FOOTNOTES:
[1] James’s ‘Æsop’s Fables’ (London, Murray, 1852), p. 111; La Fontaine, Book v. No. 21; Æsop (in Greek text, ed. Furia, 141, 262; ed. Coriæ, 113); Babrius (Lewis, vol. ii. p. 43).
[2] Benfey’s Pancha Tantra, Book iv., No. 7, in the note on which, at vol. i. p. 462, he refers to Halm, p. 333; Robert, in the ‘Fables inédites du Moyen Age’, i. p. 360; and the Turkish Tūūtī-nāmah (Rosen, vol. ii. p. 149). In India it is found also in the Northern Buddhist Collection called Kathā Sarit Sāgāra, by Somadeva; and in Hitopadesa (iii. 2, Max Müller, p. 110).
[3] Kratylos, 411 (ed. Tauchnitz, ii. 275).
[4] Lucian, Piscator, 32.
[5] Vol. ii. No. 91.
[6] ‘Adagia,’ under ‘Asinus apud Cumanos.’
[7] Act ii. scene 1; and again, Act iii. scene 1.
[8] De Sacy, ‘Notes et Extraits,’ x. 1, 247.
[9] Loc. cit. p. 463.
[10] Pancha Tantra, v. 7. Prof. Weber (Indische Studien, iii. 352) compares Phædrus (Dressler, App. vi. 2) and Erasmus’s ‘Adagia’ under ‘Asinus ad Lyrum.’ See also Tūtī-nāmah (Rosen ii. 218); and I would add Varro, in Aulus Gellius, iii. 16; and Jerome, Ep. 27, ‘Ad Marcellam.’
[11] Pronounced hangsa, often rendered swan, a favourite bird in Indian tales, and constantly represented in Buddhist carvings. It is the original Golden Goose. See below, p. 294, and Jātaka No. 136.
[12] There is an old story of a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, who inherited a family living. He went in great trouble to Dr. Routh, the Head of his College, saying that he doubted whether he could hold, at the same time, the Living and the Fellowship. “You can hold anything,” was the reply, “if you can only hold your tongue.” And he held all three.
[13] In the Vinīla Jātaka (No. 160) they similarly carry a crow to the Himālaya mountains.
[14] Pañca Tantra, vol. i. p. 13, where Professor Benfey (i. 239-241) traces also the later versions in different languages. He mentions Wolff’s German translation of the Kalilah and Dimnah, vol. i. p. 91; Knatchbull’s English version, p. 146; Simeon Seth’s Greek version, p. 28; John of Capua’s Directorium Humanæ Vitæ, D. 5 b.; the German translation of this last (Ulm, 1483), F. viii. 6; the Spanish translation, xix a.; Firenzuola, 65; Doni, 93; Anvār i Suhaili, p. 159; Le Livre des Lumières (1664, 8vo.), 124; Le Cabinet des Fées, xvii. 309. See also Contes et Fables Indiennes de Bidpai et de Lokman, ii. 112; La Fontaine, x. 3, where the ducks fly to America (!); and Bickell’s ‘Kalilag und Dimnag,’ p. 24. In India it is found in Somadeva, and in the Hitopadesa, iv. 2 (Max Müller, p. 125). See also Julien, i. 71.
[15] This version is found in Babrius (Lewis, i. 122); Phædrus, ii. 7 and vii. 14 (Orelli, 55, 128); and in the Æsopæan collections (Fur. 193; Coriæ, 61) and in Abstemius, 108.
[16] Dubois, p. 109.
[17] See La Fontaine, Book i. No. 2, and the current collections of Æsop’s Fables (e.g. James’s edition, p. 136). It should be added that the Jambu-khādaka-saŋyutta in the Saŋyutta Nikāya has nothing to do with our fable. The Jambu-eater of that story is an ascetic, who lives on Jambus, and is converted by a discussion on Nirvāna.
[18] The Siŋhalese text will be found in the ‘Sidat Saŋgarāwa,’ p. clxxvii.
[19] Literally ‘the great medicine.’ The Bodisat of that time received this name because he was born with a powerful drug in his hand,—an omen of the cleverness in device by which, when he grew up, he delivered people from their misfortunes. Compare my ‘Buddhism,’ p. 187.
[20] The Yakshas, products of witchcraft and cannibalism, are beings of magical power, who feed on human flesh. The male Yaksha occupies in Buddhist stories a position similar to that of the wicked genius in the Arabian Nights; the female Yakshiṇī, who occurs more frequently, usually plays the part of siren.
[21] Not quite the same as Jupiter. Sakka is a very harmless and gentle kind of a god, not a jealous god, nor given to lasciviousness or spite. Neither is he immortal: he dies from time to time; and, if he has behaved well, is reborn under happy conditions. Meanwhile somebody else, usually one of the sons of men who has deserved it, succeeds, for a hundred thousand years or so, to his name and place and glory. Sakka can call to mind his experiences in his former birth, a gift in which he surpasses most other beings. He was also given to a kind of practical joking, by which he tempted people, and has become a mere beneficent fairy.
[22] That is, infantry, cavalry, chariots of war, and elephants of war. Truly a useful kind of present to give to a pious hermit!
[23] The power of going through the air is usually considered in Indian legends to be the result, and a proof, of great holiness and long-continued penance. So the hermit thought he would get a fine reputation cheaply.
[24] Compare Mahā-bhārata, xii. 1796.
[25] Fausböll, No. 291.
[26] This is the well-known town in the Panjāb called by the Greeks Taxila, and famed in Buddhist legend as the great university of ancient India, as Nālanda was in later times.
[27] Literally “without partiality and the rest,” that is, the rest of the agatis, the actions forbidden to judges (and to kings as judges).
[28] The gates opening towards the four “directions,” that is, the four cardinal points of the compass.
[29] Mahā Bhārata, v. 1518. Another passage at iii. 13253 is very similar.
[30] Mahā Bhārata, xii. 4052. See Dr. Muir’s “Metrical Translations from Sanskrit Writers” (1879), pp. xxxi, 88, 275, 356.
[31] Similar passages will also be found in Lao Tse, Douglas’s Confucianism, etc., p. 197; Pancha Tantra, i. 247 (277) = iv. 72; in Stobæus, quoted by Muir, p. 356; and in St. Matthew, v. 44-46; whereas the Mallika doctrine is inculcated by Confucius (Legge, Chinese Classics, i. 152).
[32] The names are corruptions of the Indian names of the two jackals, Karatak and Damanak, who take a principal part in the first of the fables.
[33] Phædo, p. 61. Comp. Bentley, Dissertation on the Fables of Æsop, p. 136.
[34] Vespæ, 566, 1259, 1401, and foll.; and Aves, 651 and foll.
[35] Arist. de part. anim., iii. 2; Lucian Nigr., 32.
[36] Herodotus (ii. 134) makes him contemporary with King Amasis of Egypt, the beginning of whose reign is placed in 569 B.C.; Plutarch (Sept. Sap. Conv., 152) makes him contemporary with Solon, who is reputed to have been born in 638 B.C.; and Diogenes Laertius (i. 72) says that he flourished about the fifty-second Olympiad, i.e. 572-569 B.C. Compare Clinton, Fast. Hell. i. 237 (under the year B.C. 572) and i. 239 (under B.C. 534).
[37] One at Heidelberg in 1610, and the other at Paris in 1810. There is a complete edition of all these fables, 231 in number, by T. Gl. Schneider, Breslau, 1812.
[38] See the editions by De Furia, Florence, 1809; Schneider, in an appendix to his edition of Æsop’s Fables, Breslau, 1812; Berger, München, 1816; Knoch, Halle, 1835; and Lewis, Philolog. Museum, 1832, i. 280-304.
[39] Bentley, loc. cit.; Tyrwhitt, De Babrio, etc., Lond., 1776. The editions of the newly-found MS. are by Lachmann, 1845; Orelli and Baiter, 1845; G. C. Lewis, 1846; and Schneidewin, 1853.
[40] It was first edited by Pithou, in 1596; also by Orelli, Zürich, 1831. Comp. Oesterley, ‘Phædrus und die Æsop. Fabel im Mittelalter.’
[41] By Silvestre de Sacy, in his edition of Kalilah and Dimnah, Paris, 1816; Loiseleur Deslongchamps, in his ‘Essai sur les Fables Indiennes, et sur leur Introd. en Europe,’ Paris, 1838; Professor Benfey, in his edition of the Pañca Tantra, Leipzig, 1859; Professor Max Müller, ‘On the Migration of Fables,’ Contemporary Review, July, 1870; Professor Weber, ‘Ueber den Zusammenhang indischer Fabeln mit Griechischen,’ Indische Studien, iii. 337 and foll.; Adolf Wagener, ‘Essai sur les rapports entre les apologues de l’Inde et de la Grèce,’ 1853; Otto Keller, ‘Ueber die Geschichte der Griechischen Fabeln,’ 1862.
[42] J. Gilchrist, ‘The Oriental Fabulist, or Polyglot Translations of Æsop’s and other Ancient Fables from the English Language into Hindustani, Persian, Arabic, Bhakka, Bongla, Sanscrit, etc., in the Roman Character,’ Calcutta, 1803.
[43] Joasaph is in Arabic written also Yūdasatf; and this, through a confusion between the Arabic letters Y and B, is for Bodisat. See, for the history of these changes, Reinaud, ‘Memoire sur l’Inde,’ 1849, p. 91; quoted with approbation by Weber, ‘Indische Streifen,’ iii. 57.
[44] The Buddhist origin was first pointed out by Laboulaye in the Debats, July, 1859; and more fully by Liebrecht, in the ‘Jahrbuch für romanische und englische Literatur,’ 1860. See also Littré, Journal des Savans, 1865, who fully discusses, and decides in favour of the romance being really the work of St. John of Damascus. I hope, in a future volume, to publish a complete analysis of St. John’s work; pointing out the resemblances between it and the Buddhist lives of Gotama, and giving parallel passages wherever the Greek adopts, not only the Buddhist ideas, but also Buddhist expressions.
[45] Pope Benedict XIV. in ‘De servorum Dei beatificatione et beatorum canonisatione,’ lib. i. cap. 45; Regnier, ‘De ecclesiâ Christi,’ in Migne’s Theol. Curs. Compl. iv. 710.
[46] Decret. Greg., Lib. iii. Tit. xlvi., confirmed and explained by decrees of Urban VIII. (13th March, 1625, and 5th July, 1634) and of Alexander VII. (1659).
[47] p. 177 of the edition of 1873, bearing the official approval of Pope Pius IX., or p. 803 of the Cologne edition of 1610.
[48] Cat. Sanct., Leyden ed. 1542, p. cliii.
[49] p. 160 of the part for the month of August of the authorized Μηναῖον of the Greek Church, published at Constantinople, 1843: “Toῖ ὁsίou Ἰωάσαφ, υἱοῦ Ἀβενὴρ τοῦ βασιλέως τῆς Ἰνδίας.”
[50] For the information in the last three pages I am chiefly indebted to my father, the Rev. T. W. Davids, without whose generous aid I should not have attempted to touch this obscure and difficult question.
[51] See, for instance, Billius, and the Italian Editor of 1734.
[52] Comparetti, ‘Ricerche intorne al Libro di Sindibad,’ Milano 1869. Compare Landsberger, ‘Die Fabeln des Sophos,’ Posen, 1859.
[53] See Benfey, Pantscha Tantra, vol i., Introduction, passim.
[54] Act ii. scene 1. Professor Benfey, in his Pantscha Tantra, i. 213-220, has traced this idea far and wide. Dr. Dennys, in his ‘Folklore of China,’ gives the Chinese Buddhist version of it.
[55] See Benfey’s Introduction to Pañca Tantra, §§ 36, 39, 71, 92, 166, 186. Mr. Ralston’s forthcoming translation of Tibetan stories will throw further light on this, at present, rather obscure subject.
[56] See, for example, the Fable translated below, pp. 275-278.
[57] The legend of Sumedha’s self-abnegation (see below, pp. 11-13) is laid near Jelālabad; and Mr. William Simpson has discovered on the spot two bas-reliefs representing the principal incident in the legend.
[58] No. xlv. p. 80 of Swan and Hooper’s popular edition, 1877; No. xlii. p. 167 of the critical edition published for the Early English Text Society in 1879 by S. J. H. Herrtage, who has added a valuable historical note at p. 477.
[59] This adaptation of the Latin title is worthy of notice. It of course means ‘Deeds’; but as most of the stories are more or less humorous, the word Gest, now spelt Jest, acquired its present meaning.
[60] Psalm xiv. 9; Isaiah xiii. 12; Job xxii. 24, xxviii. 16.
[61] Thus, for instance, the Maṇi Kaṇṭha Jātaka (Fausböll, No. 253) is taken from a story which is in both the Pāli and the Chinese versions of the Vinaya Piṭaka (Oldenberg, p. xlvi); the Tittira Jātaka (Fausböll, No. 37, translated below) occurs almost word for word in the Culla Vagga (vi. 6, 3-5); the Khandhavatta Jātaka (Fausböll, No. 203) is a slightly enlarged version of Culla Vagga, v. 6; the Sukhavihāri Jātaka (Fausböll, No. 10, translated below) is founded on a story in the Culla Vagga (vii. 1, 4-6); the Mahā-sudassana Jātaka (Fausböll, No. 95) is derived from the Sutta of the same name in the Dīgha Nikāya (translated by me in ‘Sacred Books of the East,’ vol. ix.); the Makhā Deva Jātaka (Fausböll, No. 9, translated below) from the Sutta of the same name in the Majjhima Nikāya (No. 83); and the Sakuṇagghi Jātaka (Fausböll, No. 168), from a parable in the Satipaṭṭhāna Vagga of the Saŋyutta Nikāya.
[62] See on this belief below, pp. 54-58, where the verses 259-269 are quotations from the Cariyā Piṭaka.
[63] Tāranātha’s ‘Geschichte des Buddhismus’ (a Tibetan work of the eighteenth century, translated into German by Schiefner), p. 92.
[64] Fausböll’s ‘Five Jātakas,’ pp. 58-68, where the full text of one Jātaka is given, and Léon Feer, ‘Etude sur les Jātakas,’ p. 57.
[65] See Table, below.
[66] See the list of these Buddhas below, p. 52, where it will be seen that for the last three Buddhas we have no Birth Story.
[67] This will hold good though the Buddhavaŋsa and the Cariyā Piṭaka should turn out to be later than most of the other books contained in the Three Pāli Piṭakas. That the stories they contain have already become Jātakas, whereas in most of the other cases above quoted the stories are still only parables, would seem to lead to this conclusion; and the fact that they have preserved some very ancient forms (such as locatives in i) may merely be due to the fact that they are older, not in matter and ideas, but only in form. Compare what is said below as to the verses in the Birth Stories.
[68] The question is discussed at length in my ‘Ancient Coins and Measures of Ceylon’ in ‘Numismata Orientalia,’ vol. i.
[69] Dīpavaŋsa, V. 32 and foll.
[70] There are several works enumerated by Mr. Beal in his Catalogue of Chinese Buddhistic Works in the India Office Library (see especially pp. 93-97, and pp. 107-109), from which we might expect to derive this information.
[71] Thus, No. 41 is called both Losaka Jātaka and Mitta-vindaka Jātaka (Feer, ‘Etude sur les Jātakas,’ p. 121); No. 439 is called Catudvāra Jātaka and also Mitta-vindaka Jātaka (Ibid. p. 120); No. 57 is called Vānarinda Jātaka and also Kumbhīla Jātaka (Fausböll, vol. i. p. 278, and vol. ii. p. 206); No. 96 is called Telapatta Jātaka and also Takkasīla Jātaka (Ibid. vol. i. p. 393, and vol. i. pp. 469, 470); No. 102, there called Paṇṇika Jātaka, the same story as No. 217, there called Seggu Jātaka; No. 30, there called Muṇika Jātaka, is the same story as No. 286, there called Sālūka Jātaka; No. 215, the Kacchapa Jātaka, is called Bahu-bhāṇi Jātaka; in the Dhammapada (p. 419); and No. 157 is called Guṇa Jātaka, Sīha Jātaka, and Sigāla Jātaka
[72] Cunningham, ‘The Stupa of Bharhut,’ pl. xlvii. The carving illustrates a fable of a cat and a cock, and is labelled both Biḍala Jātaka and Kukkuṭa Jātaka (Cat Jātaka and Cock Jātaka).
[73] See the authorities quoted in my manual, ‘Buddhism,’ pp. 214, 215; and Dr. Morris, in the Academy for May, 1880.
[74] In his Dictionary, Preface, p. ix, note.
[75] Turnour, pp. 250-253.
[76] Fausböll, vol. i. p. 62 and p. 488; vol. ii. p. 224.
[77] See the translation below, p. 82.
[78] I judge from Turnour’s analysis of that work in the Journal of the Bengal Asiatic Society, 1839, where some long extracts have been translated, and the contents of other passages given in abstract.
[79] ‘Etude sur les Jātakas,’ pp. 62-65.
[80] Ibid. pp. 66-71.
[81] This is clear from vol. i. p. 410 of Mr. Fausböll’s text, where, at the end of the 100th tale, we find the words Majjhima-paṇṇāsako nitthito, that is, ‘End of the Middle Fifty.’ At the end of the 50th tale (p. 261) there is a corresponding entry, Paṭhamo paṇṇōso, ‘First Fifty’; and though there is no such entry at the end of the 150th tale, the expression ‘Middle Fifty’ shows that there must have been, at one time, such a division as is above stated.
[82] See, for instance, above, p. xxvii; and below, p. 185.
[83] ‘Pantscha Tantra,’ von Theodor Benfey, Leipzig, 1859, p. xi.
[84] That is, in the course of Prof. Benfey’s researches.
[85] In ‘Ersch und Grüber’s Encyklopædie,’ especially at pp. 255 and 277.
[86] Wassiliew, ‘Der Buddhismus,’ etc., p. 68.
[87] Compare the title of the Birth Story above, p. xxii, ‘A Lesson for Kings.’
[88] See above, p. xxix.
[89] Knatchbull, p. 29.
[90] Dr. Fitz-Edward Hall’s Vāsavadatta, pp. 22-24.
[91] Dr. Bühler in the Indian Antiquary, i. 302, v. 29, vi. 269.
[92] Nos. 61, 62, 63, 147, 159, 193, 196, 198, 199, 263.
[93] Nos. 106, 145, 191, 286.
[94] Nos. 58, 73, 142, 194, 220, and 277, have the same Introductory Story.
And so Nos. 60, 104, 116, 161.
And Nos. 127, 128, 138, 173, 175.
[95] See the Pāli note at the end of Jātaka No. 91.
[96] pp. 99-106.
[97] Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 28, 29, 37, 55, 56, 68, 85, 87, 88, 97, 100, 114, 136 (total, eighteen in the Eka-Nipāta); 156 (=55, 56), 196, 202, 237 (=68), 241 (total, five in the Duka-Nipāta); 255, 256, 258, 264, 284, 291, 300 (total, seven in the Tika-Nipāta, and thirty altogether).
[98] Nos. 152, 168, 179, 233, 286.
[99] This belief underlies the curious note forming the last words of the Mahā-supina Jātaka, i. 345: “Those who held the Council after the death of the Blessed One placed the lines beginning usabhā rukkhā in the Commentary, and then, making the other lines beginning lābūni into one verse, they put (the Jātaka) into the Eka-Nipāta (the chapter including all those Jātakas which have only one verse).”
[100] See, for instance, below, pp. 212, 228, 230, 317; above, p. xii; and Jātaka No. 113.
[101] Nos. 110, 111, 112, 170, 199 in the Ummagga Jātaka, and No. 264 in the Suruci Jātaka.
No. 30 = No. 286.
No. 34 = No. 216.
No. 46 = No. 268.
No. 57 = No. 224.
No. 68 = No. 237.
No. 86 = No. 290.
No. 102 = No. 217.
No. 145 = No. 198.
So No. 82 = No. 104.
So No. 99 = No. 101.
So No. 134 = No. 135.
So No. 195 = No. 225.
So No. 294 = No. 295.
Compare the two stories Nos. 23 and 24 translated below.
[104] Translated below, pp. 278-290.
[105] Billy (1535-1577) was Abbot of St. Michael’s, in Brittany. Another edition of his Latin version, by Rosweyd, is also reprinted in Migne, ‘Series Latina,’ tom. lxxiii; and several separate editions have appeared besides (Antwerp, 1602; Cologne, 1624, etc.).
[106] The British Museum copy of the first, undated, edition has the date 1539 written, in ink, on the title-page. Rosweyd, in Note 4 to his edition of Billius (Migne, vol. lxxiii, p. 606), mentions an edition bearing the date 1548. In the British Museum there is a third, dated 1575 (on the last page).
[107] These two Jatakas also form the contents of a separate MS. in the Royal Asiatic Society’s Library (Catalogue, p 14).
[108] Translated below, pp. 205, and foll. This is one of those which General Cunningham was unable to identify.
[109] General Cunningham says (p. 52): “The former [Nāga Jātaka, i.e. Elephant Jātaka] is the correct name, as in the legend here represented Buddha is the King of the Elephants, and therefore the Jātaka, or Birth, must of necessity have been named after him.” As I have above pointed out (p. xli), the title of each Jātaka, or Birth Story, is chosen, not by any means from the character which the Bodisat fills in it, but indifferently from a variety of other reasons. General Cunningham himself gives the story called Isī-singga Jātaka (No. 7 in the above list), in which the ascetic after whom the Jātaka is named is not the Bodisat.
[110] Not as yet found in the Jātaka Book; but Dr. Bühler has shown in the ‘Indian Antiquary,’ vol. i. p. 305, that it is the first tale in the ‘Vrihat Kathā’ or Kshemendra (Table I. No. 34), and in the ‘Kathā Sarit Sāgara’ of Somadeva (Table I. No. 33), and was therefore probably included in the ‘Vrihat Kathā’ of Guṇadhya (Table I. No. 32).
[111] The part of the stone supposed to have contained the inscription is lost.
[112] Translated below, pp. 292, 293.
[113] It is mentioned below, p. 128, and is included in the Mahāvastu (Table V.), and forms the subject of the carving on one of the rails at Buddha Gayā (Rajendra Lāl Mitra, pl. xxxiv. fig. 2).
[114] Not as yet found in the Jātaka Book.
[115] Translated below, pp. 186-188. See also above, p. lxiv.
[116] There are four distinct bas-reliefs illustrative of this Jātaka.
[117] General Cunningham’s reading of this inscription as Bhagavato rukdanta seems to me to be incorrect, and his translation of it (’Buddha as the sounding elephant’) to be grammatically impossible.
[118] Lit. perfected the vast constituents of Buddhahood, the Pāramitās are meant.
[119] Lit. in thousands of koṭis of births; a koṭi is ten millions.
[120] The above lines in the original are in verse. I have found it impossible to follow the arrangement of the stanzas, owing to the extreme involution of the style.
[121] An asankheyya is a period of vast duration, lit. an incalculable.
[122] Lit. “caused the drums to be beat.”
[123] Here a gloss in the text enumerates the whole ten cries.
[124] The Bodhisatta is frequently called paṇḍita, e.g. sasapaṇḍito (Five Jāt. 52), Rāmapaṇḍito (Dasaratha Jāt. 1).
[125] Lit. “Extinction.”
[126] Mr. Fausböll points out to me that in tividhaggi and jāti we have Vedic abbreviations.
[127] Evaṁ samāhite citte parisuddhe pariyodāte anaṅgaṇe vigatūpakkilese mudubhūte kammaniye ṭhite ānejjappatte ñāṇadassanāya cittaṁ abhinīharati (Sāmañña-phala Sutta, see Lotus, p. 476, line 14).
[128] Mr. Fausböll writes to me that guṇe for guṇehi must be viewed as an old Pali form originating in the Sanskrit guṇaih.
[129] Here follow four pages of later commentary or gloss, which I leave untranslated.
[130] The following is what I take to be the meaning of this passage: “If I chose I could at once enter the Buddhist priesthood, and by the practice of ecstatic meditation (Jhāna) free myself from human passion, and become an Arhat or saint. I should then at death at once attain Nirvāna and cease to exist. But this would be a selfish course to pursue, for thus I should benefit myself only. Why should I thus slip unobserved and in the humble garb of a monk into Nirvāna? Nay, let me rather qualify myself to become a Buddha, and so save others as well as myself.” This is the great Act of Renunciation by which the Bodhisattva, when Nirvāna was within his grasp, preferred to endure ages of heroic trials in the exercise of the Pāramitās, that he might be enabled to become a Buddha, and so redeem mankind. See D’Alwis’s Introduction to Kachchāyana’s Grammar, p. vi.
[131] What follows from yasmā to nipajji belongs to a later commentary. I resume the translation with p. 15, line 11.
[132] Lit. “raised his right foot (to depart).”
[133] Lit. “at my sitting cross-legged.”
[134] Mr. Fausböll writes that yaṁ is a mistake of the copyist for yá = yáni.
[135] Or “have risen into the air”?
[136] Viz., I suppose, by dragging it forcibly away. This metaphor, which to us appears wanting in dignity, is a favourite one with the Hindus. The tail of the Yak or Tibetan ox (Bos Grunniens) is a beautiful object, and one of the insignia of Hindu royalty.
[137] Lit. “not avoiding anything among things great, small, and middling.”
[138] After kin̅ci understand kulaṁ, as will be seen from v. 143.
[139] Lit. in all postures, walking, standing, etc.
[140] Lit. depart from thy course in the matter of truthful things.
[141] Lit. having made its coldness exactly alike for bad people and good people, pervades them.
[142] i.e. alternately from the first to the tenth and from the tenth to the first.
[143] i.e. put the first last.
[144] Vijesinha.
[145] Vijesinha writes to me, “Natural and intrinsic virtues. The Sinhalese gloss says: paramārthavū rasasahitavū lakshaṇa-œti nohot svabhāvalakshaṇa hā sarvadharmasādhāraṇalakshaṇa-œti. In the latter case it would mean, having the quality of conformity with all laws.”
[146] Vij. says, “In that order, viz. in the Saraṇāgamana first, then in the Pañcasīla, then in the Dasasīla, and so on.”
[147] Lit. “arithmetically innumerable.”
[148] The Banyan-tree.
[149] The three divisions of the Buddhist Scriptures.
[150] The formula by which a Buddha admits a layman to the priesthood.
[151] Vijesinha.
[152] Lit. “like the fathom-light of the others, so the personal lustre of Mangala Buddha remained constantly pervading ten thousand worlds.”
[153] i.e. the Pāramitās.
[154] i.e. his last birth before attaining Buddhahood.
[155] This name means “sharp-fanged.”
[156] In approval of his act of faith.
[157] Lit. “no grief as big as the tip of a hair.”
[158] Viz. Gotama Bodhisatta.
[159] When a good man is in difficulty, Indra is apprised of it by his marble throne becoming warm.
[160] Lit. twelve or thirteen yojanas; a yojana is four leagues.
[161] Used in the ecstatic meditation.
[162] The Pali word for the capital of a column is ghataka, “little pot.”
[163] According to the gloss printed in the text it is a compound of milk, rice, honey, sugar and clarified butter.
[164] Compare Jātaka No. 20 below.
[165] Comp. pp. 19-20, verses 130-134.
[166] See verse 125, above p. 19.
[167] See verse 126, above p. 19.
[168] In the four highest of the thirty-one spheres of existence the angels are unconscious, and the five worlds below these are called the Pure Abodes.
[169] All the following verses down to verse 269 are quotations from the Cariyā-piṭaka.
[170] The Saŋgas, of which there are five—lust, hate, ignorance, pride, and false doctrine.
[171] The names are given in the text; the four Mahārājas, Sakka, Suyāma, Santusita, Paranimitta-vasavatti, and Mahā-Brahma. They are the archangels in the different heavenly seats in each world-system (Cakkavāla) of the Buddhist cosmogony.
[172] In the seas surrounding each continent (Mahādīpa) there are five hundred islands. See Hardy’s Manual of Buddhism, p. 13.
[173] Majjhima-desa, of which the commentator adds, “This is the country thus spoken of in the Vinaya,” quoting the passage at Mahāvagga, v. 13, 12, which gives the boundaries as follows: “To the E. the town Kajaŋgala, and beyond it Mahāsālā; to the S.E. the river Salalavatī; to the S. the town Setakaṇṇika; to the W. the brāhman town and district Thūṇa; and to the N. the Usīraddhaja Mountain.” These are different from the boundaries of the Madhya Desa of later Brahminical literature, on which see Lassen’s ‘Indische Alterthumskunde,’ vol. i. p. 119 (2nd edition). This sacred land was regarded as the centre of Jambudvīpa; that is, of the then known world—just as the Chinese talk of China as the Middle Country, and as other people have looked on their own capital as the navel or centre of the world, and on their world as the centre of the universe.
[174] It is instructive to notice that in later accounts it is soberly related as actual fact that the Bodisat entered his mother’s womb as a white elephant: and the Incarnation scene is occasionally so represented in Buddhist sculptures.
[175] I think this is the meaning of the passage, though Prof. Childers has a different rendering of the similar phrase at verse 104, where I would read “it” instead of “vegetation.” Compare Dāṭhāvaŋsa, i. 45.
[176] I once saw a notice of some mediæval frescoes in which the Holy Child was similarly represented as visible within the Virgin’s womb, but have unfortunately mislaid the reference.
[177] The Madurattha Vilāsinī adds the rest, “I am supreme in the world; this is my last birth; henceforth there will be no rebirth for me.”
[178] There is some mistake here, as the list contains nine—or if the four treasures count as one, only six—Connatal Ones. I think before Kaḷudāyi we should insert Ānanda, the loving disciple. So Alabaster and Hardy (Wheel of the Law, p. 106; Manual of Buddhism, p. 146). Bigandet also adds Ānanda, but calls him the son of Amittodana, which is against the common tradition (Life or Legend of Guadama, p. 36, comp. my Buddhism, p. 52). The legend is certainly, as to its main features, an early one, for it is also found, in greatly exaggerated and contradictory terms, in the books of Northern Buddhists (Lalita Vistara, Foucaux, p. 97, Beal, p. 53, comp. Senart, p. 294).
[179] Samāpatti.
[180] Dhammacakkaŋ pavattessati. See my “Buddhism,” p. 45.
[181] It was considered among the Brāhmans a sign of holiness to wear matted or platted hair. This is referred to in the striking Buddhist verse (Dhammapada, v. 394), “What is the use of platted hair, O fool! What of a garment of skins! Your low yearnings are within you, and the outside thou makest clean!”
[182] “Our master” is here, of course, the sage. It is a pretty piece of politeness, not unfrequent in the Jātakas, to address a stranger as a relation. See below, Jātaka No. 3.
[183] Literally “worth eighty and seven times a koṭi,” both eighty and seven being lucky numbers.
[184] Literally, “and caused him to declare, ‘The way of salvation for Nālaka.’” Perhaps some Sutta is so called. Tathagata, “gone, or come, in like manner; subject to the fate of all men,” is an adjective applied originally to all mortals, but afterwards used as a favourite epithet of Gotama. Childers compares the use of ‘Son of Man.’
[185] Anupādisesāya Nibbāna-dhātuyā parinibbāyi. In the translator’s “Buddhism,” p. 113, an analysis of this phrase will be found.
[186] Literally ‘a retinue thirty-six leagues in circumference,’ where ‘thirty-six’ is a mere sacred number.
[187] Kshatriya was the warrior caste.
[188] A state of religious meditation. A full explanation is given in the translator’s “Buddhism,” pp. 174-176.
[189] A gloss adds, “This should be understood as is related at full in the Sarabhaŋga Jātaka.”
[190] The members of the Buddhist Order of mendicant friars were in the habit of selecting some book or books of the Buddhist Scriptures, which it was their especial duty to learn by heart, repeat to their pupils, study, expound, and preach from. Thus the Dīgha Nikāya, or collection of long treatises, had a special school of “repeaters” (bhāṇakā) to itself.
[191] At critical moments in the lives of persons of importance in the religious legends of Buddhist India, the seat of the Archangel Sakka becomes warm. Fearful of losing his temporary bliss, he then descends himself, or sends Vissakamma, the Buddhist Vulcan, to act as a deus ex machinâ, and put things straight.
[192] The force of this passage is due to the fullness of meaning which, to the Buddhist, the words NIBBUTA and NIBBĀNAŊ convey. No words in Western languages cover exactly the same ground, or connote the same ideas. To explain them fully to any one unfamiliar with Indian modes of thought would be difficult anywhere, and impossible in a note; but their meaning is pretty clear from the above sentences. Where in them, in the song, the words blessed, happy, peace, and the words gone out, ceased, occur, NIBBUTA stands in the original in one or other of its two meanings; where in them the words Nirvāna, Nirvāna of Peace occur, NIBBĀNAŊ stands in the original. Nirvāna is a lasting state of happiness and peace, to be reached here on earth by the extinction of the ‘fires’ and ‘troubles’ mentioned in this passage.
[193] Literally, “The three Bhavas seemed like houses on fire.” The three Bhavas are Existence in the Kāma-loka, and the Rūpa-loka and the Arūpa-loka respectively: that is, existence in the worlds whose inhabitants are subject to passion, have material forms, and have immaterial forms respectively.
[194] Literally, “about an ammaṇa (i.e. five or six bushels) of the large jasmine and the Arabian jasmine.”
[195] The Jātaka Commentary here referred to is, no doubt, the older commentary in Elu, or old Siŋhalese, on which the present work is based.
[196] The word rendered league is yojana, said by Childers (Dictionary, s.v.) to be twelve miles, but really only between seven and eight miles. See my Ancient Coins and Measures, pp. 16, 17. The thirty yojanas here mentioned, together with the thirty from Kapilavastu to the river Anomā, make together sixty, or four hundred and fifty miles from Kapilavastu to Rājagaha, which is far too much for the direct distance. There is here, I think, an undesigned coincidence between Northern and Southern accounts; for the Lalita Vistara (Chap. xvi. at the commencement) makes the Bodisat go to Rājagaha viâ Vesāli, and this would make the total distance exactly sixty yojanas.
[197] These are the superhuman Snakes and Winged Creatures, who were supposed, like the gods or angels, to be able to assume the appearance of men.
[198] Samāpatti.
[199] The Great Struggle played a great part in the Buddhist system of moral training; it was the wrestling with the flesh by which a true Buddhist overcame delusion and sin, and attained to Nirvāna. It is best explained by its fourfold division into 1. Mastery over the passions. 2. Suppression of sinful thoughts. 3. Meditation on the seven kinds of Wisdom (Bodhi-angā, see ‘Buddhism’ p. 173); and 4. Fixed attention, the power of preventing the mind from wandering. It is also called Sammappadhāna, Right Effort, and forms the subject of the Mahā-Padhāna Sutta, in the Dīgha Nikāya. The system was, of course, not worked out at the time here referred to; but throughout the chronicle the biographer ascribes to Gotama, from the beginning, a knowledge of the whole Buddhist theory as afterwards elaborated. For to our author that theory had no development, it was Eternal and Immutable Truth already revealed by innumerable previous Buddhas.
[200] The fruit of the Palmyra (Borassus Flabelliformis) has always three seeds. I do not understand the allusion to a one-seeded Palmyra.
[201] Nāgas, Yakkhas and Supaṇṇas. The Yakkhas are characterized throughout the Jātaka stories by their cannibalism; the female Yakkhas as sirens luring men on to destruction. They are invisible till they assume human shape; but even then can be recognized by their red eyes. That the Ceylon aborigines are called Yakkhas in the Mahāvaŋsa probably results from a tradition of their cannibalism. On the others, see above, p. 88.
[202] His acquisition of the Ten Perfections, or Cardinal Virtues, is described above, pp. 54-58.
[203] Pubbe-nivāsa-ñāna, Dibba-cakkhu, and Paticca-samuppāda.
[204] Compare the Thirty-two Good Omens at the Buddha’s Birth, above, p. 64.
[205] The train of thought is explained at length in my “Buddhism,” pp. 100-112. Shortly, it amounts to this. The Unconscious has no pain: without Consciousness, Individuality, there would be no pain. What gives men Consciousness? It is due to a grasping, craving, sinful condition of heart. The absence of these cravings is Nirvāna. Having reached Nirvāna, Consciousness endures but for a time (until the body dies), and it will then no longer be renewed. The beams of sin, the ridge-pole of care, give to the house of individuality its seeming strength: but in the peace of Nirvāna they have passed away. The Bodisat is now Buddha: he has reached Nirvāna: he has solved the great mystery; the jewel of salvation sought through so many ages has been found at last; and the long, long struggle is over.
The following is Spence Hardy’s literal translation given in his “Manual of Buddhism,” p. 180, where similar versions by Gogerly and Turnour will be found: but they scarcely seem to me to express the inner meaning of these difficult and beautiful verses:—
Through many different births
I have run (to me not having found),
Seeking the architect of the desire resembling house,
Painful are repeated births!
O house-builder! I have seen (thee).
Again a house thou canst not build for me.
I have broken thy rafters,
Thy central support is destroyed.
To Nirvāna my mind has gone.
I have arrived at the extinction of evil-desire.
The figure of the house is found also in Manu (vi. 79-81); in the “Lalita Vistara” (p. 107 of Foucaux’s Gya Tcher Rol Pa); and in the Ādi Granth (Trumpp, pp. 215, 216, 471). The last passage is as follows:—
A storm of divine knowledge has come!
The shutters of Delusion all are blown away—are there no longer;
The posts of Double-mindedness are broken down; the ridge-pole of spiritual Blindness is shattered;
The roof of Craving has fallen on the ground; the vessel of Folly has burst!
[206] See above, p. 2. A similar explanation is here repeated in a gloss.
[207] Literally for four asaŋkheyyas and a hundred thousand kalpas.
[208] Anekakoṭi-sata-sahassā samāpattiyo samāpajjanto.
[209] Yamaka-pāṭihāriyaŋ; literally ‘twin-miracle.’ Comp. pp. 88, 193, of the text, and Mah. p. 107. I am not sure of the meaning of the expression. Bigandet, p. 93, has ‘performed a thousand wonders.’ Hardy, p. 181, omits the clause; and Beal omits the whole episode. A gloss here adds that the Buddha performed a similar miracle on three other occasions.
[210] The monks whose duty it is to learn by heart, repeat, and commentate upon the seven books in the Abhidhamma Pitaka. See above, p. 78.
[211] Vimutti. Perhaps the clause should be rendered: Realizing the sweet sense of salvation gained, and the Truth (Dhamma) may be used in contradistinction to Abhidharma of the rest of the Scriptures.
[212] On these Ten Perfections, see above, pp. 15-18, and pp. 54-58.
[213] Taṇhā, Aratī, and Ragā.
[214] Dhammapada, verses 179, 180.
[215] See “Buddhism,” pp. 108-110.
[216] Ukkala to Majjhima-desa. The latter included all the Buddhist Holy Land from the modern Pātnā to Allahabād. See above, p. 61, note.
[217] See above, p. 93.
[218] We have here an interesting instance of the growth of legend to authenticate and add glory to local relics, of which other instances will be found in “Buddhism,” p. 195. The ancient form of this legend, as found here, must
have arisen when the relics were still in Orissa. Both the Burmese and
Ceylonese now claim to possess them. The former say that the two merchants were Burmese, and that the Dāgaba above referred to is the celebrated sanctuary of Shooay Dagob (Bigandet, p. 101, 2nd ed.). The latter say that the Dāgaba was in Orissa, and that the hair-relics were brought thence to Ceylon in 490 A.D., in the manner related in the Kesa Dhātu Vaŋsa, and referred to in the Mahā Vaŋsa. (See verses 43-56 of my edition of the 39th chap. of the M. V. in the J. R. A. S. 1875.) The legend in the text is found in an ancient inscription on the great bell at Rangoon (Hough’s version in the Asiatic Researches, vol. xvi.; comp. Hardy, M. B. p. 183; Beal, Rom. Leg.) p. 240.
[219] Isipatana, the hermitage in the Deer-forest close to Benares. See above, p. 91.
[220] Tathāgato Sammāsambuddho.
[221] So called from his action on this occasion. See above, pp. 72, 73.
[222] That is, became free from the delusion of soul, from doubt, and from belief in the efficacy of rites and ceremonies. “Buddhism,” pp. 95, 108.
[223] See above p. 89.
[224] Upāsakas; that is, those who have taken the Three Refuges and the vow to keep the Five Commandments (“Buddhism,” pp. 139, 160).
[225] Tiṇṇo, crossed the ocean of transmigration.
[226] That is, the Four Paths, the Four Fruits thereof, Nirvāna, and the Scriptures (or the Truth, Dhamma).
[227] The celebrated verse here referred to has been found inscribed several times in the ruins of the great Dāgaba at Isipatana, and facsimiles are given in Cunningham’s Archæological Reports, plate xxxiv. vol. i. p. 123. The text is given by Burnouf in the Lotus de la Bonne Loi, p. 523; and in the Mahā Vagga, pp. 40, 41. See also Hardy’s Manual, p. 196.
[228] Their then teacher.
[229] Or perhaps, “He formed the Corporation of the Disciples,” that is, the Order of Mendicants.
[230] See above, p. 105. The Dhammapada Commentary, p. 334, has a different account of the miracle performed on this occasion. It says he made a jewelled terrace (ratana-caŋkamaŋ) in the sky, and walking up and down in it, preached the Faith (Dhammaŋ).
[231] Mahā Sammata, the first king among men.
[232] Dhammapāla Jātaka.
[233] See above, p. 89.
[234] Canda-kinnara Jātaka.
[235] Mahādhammapāla Jātaka. See above, p. 126.
[236] This formula has been constantly found in rock inscriptions in India and Ceylon over the ancient cave-dwellings of Buddhist hermits.
[237] Apaṇṇaka Jātaka.
[238] Literally, sat down on one side, avoiding the six improper ways of doing so.
[239] A famous haunt of lions in the Himālaya Mountains.
[240] Trust in the Buddha, in the Order, and in the Truth, which are the ’Three Gems.’
[241] This last quotation is from Dhammapada, verses 188-192.
[242] See above, pp. 54-58, for an explanation of this.
[243] A gloss repeats these descriptions at somewhat greater length.
[244] That is, I think, between the persons in the story on the one hand, and the Buddha and his contemporaries on the other: not, as Childers says (under anusandhi), between the story and the maxim.
[245] The Buddhists had no prayer; their salvation consisting in a self-produced inward change. This could be brought about in various ways, one of which was the kind of meditation here referred to (Kammaṭṭhāna), leading to a firm conviction of the impermanence of all finite things. As every road leads to Rome, so any finite object may be taken as the starting-point from which thought may be taken, by gradually increasing steps, near to the infinite; and so acquire a sense of the proportion of things, and realize the insignificance of the individual. The unassisted mind of the ignorant would naturally find difficulty in doing this; and certain examples of the way in which it might be done were accordingly worked out; and a disciple would go to his teacher, and ask him to recommend which way he should adopt. But the disciple must work out his own enlightenment.
[246] A successful Kammaṭṭhāna, a complete realization of the relation of the individual to the great Sum of all things, will lead to that sense of brotherhood, of humility, of holy calm, which is the “utmost aim,” viz. Nirvāna, and involves, as its result, escape from transmigration.
[247] On this mode of politeness see above, p. 70.
[248] The reader will not take this too seriously. The old lady’s scorn turns as easily here to irony as her gratitude above finds expression in flattery.
[249] What the Happy State is will perhaps best be understood from the enumeration of its six divisions: 1. Faith. 2. Modesty. 3. Fear of sinning. 4. Learning. 5. Energy. 6. Presence of Mind. This Happy State can only be reached in a birth as a man. If being born as a man, one neglects the salvation then within one’s reach, one may pass many ages in other births before a “time of grace” comes round again. It is folly to expect salvation in some other and future world; it can only be gained here, and now.
[250] The introductory story to this Jātaka is used in Rogers’s Buddhagosha’s Parables, pp. 61-68, as the introduction to a different Birth Story. Verse 25 of the Dhammapada is said by the Commentator on that book (Fausböll, p. 181) to have been spoken of Little Roadling, and it would fit very aptly to the present story about him.
[251] Literally, “those subject to transmigration,” that is, those who are not Arahats, whose natural desires have not given way before intense religious conviction.
[252] Taca-pañcaka-kammaṭṭhānaŋ, a formula always repeated at the ordination of a novice. The words of it will be found in Dickson’s Upasampadā-Kammavācā, p. 7. Compare also the note above, p. 147.
[253] The Buddha is frequently represented in the later books as bringing the world before his mind’s eye in the morning, and thus perceiving whom he could benefit during the day.
[254] When the daily meal was to be served in the house of some layman, all the monks invited went there as soon as the time was announced by the “call of refection” being set up, and sat themselves down in the order of their seniority.
[255] Little Roadling has now become an Elder, a monk of the higher of the two grades.
[256] With this story compare Kathā Sarit Sāgarā, Book VI. vv. 29 and foll.
[257] Pronounce Choollacker with the accent on the first syllable.
[258] ‘Uluŋka,’ half a cocoa-nut shell, the common form of cup or ladle among the Indian poor.
[259] So called ironically, from the apt way in which he had learnt the lesson taught him by Chullaka.
[260] Literally, “with a threefold knock,” which I take to mean that the outside attendant announced them to another attendant, he to a third, and the third attendant to their master. The latter thus appeared to be a man of great consequence, as access to him was so difficult, and attended with so much ceremony.
[261] That is, twice a thousand pieces from each of the hundred merchants. But of course he should have paid out of this sum the price of the cargo. It can scarcely be intended to suggest that his acuteness led him to go off without paying for the cargo. The omission must be a slip of the story-teller’s.
[262] Compare Léon Feer in the Journal Asiatique, 1876, vol. viii. pt. ii. pp. 510-525.
[263] The Bhatt’ Uddesika, or steward, was a senior monk who had the duty of seeing that all the brethren were provided with their daily food. Sometimes a layman offered to provide it (e.g. above, p. 162); sometimes grain, or other food belonging to the monastery, was distributed to the monks by the steward giving them tickets to exchange at the storehouse. The necessary qualifications for the stewardship are said to be: 1. Knowledge of the customs regulating the distribution. 2. A sense of justice. 3. Freedom from ignorance. 4. Absence of fear. 5. Good temper.
[264] I am not sure that I have understood rightly the meaning of vassagga,—a word of doubtful derivation, which has only been found in this passage. Possibly we should translate: “The turn for the better rice has come to the monk whose seniority dates from such and such a year, and the turn for the inferior kind to the monk whose seniority dates from such and such a year.”
[265] These lines are not in the printed text. But see the Corrigenda; and Léon Feer, in the Journal Asiatique for 1876, p. 520.
[266] It was on the occasion related in the Introductory Story of this Jātaka, and after he had told the Birth Story, that the Buddha, according to the commentator on that work (Fausböll, pp. 302-305), uttered the 141st verse of the Dhamma-padaŋ. The Introductory Story to No. 32, translated below in this volume, is really only another version of this tale of the luxurious monk.
[267] The elder brother is more advanced in his theology.
[268] The whole of this story, including the introduction, is found also, word for word, in the commentary on the ‘Scripture Verses’ (Fausböll, pp. 302-305); and the commentator adds that the Buddha then further uttered the 141st verse of that collection:
Not nakedness, not plaited hair, not dirt,
Not fasting oft, nor lying on the ground;
Not dust and ashes, nor vigils hard and stern,
Can purify that man who still is tossed
Upon the waves of doubt!
The same verse occurs in the Chinese work translated by Mr. Beal (The ’Dhammapada, etc.,’ p. 96). Another verse of similar purport has been quoted above (p. 69), and a third will be found in Āmagandha Sutta (Sutta Nipāta, p. 168, verse 11). The same sentiment occurs in the Mahā-Bhārta, iii. 13445, translated in Muir’s ‘Metrical Translations from Sanskrit Writers,’ p. 75, and in the Northern Buddhist work Divyāvadāna (Burnouf, Introduction à l’Histoire du Bouddhisme Indien, p. 313).
[269] For Nos. 7 and 8, see respectively Bhaddasāla Jātaka, Book xii., and Saŋvara Jātaka, Book xi.
[270] Comp. the Makhā-deva Sutta, No. 83 in the Majjhima Nikāya.
[271] See above, pp. 81-83.
[272] He is mentioned in the Mahāvaŋsa, p. 8, in a list of the legendary kings of old.
[273] At p. 81, above, the same idea is put into the mouth of Gotama himself.
[274] Ime kilese. The use of the determinative pronoun implies that the king is meant to refer to the particular imperfections known as kilesā. They are acquisitiveness, ill-temper, dullness of perception, vanity, wrong views, doubt, sloth, arrogance, want of self-respect, and want of respect for public opinion.
[275] The whole story is given below, in the Nimi Jātaka, Book xii.
[276] See the Translator’s ‘Buddhism,’ p. 65, and the authorities there quoted, to which add Culla Vagga, VII. i. 1-4. The name Bhaddiya means the Happy One, and the story has very probably arisen in explanation of the name.
[277] The word translated “Happiness” is also a name of Arahatship or Nirvāna (that is, perfect peace, goodness, and wisdom).
[278] This story is founded on the similar story told of Bhaddiya (the same Bhaddiya as the one mentioned in the Introductory Story) in the Culla Vagga, VII. i. 5, 6. The next story but one (the Banyan Deer) is one of those illustrated in the Bharhut sculptures. Both must therefore belong to the very earliest period in Buddhist history.
[279] “The story of Devadatta,” adds a gloss, “as far as his appointment as Abhimāra, will be related in the Khaṇḍahāla Jātaka, as far as his rejection as Treasurer, in the Culla-haŋsa Jātaka, and as far as his sinking into the earth, in the Samudda-vānija Jātaka in the 12th Book.”
[280] See the translator’s ‘Buddhism,’ p. 76.
[281] This verse is quoted by the Dhammapada Commentator, p. 146, where the Introductory Story is substantially the same, though differing in some details. The first line of the verse is curious, as there is nothing in the fable about righteousness or courtesy. It either belonged originally to some other tale, or is made purposely in discord with the facts to hint still more strongly at the absurdity of the worthy deer attempting to make human poetry.
[282] This Introductory Story is given also as the occasion on which v. 160 of the Dhammapada was spoken (Fausböll, pp. 327 and foll.)
[283] The thirty-two constituent parts will be found enumerated in the Khuddaka Pāṭha, p. 3, and most of them are mentioned in the following verses, which are not attributed to the ‘attractive’ young wife, and which sound wooden enough after her spirited outburst. Possibly they are a quotation by this commentator of some monkish rhymes he thinks appropriate to the occasion. The whole of the conversation is omitted in the Dhammapada commentary.
Bound together by bones and sinews,
O’erspread with flesh and integument,
The body is hidden ‘neath its skin,—
It seems not as it really is!
It is filled inside—the trunk is filled—
With liver, and with abdomen;
With heart and lungs, kidney and spleen;
With mucus, matter, sweat, and fat;
With blood, and grease, and bile, and marrow.
And from each of its nine orifices
Impurity flows ever down:
Rheum from the eye, wax from the ear,
From the nose mucus, vomit from the mouth;
And bile and phlegm do both come out
From the perspiring, dirty frame.
Its hollow head, too, is but filled
With the nerve-substance of the brain.
Yet the fool, whom dullness never leaves,
He thinks it beautiful and bright.
The body causes endless ills;—
Resembles just a upas-tree;
The dwelling-place of all disease,
Is but a mass of misery.
Were the inside of this body
Only visible without,
One would have to take a stick in hand
To save oneself from crows and dogs!
Evil-smelling and impure,
The body’s like a filthy corpse;
Despised by those who’ve eyes to see,
It’s only praised by those who’re fools!
[284] Literally reached the chief Fruit; the benefit resulting from the completion of the last stage of the path leading to Nirvāna; that is, Nirvāna itself. It is a striking proof of the estimation in which women were held among the early Buddhists, that they are several times declared to have reached this highest result of intellectual activity and earnest zeal. Compare the Introductory Story to Jātaka No. 234.
[285] Bos Grunniens.
[286] See ‘Buddhism,’ pp. 139, 140.
[287] Quoted by the Dhammapada commentator, p. 329.
[288] The two previous lines should belong, I think, to the explanatory comment.
[289] The story of Raṭṭhapāla is given in the Sutta of that name, translated by Gogerly, J. C. A. S., 1847-1848, p. 95. The same plan was followed by Sudinna as related in the Pārājikaŋ, and translated by Coles, J. C. A. S., 1876-1877, p. 187.
[290] This is the third of the Thirteen just alluded to.
[291] “’Eight-hoofed,’ two hoofs on each foot,” explains the commentator. See note on p. 223.
[292] This amusing Introductory Story will scarcely bear translating.
[293] The verse is very obscure, and the long commentary does not make it clearer. “To keep in any posture that he likes” is literally “having three postures—master of three postures.” “Most swift” is in the original “eight-hoofed.” If “eight-hoofed” means “with two hoofs on each foot,” as the commentator thinks, where would be the peculiarity so creditable to the obedient learner? The last line in the test is so corrupt that the commentator can only suggest three contradictory and improbable explanations. If one could venture to read chavaŋ kalāhati bhoti, one might render, “My nephew, lady, can counterfeit a corpse.” Mr. Trenckner has been good enough to send me the following suggested translation, “The deer, the threefold cunning (?) fertile in expedients, the cloven-footed, who goes to drink at midnight (!?) (don’t fear for him), lying on one ear, panting on the ground, my nephew, by the six tricks he knows will dodge (the hunter).”
[294] Compare the Fable of the Two sides of the Shield.
[295] That is, by the production at their death of angels as the result of their Karma.
[296] That is, in seeking after what they think is salvation (safety from the wrath of a god), fools practise rites and harbour delusions which become spiritual bonds. Death to oneself, and spiritual rebirth, is the only true salvation. The whole parable is a play on the word “Mutti,” which means both salvation, and the performance of, the being delivered from, a vow.
[297] Any one who has seen the restlessness of monkeys in the safe precincts of a Buddhist monastery (or even in the monkey-house at the Zoological Gardens) will appreciate the humour of this description. The Bharhut sculptor, too, has some capital monkeys sitting, like good little boys, and listening to the Bodisat.
[298] This solemn appeal to a former good action, if it be true, is often represented as working a miracle, and is called saccakiriyā, i.e. “truth-act.” Childers properly compares 2 Kings i. 10: “If I be a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven, and consume thee and thy fifty. And there came down fire from heaven and consumed him and his fifty.” But the miracle, said in the Buddhist scriptures to follow on an appeal of this kind, is usually, as in this case, an assistance to some one in distress. On the Perfections, see above, pp. 54 to 58.
[299] This seems to be a gloss, as the writer adds, “He could not have stopped at that point; so it should not thus be understood.”
[300] On this story, see the translator’s “Buddhism,” pp. 196-198.
[301] On this story, see below, Jātaka No. 35.
[302] This verse is quoted by the Dhammapada Commentator, Fausböll, p. 147.
[303] The Commentator on the “Scripture Verses” (p. 331), says that it was at the end of this story that the Buddha uttered the 162nd verse of that Collection—“He who exceeds in wickedness makes himself such as his enemy might desire, (dragging himself down) as the creeper the tree which it has covered.”
[304] Literally, of the Agatis (things of which a judge, and especially a king, sitting as judge, ought not to be guilty); they are four in number, partiality, ill-will, ignorance, and fear.
[305] See the last Introductory Story.
[306] A title of honour given to Sāriputta.
[307] This is verse No. 285 of the ‘Scripture Verses,’ àpropos of which the commentator tells the same story as is told here.
[308] This Introductory Story is also told as the introduction to Jātakas Nos. 141 and 184.
[309] A “Rogue elephant” is a well-known technical term for a male who has been driven out of the herd, and away from the females, by a stronger than himself; or for a male, who, in the rutting season, has lost his self-command. Such elephants, however gentle before, become exceedingly vicious and wanton.
[310] Literally Samaṇa-Brāhmans, the Samaṇas, or Self-conquering Ones, being those who have given up the world, and devoted themselves to lives of self-renunciation and of peace. Real superiority of caste—true Brāmanship—is the result, not of birth, but of self-culture and self-control. The Samaṇas are therefore the true Brāhmans, ‘Brāhmans by saintliness of life.’ The Samaṇas were not necessarily Buddhists, though they disregarded the rites and ceremonies inculcated by the Brāhmans. It would not have answered the king’s purpose to send Brāhmans: who are distinguished throughout the Jātakas, not by holiness of life, but by birth; and who would be represented as likely to talk, not of righteousness, but of ritual. I cannot render the compound, therefore, by ‘Samaṇas AND Brāhmans,’ and I very much doubt whether it ever has that meaning (but see Childers contra, under Samaṇa). It certainly never has the sense of ‘Samaṇas OR Brāhmans.’ It was an early Buddhist idea that the only true Samaṇas were those members of the Order who had entered the Noble Path, and the only true Brāhmans those who had reached to the goal of the Noble Path, that is, to Nirvāna. See Mahā Parinibbana Sutta, p. 58.
[311] Perhaps ‘Woman-face’ would be a more literal rendering of the word Mahilā-mukha. But as the allusion is evidently to the elephant’s naturally gentle character, I have rendered the expression by ‘Girly-face.’ The exaggeration in this story is somewhat too absurd for Western tastes.
[312] So at p. 121 of the Mahāvaŋsa the king sends Mahinda to find out why the state elephant refused his food. Mahinda finds the motive to be that the elephant wants a Dāgaba to be built; and the king, “who always gratified the desires of his subjects,” had the temple built at once! The author of the Mahāvaŋsa must often have heard the Jātaka stories told, and this among the number.
[313] Note by the Commentator. “This so-called enforcing (or illustrating) the story by a discourse on the Four Truths is to be understood at the end of every Jātaka; but we only mention it when it appears that it was blessed (to the conversion of some character in the Introductory Story).”
[314] These “Six” are noted characters in Buddhist legend. They are six bad monks, whose evil deeds and words are said to have given occasion to many a “bye-law,” if one may so say, enacted in the Vinaya Pitaka for the guidance of the members of the Buddhist Order of Mendicants.
[315] This was a December festival, held to celebrate the close of the season of WAS, the four (or, according to some authorities, three) months of rainy weather, during which the members of the Order had to stay in one place. The Buddha had spent WAS among the angels—not, of course, that he cared to go to heaven for his own sake, but to give the ignorantly happy and deluded angels an opportunity of learning how to forsake the error of their ways. In a subsequent form of this curious legend, whose origin is at present unknown, he is said to have descended into hell with a similar object. See Professor Cowell in the Indian Antiquary for 1879.
[316] It will be observed that the old woman’s ‘Blackie’ could understand what was said to him, and make his own meaning understood; but he could not speak.
[317] If Muṇika, the name of the Pig, is derived from the root MAR (B. R. No. 2)—as I think it must be, in spite of the single ṇ—it is a verbal noun derived from a past participle, meaning ‘cut into small pieces.’ The idea is doubtless of the small pieces of meat used for curry, as the Indians had no sausages. I could not dare to coin such a word as ‘Curry-bit-ling,’ and have therefore preserved the joke by using a word which will make it intelligible to European readers.
This well-told story is peculiarly interesting as being one of those Indian stories which have reached Europe independently of both the ‘Kalilag and Dimnag’ and the ‘Barlaam and Josaphat’ literature. Professor Benfey (pp. 228-229 of his Introduction to the Pañca Tantra) has traced stories somewhat analogous throughout European literature; but our story itself is, he says, found almost word for word in an unpublished Hebrew book by Berachia ben Natronai, only that two donkeys take the place of the two oxen. Berachia lived in the twelfth or thirteenth century, in Provence.
One of the analogous stories is where a falcon complains to a cock, that, while he (the falcon) is so grateful to men for the little they give him that he comes and hunts for them at their beck and call, the cock, though fed up to his eyes, tries to escape when they catch him. “Ah!” replies the cock, “I never yet saw a falcon brought to table, or frying in a pan!” (Anvar i Suhaili, p. 144; Livre des Lumières, p. 112; Cabinet des Fées, xvii. 277; Bidpai et Lokman, ii. 59; La Fontaine, viii. 21). Among the so-called Æsop’s Fables is also one where a calf laughs at a draught ox for bearing his drudgery so patiently. The ox says nothing. Soon after there is a feast, and the ox gets a holiday, while the calf is led off to the sacrifice (James’s Æsop, No. 150).
Jātaka No. 286 is the same story in almost the same words, save (1) that the pig’s name is there Sālūha, which means the edible root of the water-lily, and might be freely rendered ‘Turnips’; and (2) that there are three verses instead of one. As special stress is there laid on the fact that ‘Turnips’ was allowed to lie on the heṭṭhā-mañca, which I have above translated ‘sty,’ it is possible that the word means the platform or seat in front of the hut, and under the shade of the overhanging eaves,—a favourite resort of the people of the house.
[318] The following tale is told, with some variations, in the course of the commentary on verse 30 of the Dhammapada (pp. 186 and foll.); but the Introductory Story is there different.
[319] The commentator on the “Scripture Verses” adds an interesting point—that there was an inscription on the pinnacle, and that the Bodisat put up a stone seat under a tree outside, that all who went in might read the letters, and say, “This hall is called the Hall of Piety.”
[320] The “Scripture Verses” commentator (p. 189) avoids the curious abruptness of this rather unkind remark by adding that the reason for this was that Well-born’s being the Bodisat’s niece and servant, she thought she would share in the merit of his part in the work.
[321] Vejayanta. Compare what is said above, p. 97, of Māra’s vāhana, Giri-mekhala.
[322] That is, his own angels and those of the archangel Brahma.
[323] In this story we have a good example of the way in which the current legends, when adopted by the Buddhists, were often so modified as to teach lessons of an effect exactly contrary to those they had taught before. It is with a touch of irony that Sakka is made to conquer the Titans, not by might, but through his kindness to animals.
[324] See above, p. 178.
[325] How this was done, and the lasting feud which the election gave rise to between the owl and the crow, is told at length in Jātaka No. 270. The main story in Book III. of the Pañca Tantra is founded on this feud.
[326] This fable forms one of those illustrations of which were carved in bas relief round the Great Tope at Bharhut. There the fair gosling is represented just choosing the peacock for her husband; so this tale must be at least sixteen hundred years old. The story has not reached Europe; but it is referred to in a stanza occurring in, according to Benfey, the oldest recension of the Pañca Tantra contained in the Berlin MS. See Benfey, i. § 98, p. 280; and Kahn, ‘Sagwissenschaftliche Studien,’ p. 69.
The word Haŋsa, which I have here translated Goose, means more exactly a wild duck; and the epithet ‘Golden’ is descriptive of its beauty of colour. But the word Haŋsa is etymologically the same as our word Goose (compare the German Gans); and the epithet ‘golden,’ when applied to a goose, being meaningless as descriptive of outward appearance, gave rise to the fable of the Goose with the Golden Eggs. The latter is therefore a true ’myth,’ born of a word-puzzle, invented to explain an expression which had lost its meaning through the progress of linguistic growth.
[327] Professor Benfey, in the Introduction to his Pañca Tantra (vol. i. p. 304), and Professor Fausböll in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1870, have dealt with the history of this story. It has not been found in Europe, but occurs in somewhat altered form in the Mahā-bhārata (Book V. vv. 2455 and foll.), in the first Book of the Hitopadesa, and in the second Book of the Pañca Tantra. The Buddhist story is evidently the origin of the others.
[328] This story has several points of affinity with the one above, No. 13 (pp. 211-213), on the stag who came to his death through his thoughtless love for the roe.
[329] See above, p. 235.
[330] Bheṇḍuka.
[331] It is difficult to convey the impression of the mystic epithet here used of fire. Jātaveda must mean “he who possesses (or perhaps possesses the knowledge of) all that is produced.” It is used not infrequently in the Vedic literature as a peculiarly holy and mystical epithet of Agni, the personification of the mysterious element of fire, and seems to refer to its far-reaching, all-embracing power.
[332] This story is referred to as one of the ‘kalpa-enduring miracles’ in Jātaka No. 20 above, p. 235.
[333] See above, p. 130.
[334] See the translator’s ‘Buddhism,’ pp. 108 and 174-177 (2nd edition).
[335] This Birth Story, with the same Introductory Story, is found, in nearly identical terms, in the Culla Vagga (vi. 6). The story, therefore, is at least as old as the fourth century B.C. Jātaka No. 117 is also called the Tittira Jātaka.
[336] This fable is a great favourite. It was among those translated into the Syriac and Arabic, and has been retained in all the versions of the Kalila and Dimna series, while it occurs in the Arabian Nights, and in the story-books of the Northern Buddhists and of the Hindus. It has been already traced through all the following story-books (whose full titles, and historical connexion, are given in the Tables appended to the Introduction to this volume).
Kalilag und Dimnag, pp. 12, 13.
Sylvestre de Sacy, chapter v.
Wolf, vol. i. p. 41.
Anvār i Suhaili, p. 117.
Knatchbull, pp. 113-115.
Symeon Seth (Athens edition), p. 16.
John of Capua, c. 4 b.
’Ulm’ German text, D. V. b.
The Spanish version, xiii. 6.
Firenzuola, p. 39.
Doni, p. 59.
Livre des Lumières, p. 92.
Cabinet des Fées, xvii. p. 221.
Livre des Merveilles (du Meril in a note to Batalo, p. 238).
Contes et Fables Indiennes de Bidpai et de Lokman, i. p. 357.
La Fontaine, x. 4.
Arabian Nights (Weil, iv. 915).
Pañca Tantra, i. 7 (comp. ii. 58).
Hitopadesa, iv. 7 (Max Müller. p. 118).
Kathā Sarit Sāgara Tar. lx. 79-90.
Dhammapada, p. 155.
Professor Benfey has devoted a long note to the history of the story (Introduction to the Pañca Tantra, i. 174, § 60), and I have only succeeded in adding, in a few details, to his results. The tale is told very lamely, as compared with the Pāli original, in all those versions I have been able to consult. It is strange that so popular a tale was not included by Planudes or his successors in their collections of so-called Æsop’s Fables.
[337] In the so-called Æsop’s Fables are several on the text that a haughty spirit goeth before a fall; for instance, ‘The Charger and the Ass,’ ‘The Bull and the Frog,’ and ‘The Oats and the Reeds’; but this is the only story I know directed against the pride arising from the temporary possession of wealth.
[338] It is a great breach of etiquette for an inferior to remain in any place above that where his superior is.
[339] One who has the power of gaining salvation for himself; but not of giving others the knowledge of it. The Birth Story to which this is an Introduction is about a gift to a Pacceka Buddha.
[340] Ariya-puggalas, the persons who, by self-culture and self-control, have entered respectively on the Four Stages, and have reached the Four Fruits of the Noble Eightfold path.
[341] This story is quoted in ‘Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio,’ translated by Herbert A. Giles, vol. i. p. 396.