alms through Sāvatthi, he espied a woman in brave attire, and, for pleasure's sake, broke through the higher morality and gazed upon her! Passion was stirred within him, he became even as a fig-tree felled by the axe. From that day forth, under the sway of passion, the palate of his mind, as of his body, lost all its gust; like a brute beast, he took no joy in the Doctrine, and suffered his nails and hair to grow long and his robes to grow foul.
When his friends among the Brethren became aware of his troubled state of mind, they said, "Why, sir, is your moral state otherwise than it was?" "My Joy has gone," said he. Then they took him to the Master, who asked them why they had brought that Brother there against his will. "Because, sir, his joy is gone," "Is that true, Brother?" "It is, Blessed One." "Who has troubled you?" "Sir, I was on my round for alms when, violating the higher morality, I gazed on a woman; and passion was stirred within me. Therefore am I

troubled." Then said the Master, "It is little marvel, Brother, that when, violating morality, you were gazing for pleasure's sake on an exceptional object, you were stirred by passion. Why, in bygone times, even those who had won the five Higher Knowledges and the eight Attainments, those who by the might of Insight had quelled their passions, whose hearts were purified and whose feet could walk the skies, yea even Bodhisattas, through gazing in violation of morality on an exceptional object, lost their insight, were stirred by passion, and came to great sorrow. Little recks the wind which could overturn Mount Sineru, of a bare hillock no bigger than an elephant; little recks a wind which could uproot a mighty Jambu-tree, of a bush on the face of a cliff; and little recks a wind which could dry up a vast ocean, of a tiny pond. If passion could breed folly in the supremely-enlightened and pure-minded Bodhisattas, shall passion be abashed before you? Why, even purified beings are led astray by passion, and those advanced to the highest honour, come to shame." And so saying, he told this story of the past.

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Once on a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta was born into a rich brahmin family in the Kāsi country. When he was grown up and had finished his education, he renounced all Lusts, and, forsaking the world for the hermit's life, went to live in the solitudes of the Himalayas. There by due fulfilment of all preparatory forms of meditation, he won by abstract thought the Higher Knowledges and the ecstatic Attainments; and so lived his life in the bliss of mystic Insight.
[304] Lack of salt and vinegar brought him one day to Benares, where he took up his quarters in the king's pleasaunce. Next day, after seeing to his bodily needs, he folded up the red suit of bark which he commonly wore, threw over one shoulder a black antelope's skin, knotted his tangled locks in a coil on the top of his head, and with a yoke on his back from which hung two baskets, set out on his round in quest of alms. Coming to the palace-gates on his way, his demeanour so commended him to the king that his majesty had him brought in So the ascetic was seated on a couch of great splendour and fed with abundance of the daintiest food. And when he thanked the king, he was invited to take up his dwelling in the pleasaunce. The ascetic accepted the offer, and for sixteen years abode in the pleasaunce, exhorting the king's household and eating of the king's meat.
Now there came a day when the king must go to the borders to put down a rising. But, before he started, he charged his queen, whose name was Gentle-heart, to minister to the wants of the holy man. So, after the king's departure, the Bodhisatta continued to go when he pleased to the palace.
One day Queen Gentle-heart got ready a meal for the Bodhisatta; but as he was late in coming, she betook herself to her own toilette. After bathing in perfumed water, she dressed herself in all her splendour,

and lay down, awaiting his coming, on a little couch in the spacious chamber.
Waking from rapture of Insight, and seeing how late it was, the Bodhisatta transported himself through the air to the palace. Hearing the rustling of his bark-robe, the queen started up hurriedly to receive him. In her hurry to rise, her tunic slipped down, so that her beauty was revealed to the ascetic as he entered the window; and at the sight, in violation of Morality he gazed for pleasure's sake on the marvellous beauty of the queen. Lust was kindled within him; he was as a tree felled by the axe. At once all Insight deserted him, and he became as a crow with its wings clipped. Clutching his food, still standing, he ate not, but took his way, all a-tremble with desire, from the palace to his hut in the pleasaunce, set it down beneath his wooden couch and thereon lay for seven whole days a prey to hunger and thirst, enslaved by the queen's loveliness, his heart aflame with lust.
On the seventh day, the king came back from pacifying the border. After passing in solemn procession round the city, he entered his palace. [305] Then, wishing to see the ascetic, he took his way to the pleasaunce, and there in the cell found the Bodhisatta lying on his couch. Thinking the holy man had been taken ill, the king, after first having the cell cleaned out, asked, as he stroked the sufferer's feet, what ailed him. "Sire, my heart is fettered by lust; that is my sole ailment." "Lust for whom?" "For Gentle-heart, sire." "Then she is yours; I give her to you," said the king. Then he passed with the ascetic to the palace, and bidding the queen array herself in all her splendour, gave her to the Bodhisatta. But, as he was giving her away, the king privily charged the queen to put forth her utmost endeavour to save the holy man.
"Fear not, sire," said the queen; "I will save him." So with the queen the ascetic went out from the palace. But when he had passed through the great gate, the queen cried out that they must have a house to live in; and back he must go to the king to ask for one. So back he went to ask the king for a house to live in, and the king gave them a tumble-down dwelling which passers-by used as a jakes. To this dwelling the ascetic took the queen; but she flatly refused to enter it, because of its filthy state.
"What am I to do?" he cried. "Why, clean it out," she said. And she sent him to the king for a spade and a basket, and made him remove all the filth and dirt, and plaster the walls with cowdung, which he had to fetch. This done, she made him get a bed, and a stool, and a rug, and a water-pot, and a cup, sending him for only one thing at a time. Next, she sent him packing to fetch water and a thousand other things. So off he started for the water, and filled up the water-pot, and set out the water for the bath, and made the bed. And, as he sat with her upon the

bed, she took him by the whiskers and drew him towards her till they were face to face, saying, "Hast thou forgotten that thou art a holy man and a brahmin?"
Hereon he came to himself after his interval of witless folly.
(And here should be repeated the text beginning, "Thus the hindrances of Lust and Longing are called Evils because they spring from Ignorance, Brethren; [306] that which springs from Ignorance creates Darkness.")
So when he had come to himself, he bethought him how, waxing stronger and stronger, this fatal craving would condemn him hereafter to the Four States of Punishment 1." This self-same day," he cried, "will I restore this woman to the king and fly to the mountains!" So he stood with the queen before the king and said, "Sire, I want your queen no longer; and it was only for her that cravings were awakened within me." And so saying, he repeated this Stanza:--

Till Gentle-heart was mine, one sole desire
I had,--to win her. When her beauty owned
Me lord, desire came crowding on desire.

Forthwith his lost power of Insight came back to him. Rising from the earth and seating himself in the air, he preached the Truth to the king; and without touching earth he passed through the air to the Himalayas. He never came back to the paths of men; but grew in love and charity till, with Insight unbroken, he passed to a new birth in the Realm of Brahma.

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His lesson ended, the Master preached the Truths, at the close whereof that Brother won Arahatship itself. Also the Master shewed the connexion and identified the Birth by saying, "Ānanda was the King of those days, Uppala-vaṇṇā was Gentle-heart, and I the hermit."

Footnotes

164:1 Hell, the brute-creation, ghostdom, devildom.

No. 67.

UCCHAṄGA-JĀTAKA.

"A son's an easy find."--This story was told by the Master while at Jetavana, about a certain country-woman.
For it fell out once in Kosala that three men were ploughing on the outskirts of a certain forest, and that robbers plundered folk in that forest and made their escape. [307] The victims came, in the course of a fruitless search for the rascals, to where the three men were ploughing. "Here are the forest robbers,

disguised as husbandmen," they cried, and hauled the trio off as prisoners to the King of Kosala. Now time after time there came to the king's palace a woman who with loud lamentations begged for "wherewith to be covered." Hearing her cry, the king ordered a shift to be given her; but she refused it, saying this was not what she meant. So the king's servants came back to his majesty and said that what the woman wanted was not clothes but a husband 1. Then the king had the woman brought into his presence and asked her whether she really did mean a husband.
"Yes, sire," she answered; "for a husband is a woman's real covering, and she that lacks a husband--even though she be clad in garments costing a thousand pieces--goes bare and naked indeed."
(And to enforce this truth, the following Sutta should be recited here:--

Like kingless kingdoms, like a stream run dry,
So bare and naked is a woman seen,
Who, having brothers ten, yet lacks a mate.)

Pleased with the woman's answer, the king asked what relation the three prisoners were to her. And she said that one was her husband, one her brother, and one her son. "Well, to mark my favour," said the king, "I give you one of the three. Which will you take?" "Sire," was her answer, "if I live, I can get another husband and another son; but as my parents are dead, I can never get another brother. So give me my brother, Sire." Pleased with the woman, the king set all three men at liberty; and thus this one woman was the means of saving three persons from peril.
When the matter came to the knowledge of the Brotherhood, they were lauding the woman in the Hall of Truth, when the Master entered. Learning on enquiry what was the subject of their talk, he said, "This is not the first time, Brethren, that this woman has saved those three from peril; she did the same in days gone by." And, so saying, he told this story of the past.

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Once on a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, three men were ploughing on the outskirts of a forest, and everything came to pass as above.
Being asked by the king which of the three she would take, the woman said, "Cannot your majesty give me all three?" "No," said the king, "I cannot." [308] "Well, if I cannot have all three, give me my brother." "Take your husband or your son," said the king. "What matters a brother?" "The two former I can readily replace," answered the woman, "but a brother never." And so saying, she repeated this stanza:--

A son 's an easy find; of husbands too
An ample choice throngs public ways. But where
Will all my pains another brother find?

"She is quite right," said the king, well-pleased. And he bade all three men be fetched from the prison and given over to the woman. She took them all three and went her way.

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"So you see, Brethren," said the Master, "that this same woman once before saved these same three men from peril." His lesson ended, he made the connexion and identified the Birth by saying, "The woman and the three men of to-day were also the woman and men of those bygone days; and I was then the king."
[Note.--Cf. for the idea of the verse Herodotus 118-120, Sophocles Antigone 909-912; and see this passage discussed in the Indian Antiquary for December, 1881.]

Footnotes

165:1 Cf. 'femme couverte.'

 

Om Tat Sat
                                                        
(Continued...) 

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