SUMMARY.

To sum up what can at present be said on the connexion between the Indian tales, preserved to us in the Book of Buddhist Birth Stories, and their counterparts in the West:—

1. In a few isolated passages of Greek and other writers, earlier than the invasion of India by Alexander the Great, there are references to a legendary Æsop, and perhaps also allusions to stories like some of the Buddhist ones.

2. After Alexander’s time a number of tales also found in the Buddhist collection became current in Greece, and are preserved in the poetical versions of Babrius and Phædrus. They are probably of Buddhist origin.

3. From the time of Babrius to the time of the first Crusade no migration of Indian tales to Europe can be proved to have taken place. About the latter time a translation into Arabic of a Persian work containing tales found in the Buddhist book was translated by Jews into Greek, Hebrew, and Latin. Translations of these versions afterwards appeared in all the principal languages of Europe.

4. In the eleventh or twelfth century a translation was made into Latin of the legend of Barlaam and Josaphat, a Greek romance written in the eighth century by St. John of Damascus on the basis of the Buddhist Jātaka book. Translations, poems, and plays founded on this work were rapidly produced throughout Western Europe.

5. Other Buddhist stories not included in either of the works mentioned in the two last paragraphs were introduced into Europe both during the Crusades and also during the dominion of the Arabs in Spain.

6. Versions of other Buddhist stories were introduced into Eastern Europe by the Huns under Genghis Khān.

7. The fables and stories introduced through these various channels became very popular during the Middle Ages, and were used as the subjects of numerous sermons, story-books, romances, poems, and edifying dramas. Thus extensively adopted and circulated, they had a considerable influence on the revival of literature, which, hand in hand with the revival of learning, did so much to render possible and to bring about the Great Reformation. The character of the hero of them—the Buddha, in his last or in one or other of his supposed previous births—appealed so strongly to the sympathies, and was so attractive to the minds of mediæval Christians, that he became, and has ever since remained, an object of Christian worship. And a collection of these and similar stories—wrongly, but very naturally, ascribed to a famous story-teller of the ancient Greeks—has become the common property, the household literature, of all the nations of Europe; and, under the name of Æsop’s Fables, has handed down, as a first moral lesson-book and as a continual feast for our children in the West, tales first invented to please and to instruct our far-off cousins in the distant East.

PART II.
ON THE HISTORY OF THE BIRTH STORIES IN INDIA.

In the previous part of this Introduction I have attempted to point out the resemblances between certain Western tales and the Buddhist Birth Stories, to explain the reason of those resemblances, and to trace the history of the Birth Story literature in Europe. Much remains yet to be done to complete this interesting and instructive history; but the general results can already be stated with a considerable degree of certainty, and the literature in which further research will have to be made is accessible in print in the public libraries of Europe.

For the history in India of the Jātaka Book itself, and of the stories it contains, so little has been done, that one may say it has still to be written; and the authorities for further research are only to be found in manuscripts very rare in Europe, and written in languages for the most part but little known. Much of what follows is necessarily therefore very incomplete and provisional.

In some portions of the Brāhmanical literature, later than the Vedas, and probably older than Buddhism, there are found myths and legends of a character somewhat similar to a few of the Buddhist ones. But, so far as I know, no one of these has been traced either in Europe or in the Buddhist Collection.

On the other hand, there is every reason to hope that in the older portions of the Buddhist Scriptures a considerable number of the tales also included in the Jātaka Book will be found in identical or similar forms; for even in the few fragments of the Piṭakas as yet studied, several Birth Stories have already been discovered.[61] These occur in isolated passages, and, except the story of King Mahā Sudassana, have not as yet become Jātakas,—that is, no character in the story is identified with the Buddha in one or other of his supposed previous births. But one book included in the Pāli Piṭakas consists entirely of real Jātaka stories, all of which are found in our Collection.

The title of this work is Cariyā-piṭaka; and it is constructed to show when, and in what births, Gotama had acquired the Ten Great Perfections (Generosity, Goodness, Renunciation, Wisdom, Firmness, Patience, Truth, Resolution, Kindness, and Equanimity), without which he could not have become a Buddha. In striking analogy with the modern view, that true growth in moral and intellectual power is the result of the labours, not of one only, but of many successive generations; so the qualifications necessary for the making of a Buddha, like the characters of all the lesser mortals, cannot be acquired during, and do not depend upon the actions of, one life only, but are the last result of many deeds performed through a long series of consecutive lives.[62]

To each of the first two of these Ten Perfections a whole chapter of this work is devoted, giving in verse ten examples of the previous births in which the Bodisat or future Buddha had practised Generosity and Goodness respectively. The third chapter gives only fifteen examples of the lives in which he acquired the other eight of the Perfections. It looks very much as if the original plan of the unknown author had been to give ten Birth Stories for each of the Ten Perfections. And, curiously enough, the Northern Buddhists have a tradition that the celebrated teacher Aṣvagosha began to write a work giving ten Births for each of the Ten Perfections, but died when he had versified only thirty-four.[63] Now there is a Sanskrit work called Jātaka Mālā, as yet unpublished, but of which there are several MSS. in Paris and in London, consisting of thirty-five Birth Stories in mixed prose and verse, in illustration of the Ten Perfections.[64] It would be premature to attempt to draw any conclusions from these coincidences, but the curious reader will find in a Table below a comparative view of the titles of the Jātakas comprised in the Cariyā Piṭaka and in the Jātaka Mālā.[65]

There is yet another work in the Pāli Piṭakas which constantly refers to the Jātaka theory. The Buddhavaŋsa, which is a history of all the Buddhas, gives an account also of the life of the Bodisat in the character he filled during the lifetime of each of twenty-four of the previous Buddhas. It is on that work that a great part of the Pāli Introduction to our Jātaka Book is based, and most of the verses in the first fifty pages of the present translation are quotations from the Buddhavaŋsa. From this source we thus have authority for twenty-four Birth Stories, corresponding to the first twenty-four of the twenty-seven previous Buddhas,[66] besides the thirty-four in illustration of the Perfections, and the other isolated ones I have mentioned.

Beyond this it is impossible yet to state what proportion of the stories in the Jātaka Book can thus be traced back to the earlier Pāli Buddhist literature; and it would be out of place to enter here upon any lengthy discussion of the difficult question as to the date of those earlier records. The provisional conclusions as to the age of the Sutta and Vinaya reached by Dr. Oldenberg in the very able introduction prefixed to his edition of the text of the Mahā Vagga, and summarized at p. xxxviii of that work, will be sufficient for our present purposes. It may be taken as so highly probable as to be almost certain, that all those Birth Stories, which are not only found in the so-called Jātaka Book itself, but are also referred to in these other parts of the Pāli Piṭakas, are at least older than the Council of Vesāli.[67]

The Council of Vesāli was held about a hundred years after Gotama’s death, to settle certain disputes as to points of discipline and practice which had arisen among the members of the Order. The exact date of Gotama’s death is uncertain;[68] and in the tradition regarding the length of the interval between that event and the Council, the ‘hundred years’ is of course a round number. But we can allow for all possibilities, and still keep within the bounds of certainty, if we fix the date of the Council of Vesāli at within thirty years of 350 B.C.

The members of the Buddhist Order of Mendicants were divided at that Council—as important for the history of Buddhism as the Council of Nice is for the history of Christianity—into two parties. One side advocated the relaxation of the rules of the Order in ten particular matters, the others adopted the stricter view. In the accounts of the matter, which we at present only possess from the successors of the stricter party (or, as they call themselves, the orthodox party), it is acknowledged that the other, the laxer side, were in the majority; and that when the older and more influential members of the Order decided in favour of the orthodox view, the others held a council of their own, called, from the numbers of those who attended it, the Great Council.

Now the oldest Ceylon Chronicle, the Dīpavaŋsa, which contains the only account as yet published of what occurred at the Great Council, says as follows:[69]—

“The monks of the Great Council turned the religion upside down;

They broke up the original Scriptures, and made a new recension;

A discourse put in one place they put in another;

They distorted the sense and the teaching of the Five Nikāyas.

Those monks—knowing not what had been spoken at length, and what concisely,

What was the obvious, and what was the higher meaning—

Attached new meaning to new words, as if spoken by the Buddha,

And destroyed much of the spirit by holding to the shadow of the letter.

In part they cast aside the Sutta and the Vinaya so deep,

And made an imitation Sutta and Vinaya, changing this to that.

The Pariwāra abstract, and the Six Books of Abhidhamma;

The Paṭisambhidā, the Niddesa, and a portion of the Jātaka—

So much they put aside, and made others in their place!”...

The animus of this description is sufficiently evident; and the Dīpavaŋsa, which cannot have been written earlier than the fourth century after the commencement of our era, is but poor evidence of the events of seven centuries before. But it is the best we have; it is acknowledged to have been based on earlier sources, and it is at least reliable evidence that, according to Ceylon tradition, a book called the Jātaka existed at the time of the Councils of Vesāli.

As the Northern Buddhists are the successors of those who held the Great Council, we may hope before long to have the account of it from the other side, either from the Sanskrit or from the Chinese.[70] Meanwhile it is important to notice that the fact of a Book of Birth Stories having existed at a very early date is confirmed, not only by such stories being found in other parts of the Pāli Piṭakas, but also by ancient monuments.

Among the most interesting and important discoveries which we owe to recent archæological researches in India must undoubtedly be reckoned those of the Buddhist carvings on the railings round the dome-shaped relic shrines of Sānchi, Amaravatī, and Bharhut. There have been there found, very boldly and clearly sculptured in deep bas-relief, figures which were at first thought to represent merely scenes in Indian life. Even so their value as records of ancient civilization would have been of incalculable value; but they have acquired further importance since it has been proved that most of them are illustrations of the sacred Birth Stories in the Buddhist Jātaka book,—are scenes, that is, from the life of Gotama in his last or previous births. This would be incontestable in many cases from the carvings themselves, but it is rendered doubly sure by the titles of Jātakas having been found inscribed over a number of those of the bas-reliefs which have been last discovered—the carvings, namely, on the railing at Bharhut.

It is not necessary to turn aside here to examine into the details of these discoveries. It is sufficient for our present inquiry into the age of the Jātaka stories that these ancient bas-reliefs afford indisputable evidence that the Birth Stories were already, at the end of the third century B.C., considered so sacred that they were chosen as the subjects to be represented round the most sacred Buddhist buildings, and that they were already popularly known under the technical name of ‘Jātakas.’ A detailed statement of all the Jātakas hitherto discovered on these Buddhist railings, and other places, will be found in one of the Tables appended to this Introduction; and it will be noticed that several of those tales translated below in this volume had thus been chosen, more than two thousand years ago, to fill places of honour round the relic shrines of the Great Teacher.

One remarkable fact apparent from that Table will be that the Birth Stories are sometimes called in the inscriptions over the bas-reliefs by names different from those given to them in the Jātaka Book in the Pāli Piṭakas. This would seem, at first sight, to show that, although the very stories as we have them must have been known at the time when the bas-reliefs were carved, yet that the present collection, in which different names are clearly given at the end of each story, did not then exist. But, on the other hand, we not only find in the Jātaka Book itself very great uncertainty as to the names,—the same stories being called in different parts of the Book by different titles,[71]—but one of these very bas-reliefs has actually inscribed over it two distinct names in full![72]

The reason for this is very plain. When a fable about a lion and a jackal was told (as in No. 157) to show the advantage of a good character, and it was necessary to choose a short title for it, it was called ’The Lion Jātaka,’ or ‘The Jackal Jātaka,’ or even ’The Good Character Jātaka’; and when a fable was told about a tortoise, to show the evil results which follow on talkativeness (as in No. 215), the fable might as well be called ‘The Chatterbox Jātaka’ as ‘The Tortoise Jātaka,’ and the fable is referred to accordingly under both those names. It must always have been difficult, if not impossible, to fix upon a short title which should at once characterize the lesson to be taught, and the personages through whose acts it was taught; and different names would thus arise, and become interchangeable. It would be wrong therefore to attach too much importance to the difference of the names on the bas-reliefs and in the Jātaka Book. And in translating the titles we need not be afraid to allow ourselves a latitude similar to that which was indulged in by the early Buddhists themselves.

There is yet further evidence confirmatory of the Dīpavaŋsa tradition. The Buddhist Scriptures are sometimes spoken of as consisting of nine different divisions, or sorts of texts (Aŋgāni), of which the seventh is ’Jātakas,’ or ‘The Jātaka Collection’ (Jātakaŋ). This division of the Sacred Books is mentioned, not only in the Dīpavaŋsa itself, and in the Sumaŋgala Vilāsinī, but also in the Aŋguttara Nikāya (one of the later works included in the Pāli Piṭakas), and in the Saddharma Puṇḍarīka (a late, but standard Sanskrit work of the Northern Buddhists).[73] It is common, therefore, to both of the two sections of the Buddhist Church; and it follows that it was probably in use before the great schism took place between them, possibly before the Council of Vesāli itself. In any case it is conclusive as to the existence of a collection of Jātakas at a very early date.

The text of the Jātaka Book, as now received among the Southern Buddhists, consists, as will be seen from the translation, not only of the stories, but of an elaborate commentary, containing a detailed Explanation of the verse or verses which occur in each of the stories; an Introduction to each of them, giving the occasion on which it is said to have been told; a Conclusion, explaining the connexion between the personages in the Introductory Story and the characters in the Birth Story; and finally, a long general Introduction to the whole work. It is, in fact, an edition by a later hand of the earlier stories; and though I have called it concisely the Jātaka Book, its full title is ‘The Commentary on the Jātakas.’

We do not know either the name of the author of this work, or the date when it was composed. The meagre account given at the commencement of the work itself (below, pp. 1, 2) contains all our present information on these points. Mr. Childers, who is the translator of this passage, has elsewhere ascribed the work to Buddhaghosa;[74] but I venture to think that this is, to say the least, very uncertain.

We have, in the thirty-seventh chapter of the Mahāvaŋsa,[75] a perhaps almost contemporaneous account of Buddhaghosa’s literary work; and it is there distinctly stated, that after writing in India the Atthasālinī (a commentary on the Dhammasaŋginī, the first of the Six Books of the Abhidhamma Piṭaka), he went to Ceylon (about 430 A.D.) with the express intention of translating the Siŋhalese commentaries into Pāli. There he studied under the Thera Saŋghapāli, and having proved his efficiency by his great work ‘The Path of Purity’ (Visuddhi-Magga, a compendium of all Buddhism), he was allowed by the monks in Ceylon to carry out his wish, and translate the commentaries. The Chronicle then goes on to say that he did render ‘the whole Siŋhalese Commentary’ into Pāli. But it by no means follows, as has been too generally supposed, that he was the author of all the Pāli Commentaries we now possess. He translated, it may be granted, the Commentaries on the Vinaya Piṭaka and on the four great divisions (Nikāyas) of the Sutta Pitaka; but these works, together with those mentioned above, would amply justify the very general expression of the chronicler. The ‘Siŋhalese Commentary’ being now lost, it is impossible to say what books were and what were not included under that expression as used in the Mahāvaŋsa; and to assign any Pāli commentary, other than those just mentioned, to Buddhaghosa, some further evidence more clear than the ambiguous words of the Ceylon Chronicle should be required.

What little evidence we have as regards the particular work now in question seems to me to tend very strongly in the other direction. Buddhaghosa could scarcely have commenced his labours on the Jātaka Commentary, leaving the works I have mentioned—so much more important from his point of view—undone. Now I would ask the reader to imagine himself in Buddhaghosa’s position, and then to read carefully the opening words of our Jātaka Commentary as translated below, and to judge for himself whether they could possibly be such words as Buddhaghosa would probably, under the circumstances, have written. It is a matter of feeling; but I confess I cannot think it possible that he was the author of them. Three Elders of the Buddhist Order are there mentioned with respect, but neither the name of Revata, Buddhaghosa’s teacher in India, nor the name of Saŋghāpali, his teacher in Ceylon, is even referred to; and there is not the slightest allusion either to Buddhaghosa’s conversion, his journey from India, the high hopes he had entertained, or the work he had already accomplished! This silence seems to me almost as convincing as such negative evidence can possibly be.

If not however by Buddhaghosa, the work must have been composed after his time; but probably not long after. It is quite clear from the account in the Mahāvaŋsa, that before he came to Ceylon the Siŋhalese commentaries had not been turned into Pāli; and on the other hand, the example he had set so well will almost certainly have been quickly followed. We know one instance at least, that of the Mahāvaŋsa itself, which would confirm this supposition; and had the present work been much later than his time, it would not have been ascribed to Buddhaghosa at all.

It is worthy of notice, perhaps, in this connexion, that the Pāli work is not a translation of the Siŋhalese Commentary. The author three times refers to a previous Jātaka Commentary, which possibly formed part of the Siŋhalese work, as a separate book;[76] and in one case mentions what it says only to overrule it.[77] Our Pāli work may have been based upon it, but cannot be said to be a mere version of it. And the present Commentary agrees almost word for word, from p. 58 to p. 124 of my translation, with the Madhura-attha-vilāsinī, the Commentary on the ‘Buddhavaŋsa’ mentioned above, which is not usually ascribed to Buddhaghosa.[78]

The Jātaka Book is not the only Pāli Commentary which has made use of the ancient Birth Stories. They occur in numerous passages of the different exegetical works composed in Ceylon, and the only commentary of which anything is known in print, that on the Dhamma-padaŋ or ‘Collection of Scripture Verses,’ contains a considerable number of them. Mr. Fausböll has published copious extracts from this Commentary, which may be by Buddhaghosa, as an appendix to his edition of the text; and the work by Captain Rogers, entitled ‘Buddhaghosa’s Parables’—a translation from a Burmese book called ‘Dhammapada-vatthu’ (that is ’Stories connected with the Dhamma-padaŋ’)—consists almost entirely of Jātaka tales.

In Siam there is even a rival collection of Birth Stories, which is called Paṇṇāsa-Jātakaŋ (’The Fifty Jātakas’), and of which an account has been given us by M. Léon Feer;[79] and the same scholar has pointed out that isolated stories, not contained in our collection, are also to be found in the Pāli literature of that country.[80] The first hundred and fifty tales in our collection are divided into three Paṇṇāsas, or fifties;[81] but the Siamese collection cannot be either of these, as M. Feer has ascertained that it contains no tales beginning in the same way as any of those in either of these three ‘Fifties.’

In India itself the Birth Stories survived the fall, as some of them had probably preceded the rise, of Buddhism. Not a few of them were preserved by being included in the Mahā Bhārata, the great Hindu epic which became the storehouse of Indian mythology, philosophy, and folk-lore.[82] Unfortunately, the date of the final arrangement of the Mahā Bhārata, is extremely uncertain, and there is no further evidence of the continued existence of the Jātaka tales till we come to the time of the work already frequently referred to—the Pancha Tantra.

It is to the history of this book that Professor Benfey has devoted that elaborate and learned Introduction which is the most important contribution to the study of this class of literature as yet published; and I cannot do better than give in his own words his final conclusions as to the origin of this popular storybook:[83]—

“Although we are unable at present to give any certain information either as to the author or as to the date of the work, we receive, as it seems to me, no unimportant compensation in the fact, that it turned out,[84] with a certainty beyond doubt, to have been originally a Buddhist book. This followed especially from the chapter discussed in § 225. But it was already indicated by the considerable number of the fables and tales contained in the work, which could also be traced in Buddhist writings. Their number, and also the relation between the form in which they are told in our work, and that in which they appear in the Buddhist writings, incline us—nay, drive us—to the conclusion that the latter were the source from which our work, within the circle of Buddhist literature, proceeded....

“The proof that our work is of Buddhist origin is of importance in two ways: firstly—on which we will not here further insist—for the history of the work itself; and secondly, for the determination of what Buddhism is. We can find in it one more proof of that literary activity of Buddhism, to which, in my articles on ‘India,’ which appeared in 1840,[85] I had already felt myself compelled to assign the most important place in the enlightenment and general intellectual development of India. This view has since received, from year to year, fresh confirmations, which I hope to bring together in another place; and whereby I hope to prove that the very bloom of the intellectual life of India (whether it found expression in Brahmanical or Buddhist works) proceeded substantially from Buddhism, and is contemporaneous with the epoch in which Buddhism flourished;—that is to say, from the third century before Christ to the sixth or seventh century after Christ. With that principle, said to have been proclaimed by Buddhism in its earliest years, ‘that only that teaching of the Buddha’s is true which contraveneth not sound reason,’[86] the autonomy of man’s Intellect was, we may fairly say, effectively acknowledged; the whole relation between the realms of the knowable and of the unknowable was subjected to its control; and notwithstanding that the actual reasoning powers, to which the ultimate appeal was thus given, were in fact then not altogether sound, yet the way was pointed out by which Reason could, under more favourable circumstances, begin to liberate itself from its failings. We are already learning to value, in the philosophical endeavours of Buddhism, the labours, sometimes indeed quaint, but aiming at thoroughness and worthy of the highest respect, of its severe earnestness in inquiry. And that, side by side with this, the merry jests of light, and even frivolous poetry and conversation, preserved the cheerfulness of life, is clear from the prevailing tone of our work, and still more so from the probable Buddhist origin of those other Indian story-books which have hitherto become known to us.”

Professor Benfey then proceeds to show that the Pancha Tantra consisted originally, not of five, but of certainly eleven, perhaps of twelve, and just possibly of thirteen books; and that its original design was to teach princes right government and conduct.[87] The whole collection had then a different title descriptive of this design; and it was only after a part became detached from the rest that that part was called, for distinction’s sake, the Pancha Tantra, or Five Books. When this occurred it is impossible to say. But it was certainly the older and larger collection, not the present Pancha Tantra, which travelled into Persia, and became the source of the whole of the extensive ‘Kalilag and Damnag’ literature.[88]

The Arabian authors of the work translated (through the ancient Persian) from this older collection assign it to a certain Bidpai; who is said to have composed it in order to instruct Dabschelim, the successor of Alexander in his Indian possessions, in worldly wisdom.[89] There may well be some truth in this tradition. And when we consider that the ‘Barlaam and Josaphat’ literature took its origin at the same time, and in the same place, as the ’Kalilag and Damnag’ literature; that both of them are based upon Buddhist originals taken to Bagdad in the sixth century of our era; and that it is precisely such a book as the Book of Birth Stories from which they could have derived all that they borrowed; it is difficult to avoid connecting these facts together by the supposition that the work ascribed to Bidpai may, in fact, have been a selection of those Jātaka stories bearing more especially on the conduct of life, and preceded, like our own collection, by a sketch of the life of the Buddha in his last birth. Such a supposition would afford a reasonable explanation of some curious facts which have been quite inexplicable on the existing theory. If the Arabic ‘Kalilah and Dimnah’ was an exact translation, in our modern sense of the word translation, of an exact translation of a Buddhist work, how comes it that the various copies of the ‘Kalilah and Dimnah’ differ so greatly, not only among themselves, but from the lately discovered Syriac ‘Kalilag and Damnag,’ which was also, according to the current hypothesis, a translation of the same original?—how comes it that in these translations from a Buddhist book there are no references to the Buddha, and no expressions on the face of them Buddhistic? If, on the other hand, the later writers had merely derived their subject-matter from a Buddhist work or works, and had composed what were in effect fresh works on the basis of such an original as has been suggested, we can understand how the different writers might have used different portions of the material before them, and might have discarded any expressions too directly in contradiction with their own religious beliefs.

The first three of those five chapters of the work ascribed to Bidpai which make up the Pancha Tantra, are also found in a form slightly different, but, on the whole, essentially the same, in two other Indian Story-books,—the Kathā-Sarit-Sāgara (Ocean of the Rivers of Stories), composed in Sanskrit by a Northern Buddhist named Somadeva in the twelfth century, and in the well-known Hitopadesa, which is a much later work. If Somadeva had had the Pancha Tantra in its present form before him, he would probably have included the whole five books in his encyclopædic collection; and the absence from the Kathā-Sarit-Sāgara of the last two books would tend to show that when he wrote his great work the Pancha Tantra had not been composed, or at least had not reached the North of India.

Somadeva derived his knowledge of the three books he does give from the Vṛihat-Kathā, a work ascribed to Guṇādhya, written in the Paiṣāchī dialect, and probably at least as early as the sixth century.[90] This work, on which Somadeva’s whole poem is based, is lost. But Dr. Bühler has lately discovered another Sanskrit poem, based on that earlier work, written in Kashmīr by Kshemendra at the end of the eleventh century, and called, like its original, Vṛihat-Kathā; and as Somadeva wrote quite independently of this earlier poem, we may hope that a comparison of the two Sanskrit works will afford reliable evidence of the contents of the Old Vṛihat-Kathā.[91]

I should also mention here that another well-known work, the Vetāla-Pañca-Viṅsatī (the Twenty-five Tales of a Demon), is contained in both the Sanskrit poems, and was therefore probably also in Guṇādhya’s collection; but as no Jātaka stories have been as yet traced in it, I have simply included it for purposes of reference in Table I., together with the most important of those of the later Indian story-books of which anything certain is at present known.

There remains only to add a few words on the mode in which the stories, whose history in Europe and in India I have above attempted to trace, are presented to us in the Jātaka Book.

Each story is introduced by another explaining where and why it was told by the Buddha; the Birth Story itself being called the Atīta-vatthu or Story of the Past, and the Introductory Story the Paccuppanna-vatthu or Story of the Present. There is another book in the Pāli Piṭakas called Apadānaŋ, which consists of tales about the lives of the early Buddhists; and many of the Introductory Stories in the Jātaka Book (such, for instance, as the tale about Little Roadling, No. 4, or the tale about Kumāra Kassapa, No. 12) differ very little from these Apadānas. Other of the Introductory Stories (such, for instance, as No. 17 below) seem to be mere repetitions of the principal idea of the story they introduce, and are probably derived from it. That the Introductory Stories are entirely devoid of credit is clear from the fact that different Birth Stories are introduced as having been told at the same time and place, and in answer to the same question. Thus no less than ten stories are each said to have been told to a certain love-sick monk as a warning to him against his folly;[92] the closely-allied story given below as the Introduction to Birth Story No. 30 appears also as the Introduction to at least four others;[93] and there are many other instances of a similar kind.[94]

After the two stories have been told, there comes a Conclusion, in which the Buddha identifies the personages in the Birth Story with those in the Introductory Story; but it should be noticed that in one or two cases characters mentioned in the Atīta-vatthu are supposed not to have been reborn on earth at the time of the Paccuppanna-vatthu.[95] And the reader must of course avoid the mistake of importing Christian ideas into this Conclusion by supposing that the identity of the persons in the two stories is owing to the passage of a ‘soul’ from the one to the other. Buddhism does not teach the Transmigration of Souls. Its doctrine (which is somewhat intricate, and for a fuller statement of which I must refer to my Manual of Buddhism[96]) would be better summarized as the Transmigration of Character; for it is entirely independent of the early and widely-prevalent notion of the existence within each human body of a distinct soul, or ghost, or spirit. The Bodisat, for instance, is not supposed to have a Soul, which, on the death of one body, is transferred to another; but to be the inheritor of the Character acquired by the previous Bodisats. The insight and goodness, the moral and intellectual perfection which constitute Buddhahood, could not, according to the Buddhist theory, be acquired in one lifetime: they were the accumulated result of the continual effort of many generations of successive Bodisats. The only thing which continues to exist when a man dies is his Karma, the result of his words and thoughts and deeds (literally his ‘doing’); and the curious theory that this result is concentrated in some new individual is due to the older theory of soul.

In the case of one Jātaka (Fausböll, No. 276), the Conclusion is wholly in verse; and in several cases the Conclusion contains a verse or verses added by way of moral. Such verses, when they occur, are called Abhisambuddha-gāthā, or Verses spoken by the Buddha, not when he was still only a Bodisat, but when he had become a Buddha. They are so called to distinguish them from the similar verses inserted in the Birth Story, and spoken there by the Bodisat. Each story has its verse or verses, either in the Atīta-vatthu or in the Conclusion, and sometimes in both. The number of cases in which all the verses are Abhisambuddha-gāthā is relatively small (being only one in ten of the Jātakas published[97]); and the number of cases in which they occur together with verses in the Atīta-vatthu is very small indeed (being only five out of the three hundred Jātakas published[98]); in the remaining two hundred and sixty-five the verse or verses occur in the course of the Birth Story, and are most generally spoken by the Bodisat himself.

There are several reasons for supposing that these verses are older than the prose which now forms their setting. The Ceylon tradition goes so far as to say that the original Jātaka Book, now no longer extant, consisted of the verses alone; that the Birth Stories are Commentary upon them; and the Introductory Stories, the Conclusions and the ‘Pada-gata-sannaya,’ or word-for-word explanation of the verses, are Commentary on this Commentary.[99] And archaic forms and forced constructions in the verses (in striking contrast with the regularity and simplicity of the prose parts of the book), and the corrupt state in which some of the verses are found, seem to point to the conclusion that the verses are older.

But I venture to think that, though the present form of the verses may be older than the present form of the Birth Stories, the latter, or most of the latter, were in existence first; that the verses, at least in many cases, were added to the stories, after they had become current; and that the Birth Stories without verses in them at all—those enumerated in the list in note 1 on the last page, where the verses are found only in the Conclusion—are, in fact, among the oldest, if not the oldest, in the whole collection. For any one who takes the trouble to go through that list seriatim will find that it contains a considerable number of those stories which, from their being found also in the Pāli Piṭakas or in the oldest European collections, can already be proved to belong to a very early date. The only hypothesis which will reconcile these facts seems to me to be that the Birth Stories, though probably originally older than the verses they contain, were handed down in Ceylon till the time of the compilation of our present Jātaka Book, in the Siŋhalese language; whilst the verses on the other hand were not translated, but were preserved as they were received, in Pāli.

There is another group of stories which seems to be older than most of the others; those, namely, in which the Bodisat appears as a sort of chorus, a moralizer only, and not an actor in the play, whose part may have been an addition made when the story in which it occurs was adopted by the Buddhists. Such is the fable above translated of the Ass in the Lion’s Skin, and most of the stories where the Bodisat is a rukkha-devatā—the fairy or genius of a tree.[100] But the materials are insufficient at present to put this forward as otherwise than a mere conjecture.

The arrangement of the stories in our present collection is a most unpractical one. They are classified, not according to their contents, but according to the number of verses they contain. Thus, the First division (Nipāta) includes those one hundred and fifty of the stories which have only one verse; the Second, one hundred stories, each having two verses; the Third and Fourth, each of them fifty stories, containing respectively three and four verses each; and so on, the number of stories in each division decreasing rapidly after the number of verses exceeds four; and the whole of the five hundred and fifty Jātakas being contained in twenty-two Nipātas. Even this division, depending on so unimportant a factor as the number of the verses, is not logically carried out; and the round numbers of the stories in the first four divisions are made up by including in them stories which, according to the principle adopted, should not properly be placed within them. Thus several Jātakas are only mentioned in the first two Nipātas to say that they will be found in the later ones;[101] and several Jātakas given with one verse only in the First Nipāta, are given again with more verses in those that follow;[102] and occasionally a story is even repeated, with but little variation, in the same Nipāta.[103]

On the other hand, several Jātakas, which count only as one story in the present enumeration, really contain several different tales or fables. Thus, for instance, the Kulāvaka Jātaka (On Mercy to Animals)[104] consists of seven stories woven, not very closely, into one. The most striking instance of this is perhaps the Ummagga Jātaka, not yet published in the Pāli, but of which the Siŋhalese translation by the learned Baṭuwan Tudāwa occupies two hundred and fifty pages octavo, and consists of a very large number (I have not counted them, and there is no index, but I should think they amount to more than one hundred and fifty) of most entertaining anecdotes. Although therefore the Birth Stories are spoken of as ‘The five hundred and fifty Jātakas,’ this is merely a round number reached by an entirely artificial arrangement, and gives no clue to the actual number of stories. It is probable that our present collection contains altogether (including the Introductory Stories where they are not mere repetitions) between two and three thousand independent tales, fables, anecdotes, and riddles.

Nor is the number 550 any more exact (though the discrepancy in this case is not so great) if it be supposed to record, not the number of stories, but the number of distinct births of the Bodisat. In the Kulāvaka Jātaka, just referred to (the tale On Mercy to Animals), there are two consecutive births of the future Buddha; and on the other hand, none of the six Jātakas mentioned in note 1, p. lxxx, represents a distinct birth at all—the Bodisat is in them the same person as he is in the later Jātakas in which those six are contained.

From the facts as they stand it seems at present to be the most probable explanation of the rise of our Jātaka Book to suppose that it was due to the religious faith of the Indian Buddhists of the third or fourth century B.C., who not only repeated a number of fables, parables, and stories ascribed to the Buddha, but gave them a peculiar sacredness and a special religious significance by identifying the best character in each with the Buddha himself in some previous birth. From the time when this step was taken, what had been merely parables or fables became ‘Jātakas,’ a word invented to distinguish, and used only of, those stories which have been thus sanctified. The earliest use of that word at present known is in the inscriptions on the Buddhist Tope at Bhārhut; and from the way in which it is there used it is clear that the word must have then been already in use for some considerable time. But when stories thus made sacred were popularly accepted among people so accustomed to literary activity as the early Buddhists, the natural consequence would be that the Jātakas should have been brought together into a collection of some kind; and the probability of this having been done at a very early date is confirmed, firstly, by the tradition of the difference of opinion concerning a Jātaka Book at the Councils of Vesāli; and secondly by the mention of a Jātaka Book in the ninefold division of the Scriptures found in the Aŋguttara Nikāya and in the Saddharma Puṇḍarīka. To the compiler of this, or of some early collection, are probably to be ascribed the Verses, which in some cases at least are later than the Stories.

With regard to some of the Jātakas, among which may certainly be included those found in the Pāli Piṭakas, there may well have been a tradition, more or less reliable, as to the time and the occasion at which they were supposed to have been uttered by the Buddha. These traditions will have given rise to the earliest Introductory Stories, in imitation of which the rest were afterwards invented; and these will then have been handed down as commentary on the Birth Stories, till they were finally made part of our present collection by its compiler in Ceylon. That (either through their later origin, or their having been much more modified in transmission) they represent a more modern point of view than the Birth Stories themselves, will be patent to every reader. There is a freshness and simplicity about the ’Stories of the Past’ that is sadly wanting in the ‘Stories of the Present’; so much so, that the latter (and this is also true of the whole long Introduction containing the life of the Buddha) may be compared more accurately with mediæval Legends of the Saints than with such simple stories as Æsop’s Fables, which still bear a likeness to their forefathers, the ‘Stories of the Past.’

The Jātakas so constituted were carried to Ceylon in the Pāli language, when Buddhism was first introduced into that island (a date that is not quite certain, but may be taken provisionally as about 200 B.C.); and the whole was there translated into and preserved in the Siŋhalese language (except the verses, which were left untranslated) until the compilation in the fifth century A.D., and by an unknown author, of the Pāli Jātaka Book, the translation of which into English is commenced in this volume.

When we consider the number of elaborate similes by which the arguments in the Pāli Suttas are enforced, there can be no reasonable doubt that the Buddha was really accustomed to teach much by the aid of parables, and it is not improbable that the compiler was quite correct in attributing to him that subtle sense of good-natured humour which led to his inventing, as occasion arose, some fable or some tale of a previous birth, to explain away existing failures in conduct among the monks, or to draw a moral from contemporaneous events. It is even already possible to point to some of the Jātakas as being probably the oldest in the collection; but it must be left to future research to carry out in ampler detail the investigation into the comparative date of each of the stories, both those which are called ‘Stories of the Past’ and those which are called ‘Stories of the Present.’

Besides the points which the teaching of the Jātakas has in common with that of European moralists and satirists, it inculcates two lessons peculiar to itself—firstly, the powerful influence of inherited character; and secondly, the essential likeness between man and other animals. The former of these two ideas underlies both the central Buddhist doctrine of Karma and the theory of the Buddhas, views certainly common among all the early Buddhists, and therefore probably held by Gotama himself. And the latter of the two underlies and explains the sympathy with animals so conspicuous in these tales, and the frequency with which they lay stress upon the duty of kindness, and even of courtesy, to the brute creation. It is curious to find in these records of a strange and ancient faith such blind feeling after, such vague foreshadowing of beliefs only now beginning to be put forward here in the West; but it is scarcely necessary to point out that the paramount value to us now of the Jātaka stories is historical.

In this respect their value does not consist only in the evidence they afford of the intercommunion between East and West, but also, and perhaps chiefly, in the assistance which they will render to the study of folk-lore;—that is, of the beliefs and habits of men in the earlier stages of their development. The researches of Tylor and Waitz and Peschel and Lubbock and Spencer have shown us that it is by this means that it is most easily possible rightly to understand and estimate many of the habits and beliefs still current among ourselves. But the chief obstacle to a consensus of opinion in such studies is the insufficiency and inaccuracy of the authorities on which the facts depend. While the ancient literature of peoples more advanced usually ignores or passes lightly over the very details most important from this point of view, the accounts of modern travellers among the so-called savage tribes are often at best very secondary evidence. It constantly happens that such a traveller can only tell us the impression conveyed to his mind of that which his informant holds to be the belief or custom of the tribe. Such native information may be inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading; and it reaches us only after filtration through a European mind more or less able to comprehend it rightly.

But in the Jātakas we have a nearly complete picture, and quite uncorrupted and unadulterated by European intercourse, of the social life and customs and popular beliefs of the common people of Aryan tribes closely related to ourselves, just as they were passing through the first stages of civilization.

The popularity of the Jātakas as amusing stories may pass away. How can it stand against the rival claims of the fairy tales of science, and the entrancing, manysided story of man’s gradual rise and progress? But though these less fabulous and more attractive stories shall increasingly engage the attention of ourselves and of our children, we may still turn with appreciation to the ancient Book of the Buddhist Jātaka Tales as a priceless record of the childhood of our race.

I avail myself of this opportunity of acknowledging my indebtedness to several friends whose assistance has been too continuous to be specified on any particular page. Professor Childers, whose premature death was so great a blow to Pāli studies, and whose name I never think of without a feeling of reverent and grateful regret, had undertaken the translation of the Jātakas, and the first thirty-three pages are from his pen. They are the last memento of his earnest work: they stand exactly as he left them. Professor Estlin Carpenter, who takes a deep interest in this and cognate subjects, has been kind enough to read through all the proofs, and I owe to his varied scholarship many useful hints. And my especial thanks, and the thanks of any readers this work may meet with, are above all due to Professor Fausböll, without whose editio princeps of the Pāli text, the result of self-denying labours spread over many years, this translation would not have been undertaken.

T. W. RHYS DAVIDS.

TABLES ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE HISTORY AND MIGRATIONS OF THE BUDDHIST BIRTH STORIES.

TABLE I.
INDIAN WORKS.

1. The Jātaka Atthavaṇṇanā. A collection, probably first made in the third or fourth century B.C., of stories previously existing, and ascribed to the Buddha, and put into its present form in Ceylon, in the fifth century A.D. The Pāli text is being edited by Professor Fausböll, of Copenhagen; vol. i. 1877, vol. ii. 1878, iii. in the press. English translation in the present work.

1a. Siŋhalese translation of No. 1, called Pan siya panas Jātaka pota. Written in Ceylon in or about 1320 A.D.

1b. Guttila Kāwyaya. A poetical version in Elu, or old Siŋhalese, of one of the stories in 1a, by Badawœttœ̅wa Unnānse, about 1415. Edited in Colombo, 1870, with introduction and commentary, by Baṭuwan Tuḍāwa.

1c. Kusa Jātakaya. A poetical version in Elu, or old Siŋhalese, of one of the stories in 1a, by Alagiawanna Mohoṭṭāle, 1610. Edited in Colombo, with commentary, 1868.

1d. An Eastern Love Story. Translation in verse of 1c, by Thomas Steele, C.C.S., London, 1871.

1e. Asadisa Jātakaya. An Elu poem, by Rājādhirāja Siṅha, king of Ceylon in 1780.

2. The Cariyā Piṭaka. A book of the Buddhist Scriptures of the fourth century B.C., containing thirty-five of the oldest above stories. See Table IV.

3. The Jātaka Mālā. A Sanskrit work of unknown date, also containing thirty-five of the oldest stories in No. 1. See Table IV.

4. The Paṇṇāsa-Jātakaŋ or ‘50 Jātakas.’ A Pāli work written in Siam, of unknown date and contents, but apparently distinct from No. 1. See above, p. lxvii.

6. Translations:—German, by Benfey, Leipzig, 1859.

7. French by Dubois, Paris, 1826.

8. French by Lancerau, Paris, 1871.

9. Greek by Galanos and Typaldos, Athens, 1851.

10. Hitopadesa. Mediæval. Compiled principally from No. 2, with additions from another unknown work.

11. Translations:—English, by Wilkins, Bath, 1787; reprinted by Nyālankar in his edition of the text.

12. English, by Sir W. Jones, Calcutta, 1816.

12a.English, by E. Arnold, London, 1861.

13. German, by Max Müller, Leipzig, 1844.

13a.German, by Dursch, Tübingen, 1853.

14. German, by L. Fritze, Breslau, 1874.

15. French, by Langlés, Paris, 1790.

16. French, by Lancerau, Paris, 1855.

17. Greek, by Galanos and Typaldos, Athens, 1851.

18. Vetāla Pañca Viŋṣati. Twenty-five stories told by a Vetāla, or demon. Sanskrit text in No. 32, vol. ii. pp. 288-293.

18a. Greek version of No. 18 added to No. 17.

19. Vethāla Kathei. Tamil Version of No. 18. Edited by Robertson in ’A Compilation of Papers in the Tamil Language,’ Madras, 1839.

20. No. 19, translated into English by Babington, in ‘Miscellaneous Translations from Oriental Languages,’ London, 1831.

21. No. 18, translated into Brajbakha, by Surāt, 1740.

22. Bytal Pachisi. Translated from No. 21 into English by Rāja Kāli Krishṇa Bahadur, Calcutta, 1834. See No. 41a.

22a. Baital Pachisi. Hindustani version of No. 21, Calcutta, 1805. Edited by Barker, Hertford, 1855.

22b. English versions of 22a, by J. T. Platts, Hollings, and Barker.

22c. Vikram and the Vampire, or Tales of Hindu Devilry. Adopted from 22b by Richard F. Burton, London, 1870.

22d. German version of 22a, by H. Oesterley, in the ‘Bibliothek Orientalischer Märchen und Erzählungen,’ 1873, with valuable introduction and notes.

23. Ssiddi Kür. Mongolian version of No. 18.

24. German versions of No. 23, by Benjamin Bergmann in Nomadische Streifereien im Lande der Kalmücken, i. 247 and foll., 1804; and by Juelg, 1866 and 1868.

25. German version of No. 18, by Dr. Luber, Görz, 1875.

26. Ṣuka Saptati. The seventy stories of a parrot.

27. Greek version of No. 26, by Demetrios Galanos and G. K. Typaldos, Psittakou Mythologiai Nukterinai, included in their version of Nos. 10 and 18.

28. Persian version of No. 26, now lost; but reproduced by Nachshebi under the title Tuti Nāmeh.

28a. Tota Kahani. Hindustāni version of 26. Edited by Forbes.

28b. English version of 28a, by the Rev. G. Small.

29. Siṅhāsana Dvātriṅṣati. The thirty-two stories of the throne of Vikramāditya; called also Vikrama Caritra. Edited in Madras, 1861.

29a. Singhasan Battisi. Hindī version of 29. Edited by Syed Abdoolah.

30. Vatriṣ Singhāsan. Bengalī version of No. 29, Serampur, 1818.

31. Arji Borji Chan. Mongolian version of No. 29.

32. Vṛihat-kathā. By Guṇādhya, probably about the sixth century; in the Paiṣacī Prākrit. See above, p. lxxiii.

33. Kathā Sarit Sāgara. The Ocean of the Rivers of Tales. It is founded on No. 32. Includes No. 18, and a part of No. 5. The Sanskrit text edited by Brockhaus, Leipzig, vol. i. with German translation, 1839; vol. ii. text only, 1862 and 1866. Original by Ṣrī Somadeva Bhaṭṭa, of Kashmīr, at the beginning of the twelfth century A.D. See above, pp. lxxii, lxxiii.

34. Vṛihat-katha. A Sanskrit version of No. 34, by Kshemendra, of Kashmīr. Written independently of Somadeva’s work, No. 32. See above, p. lxxiii.

35. Pañca Daṇḍa Chattra Prabandha. Stories about King Vikramāditya’s magic umbrella. Jain Sanskrit. Text and German version by Weber, Berlin, 1877.

36. Vāsavadatta. By Subandhu. Possibly as old as the sixth century. Edited by Fitz-Edward Hall, in the Bibliotheca Indica, Calcutta, 1859. This and the next are romances, not story-books.

37. Kādambarī. By Bāṇa Bhaṭṭa, ? seventh century. Edited in Calcutta, 1850; and again, 1872, by Tarkavacaspati.

38. Bengali version of No. 37, by Tāra Shankar Tarkaratna. Tenth edition, Calcutta, 1868.

39. Dasa-kumāra-carita. By Daṇḍin, ? sixth century. Edited by Carey, 1804; Wilson, 1846; and by Bühler, 1873.

39a. Hindoo Tales, founded on No. 39. By P. W. Jacob, London, 1873.

39b. Une Tétrade. By Hippolyte Fauche, Paris, 1861-1863. Contains a translation into French of No. 39.

40. Kathārṇava, the Stream of Tales. In four Books; the first being No. 18, the second No. 29, the third and fourth miscellaneous.

41. Purusha-parīkshā, the Adventures of King Hammīra. Probably of the fourteenth century. By Vidyāpati.

41a. English translation of No. 41, by Rājā Kāli Krishna, Serampur, 1830. See No. 22.

42. Vīra-caritaŋ, the Adventures of King Ṣālivāhana.

TABLE II.
THE KALILAG AND DAMNAG LITERATURE.

1. A lost Buddhist work in a language of Northern India, ascribed to Bidpai. See above, pp. lxx-lxxii.

2. Pēlvī version, 531-579 A.D. By Barzūyē, the Court physician of Khosru Nushírvan. See above, p. xxix.

3. Kalilag und Damnag. Syrian version of No. 2. Published with German translation by Gustav Bickell, and Introduction by Professor Benfey, Leipzig, 1876. This and No. 15 preserve the best evidence of the contents of No. 2, and of its Buddhist original or originals.

4. Kalilah wā Dimnah (Fables of Bidpai). Arabic version of No. 3, by Abd-allah, son of Almokaffa. Date about 750 A.D. Text of one recension edited by Silvestre de Sacy, Paris, 1816. Other recensions noticed at length in Ignazio Guidi’s ‘Studii sul testo Arabo del libro di Calila e Dimna’ (Rome, 1873).

5. Kalila and Dimna. English version of No. 4, by Knatchbull, Oxford, 1819.

6. Das Buch des Weisen. German version of No. 4, by Wolff, Stuttgart, 1839.

7. Stephanitēs kai Ichvēlatēs. Greek version of No. 4, by Simeon Seth, about 1080 A.D. Edited by Seb. Gottfried Starke, Berlin, 1697 (reprinted in Athens, 1851), and by Aurivillius, Upsala, 1786.

8. Latin version of No. 7, by Father Possin, at the end of his edition of Pachymeres, Rome, 1866.

9. Persian translation of No. 4, by Abdul Maali Nasr Allah, 1118-1153. Exists, in MS. only, in Paris, Berlin, and Vienna.

10. Anvār i Suhaili. Persian translation, through the last, of No. 4, by Husain ben Ali el Vāiz U’l-Kāshifī; end of the fifteenth century.

11. Anvār i Suhaili, or the Lights of Canopus. English version of No. 10, by Edward Eastwick, Hertford, 1854.

11a. Another English version of No. 10, by Arthur N. Wollaston (London, Allen).

12. Livre des Lumières. French version of No. 10, by David Sahid, d’Ispahan, Paris, 1644, 8vo.

13. Del Governo de’ Regni. Italian version of No. 7, Ferrara, 1583; by Giulio Nūti. Edited by Teza, Bologna, 1872.

14. Hebrew version of No. 4, by Joel (?), before 1250. Exists only in a single MS. in Paris, of which the first part is missing.

15. Directorium Humanæ Vitæ. Latin version of No. 14, by John of Capua. Written 1263-1278. Printed about 1480, without date or name of place. Next to No. 3 it is the best evidence of the contents of the lost books Nos. 1 and 2.

16. German version of No. 15, also about 1480, but without date or name of place.

17. Version in Ulm dialect of No. 16. Ulm, 1483.

18. Baldo’s ‘Alter Æsopus.’ A translation direct from Arabic into Latin (? thirteenth century.) Edited in du Meril’s ‘Poesies inédites du moyen age,’ Paris, 1854.

19. Calila é Dymna. Spanish version of No. 4 (? through an unknown Latin version). About 1251. Published in ‘Biblioteca de Autores Españoles,’ Madrid, 1860, vol. 51.

20. Calila et Dimna. Latin version of the last, by Raimond de Beziers, 1313.

21. Conde Lucanor. By Don Juan Manuel (died 1347), grandson of St. Ferdinand of Spain. Spanish source not certain.

22. Sinbad the Sailor, or Book of the Seven Wise Masters. See Comparetti, ‘Ricerche intorno al Libro di Sindibad,’ Milano, 1869.

23. Contes et Nouvelles. By Bonaventure des Periers, Lyons, 1587.

24. Exemplario contra los Engaños. 1493. Spanish version of the Directorium.

25. Discorse degli Animali. Italian of last, by Ange Firenzuola, 1548.

26. La Filosofia Morale. By Doni, 1552. Italian of last but one.

27. North’s English version of last, 1570.

28. Fables by La Fontaine.

First edition in vi. books, the subjects of which are mostly taken from classical authors and from Planudes’s Æsop, Paris, 1668.

Second edition in xi. books, the five later taken from Nos. 12 and 23, Paris, 1678.

Third edition in xii. books, Paris, 1694.

TABLE III.
THE BARLAAM AND JOSAPHAT SERIES.

1. St. John of Damascus’s Greek Text. Seventh century A.D. First edited by Boissonade, in his ‘Anecdota Græca,’ Paris, 1832, vol. iv. Reprinted in Migne’s ‘Patrologia Cursus Completus, Series Græca,’ tom. xcvi, pp. 836-1250, with the Latin translation by Billy[105] in parallel columns. Boissonade’s text is reviewed, and its imperfections pointed out, by Schubart (who makes use of six Vienna MSS.) in the ‘Wiener Jahrbücher,’ vol. lxiii.

2. Syriac version of No. 1 exists only in MS.

3. Arabic version of No. 2 exists only in MS., one MS. being at least as old as the eleventh century.

4. Latin version of No. 1, of unknown date and author, of which MSS. of the twelfth century are still extant. There is a black-letter edition (? Spiers, 1470) in the British Museum. It was adopted, with abbreviations in several places, by Vincentius Bellovicensis, in his ‘Speculum Historiale’ (lib. xv. cap. 1-63); by Jacobus a Voragine, in his ‘Legenda Aurea’ (ed. Grässe, 1846); and was reprinted in full in the editions of the works of St. John of Damascus, published at Basel in the sixteenth century.[106] From this Latin version all the later mediæval works on this subject are either directly or indirectly derived.

4a. An abbreviated version in Latin of the fourteenth century in the British Museum. Arundel MS. 330, fol. 51-57. See Koch, No. 9, p. xiv.

German:—

5. Barlaam und Josaphat. A poem of the thirteenth century, published from a MS. in the Solms-Laubach Library by L. Diefenbach, under the title ‘Mittheilungen über eine noch ungedruckte m.h.d. bearbeitung des B. and J.’ Giessen, 1836.

6. Another poem, partly published from an imperfect MS. at Zürich, by Franz Pfeiffer, in Haupt’s ‘Zeitsch. f. d. Alterthum,’ i. 127-135.

7. Barlaam und Josaphat. By Rudolf von Ems. Written about 1230. Latest and best edition by Franz Pfeiffer, in ‘Dichtungen des deutschen Mittelalters,’ vol. iii., Leipzig, 1843. This popular treatment of the subject exists in numerous MSS.

7. Die Hÿstorí Josaphat und Barlaam. Date and author not named. Black-letter. Woodcuts. Title on last page. Fifty-six short chapters. Quaint and forcible old German. A small folio in the British Museum.

8. Historia von dem Leben der zweien H. Beichtiger Barlaam Eremiten, und Josaphat des König’s in Indien Sohn, etc. Translated from the Latin by the Counts of Helffenstein and Hohenzollern, München, 1684. In 40 long chapters, pp. 602, 12mo.

Dutch:—

9. Het Leven en Bedryf van Barlaam den Heremit, en Josaphat Koning van Indien. Noo in Nederduits vertaalt door F. v. H., Antwerp, 1593, 12mo.

A new edition of this version appeared in 1672. This is a long and tedious prose version of the holy legend.

French:—

8. Poem by Gui de Cambray (1200-1250). Edited by Hermann Zotenberg and Paul Meyer in the ‘Bibliothek des Literarischen Vereins,’ in Stuttgart, vol. lxxv., 1864. They mention, also (pp. 318-325):—

9. La Vie de Seint Josaphaz. Poem by Chardry. Edited by John Koch, Heilbronn, 1879, who confirms the editors of No. 8 as to the following old French versions, 10-15; and further adduces No. 11a.

10. A third poem by an unknown author.

11. A prose work by an unknown author—all three being of the 13th cent.

11a. Another in MS. Egerton, 745, British Museum.

12. A poem in French of the fifteenth century, based on the abstract in Latin of No. 4, by Jacob de Voragine.

13. A Provençal tale in prose, containing only the story of Josafat and the tales told by Barlaam, without the moralizations.

14. A miracle play of about 1400.

15. Another miracle play of about 1460.

Italian:—

16. Vita di san Giosafat convertito da Barlaam. By Geo. Antonio Remondini. Published about 1600, at Venezia and Bassano, 16mo. There is a second edition of this, also without date; and a third, published in Modena in 1768, with illustrations.

17. Storia de’ SS. Barlaam e Giosafatte. By Bottari, Rome, 1734, 8vo., of which a second edition appeared in 1816.

18. La santissima vita di Santo Josafat, figluolo del Re Avenero, Re dell’ India, da che ei nacque per infino ch’ei morì. A prose romance, edited by Telesforo Bini from a MS. belonging to the Commendatore Francesco de Rossi, in pp. 124-152 of a collection ‘Rime e Prose,’ Lucca, 1852, 8vo.

19. A prose Vita da Santo Josafat. In MS. Add. 10902 of the British Museum, which Paul Mayer (see No. 8) says begins exactly as No. 18, but ends differently. (See Koch, No. 9 above, p. xiii.)

20. A Rappresentatione di Barlaam e Josafat is mentioned by Frederigo Palermo in his ‘I manuscritti Palatini de Firenze,’ 1860, vol. ii. p. 401.

Skandinavian:—

A full account of all the Skandinavian versions is given in Barlaam’s ok Josaphat’s Saga, by C. R. Unger, Christiania, 1851, 8vo.

Spanish:—

Honesta, etc., historia de la rara vida de los famosos y singulares sanctos Barlaam, etc. By Baltasat de Santa Cruz. Published in the Spanish dialect used in the Philippine Islands at Manila, 1692. A literal translation of Billius (No. 1).

English:—

In Horstmann’s ‘Altenglische Legenden,’ Paderborn, 1875, an Old English version of the legend is published from the Bodleian MS. No. 779. There is another recension of the same poem in the Harleian MS. No. 4196. Both are of the fourteenth century; and of the second there is another copy in the Vernon MS. See further, Warton’s ‘History of English Poetry,’ i. 271-279, and ii. 30, 58, 308.

Horstmann has also published a Middle English version in the ‘Program of the Sagan Gymnasium,’ 1877.

The History of the Five Wise Philosophers; or, the Wonderful Relation of the Life of Jehoshaphat the Hermit, Son of Avenerian, King of Barma in India, etc. By N. H. (that is, Nicholas Herick), Gent., London, 1711, pp. 128, 12mo. This is a prose romance, and an abridged translation of the Italian version of 1600 (No. 16), and contains only one fable (at p. 46) of the Nightingale and the Fowler.

The work referred to on p. xlvi, under the title Gesta Romanorum, a collection of tales with lengthy moralizations (probably sermons), was made in England about 1300. It soon passed to the Continent, and was repeatedly re-written in numerous MSS., with additions and alterations. Three printed editions appeared between 1472 and 1475; and one of these, containing 181 stories, is the source of the work now known under this title. Tale No. 168 quotes Barlaam. The best edition of the Latin version is by H. Oesterley, Berlin, 1872. The last English translation is Hooper’s, Bohn’s Antiquarian Library, London, 1877. The Early English versions have been edited by Sir F. Madden; and again, in vol. xxxiii. of the Extra Series of the Early English Text Society, by S. J. H. Herrtage.

The Seven Sages (edited by Thomas Wright for the Percy Society, 1845) also contains some Buddhist tales.

TABLE IV.
COMPARISON OF THE CARIYĀ PIṬAKA AND THE JĀTAKA MĀLĀ.

1.Akitte-cariyaŋ. Vyāghī-jātakaŋ.
2.Saŋkha-c°. Ṣivi-j° (8).
3.Danañjaya-c°. Kulmāsapiṇḍi-j°.
4.Mahā-sudassana-c°. Ṣreshthi-j° (21).
5.Mahā-govinda-c°. Avisajyaṣreshthi-j°.
6.Nimi-rāja-c°. Ṣaṣa-j° (10).
7.Canda-kumāra-c°. Agastya-j°.
8.Sivi-rāja-c° (2). Maitribala-j°.
9.Vessantara-c° (9). Viṣvantara-j° (9).
10.Sasa-paṇḍita-c° (6). Yajña-j°.
11.Sīlava-nāga-c° (J. 72). Sakra-j°.
12.Bhuridatta-c°. Brāhmaṇa-j°.
13.Campeyya-nāga-c°. Ummādayanti-j°.
14.Cūla-bodhi-c°. Suparāga-j°.
15.Māhiŋsa-rāja-c° (27). Matsya-j° (30).
16.Ruru-rāja-c°. Vartaka-potaka-j° (29).
17.Mātaŋga-c°. Kacchapa-j°.
18.Dhammādhamma-devaputta-c°. Kumbha-j°.
19.Jayadisa-c°. Putra-j°.
20.Saŋkhapāla-c°. Visa-j°.
21.Yudañjaya-c°. Ṣreshthi-j° (4).
22.Somanassa-c°. Buddhabodhi-j°.
23.Ayoghara-c° (33). Haŋsa-j°.
24.Bhisa-c°. Mahābodhi-j°.
25.Soma-paṇḍita-c° (32). Mahākapi-j° (27, 28).
26.Temiya-c°. Ṣarabha-j°.
27.Kapi-rāja-c° (25, 28). Ruru-j° (16).
28.Saccahvaya-paṇḍita-c°. Mahākapi-j° (25, 27).
29.Vaṭṭaka-potaka-c° (16). Kshānti-j°.
30.Maccha-rāja-c° (15). Brahma-j°.
31.Kaṇha-dipāyana-c°. Hasti-j°.
32.Sutasoma-c° (25, 32). Sutasoma-j° (25, 32).
33.Suvaṇṇa-sāma-c°. Ayogṛiha-j° (23).
34.Ekarāja-c°. Mahisha-j°.
35.Mahā-lomahaŋsa-c° (J. 94). Ṣatapatra-j°.

For the above lists see Feer, ‘Etude sur les Jatakas,’ p. 58; Gogerly, Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1853; and Fausböll, ‘Five Jātakas,’ p. 59; and also above, pp. liii, liv. It will be seen that there are seven tales with identical, and one or two more with similar titles, in the two collections. Editions of these two works are very much required. The Cambridge University Library possesses a MS. of the former, with the various readings of several other MSS. noted, for me, by Dewa Aranolis.

TABLE V.
ALPHABETICAL LIST OF JĀTAKA STORIES IN THE MAHĀVASTU.

Arranged from Cowell and Eggeling’s ‘Catalogue of Buddhist Sanskrit MSS. in the Possession of the Royal Asiatic Society (Hodgson Collection).’

Amarāye karmārakādhītāye jātakaŋ.Rakshito-nāma-ṛishi-j°.
Arindama-j°.Ṛishabasya-j°.
Asthisenasya-j°.Ṣakuntaka-j°. (Two with this title)
Bhadravargikānaŋ-j°.Ṣarakshepanaŋ-j°.
Campaka-nāgarāja-j°.Ṣaratāŋ-j°.
Godhā-j°.Sārthuvāhasya-j°.
Hastinī-j°.Ṣirī-j°.
Kāka-j°.Ṣirī-prabhasya mṛiga-rājasya-j°.
Uruvilva-kāṣyapādi-kāṣyapānaŋ-j°.Ṣyāma-j°.[107] (Car. Piṭ. 33.)
Ājnāta-Kauṇḍinya-j°.Ṣyāmaka-j°.
Kinnarī-j°.[1]Triṇakunīyaŋ nāma-j°.
Kṛicchapa-j°.Upali gaṅga palānaŋ-j°.
Kuṣa-j°.Vānarādhipa-j°.
Mañjerī-j°.Vara-j°.
Markaṭa-j°.Vijītāvasya Vaideha-rājño-j°.
Mṛigarājño surūpasya-j°.Yaṣoda-j°.
Nalinīye rājakumārīye-j°.Yosodharāye hārapradāna-j°.
Puṇyavanta-j°.Yosodharāye vyaghrībhūtāya-j°.
Pūrṇasya Maitrāyaṇī-putrasya-j°.

TABLE VI.
PLACES AT WHICH THE TALES WERE TOLD.

M. Léon Feer has taken the trouble to count the number of times each of the following places is mentioned at the commencement of the Commentary.

Jetavana monastery410┐416
Sāvatthi6┘
Veḷmana49┐55
Rājagaha5├
Laṭṭhivanuyyāna1┘
Vesāli 4
Kosambi 5
Āḷavī 3
Kuṇḍāladaha 3
Kusa 2
Magadha 2
Dakkhiṇāgiri 1
Migadāya 1
Mithila 1
By the Ganges 1
494
To which we may add from pp. 124-128 below—
Kapilavatthu 4
498

TABLE VII.
THE BODISATS.

At his request the Rev. Spence Handy’s ‘paṇḍit’ made an analysis of the number of times in which the Bodisat appears in the Buddhist Birth Stories in each of the following characters:—

An ascetic83An iguana3
A king85A fish2
A tree god43An elephant driver2
A teacher26A rat2
A courtier24A jackal2
A brāhman24A crow2
A king’s son24A woodpecker2
A nobleman23A thief2
A learned man22A pig2
Sakka20A dog1
A monkey18A curer of snake bites1
A merchant13A gambler1
A man of property12A mason1
A deer11A smith1
A lion10A devil dancer1
A wild duck8A student1
A snipe6A silversmith1
An elephant6A carpenter1
A cock5A water-fowl1
A slave5A frog1
An eagle5A hare1
A horse4A kite1
A bull4A jungle cock1
Brahma4A fairy1
A peacock4
A serpent4 530
A potter3
An outcast3

TABLE VIII.
JĀTAKAS ILLUSTRATED IN BAS-RELIEF ON THE ANCIENT MONUMENTS.

Arranged from General Cunningham’s ‘Stūpa of Bharhut.’

No.PlateTitle inscribed
on the stone.		Title in the
Jātaka Book.
1.xxv.Miga Jākata.Nigrodha-migaJākata.[108]
2.xxv.Nāga[109]Jākata.KakkaṭakaJākata.
3.xxv.Yava-majhakiyaJātaka.?[110]
4.xxv.Muga-pakhayaJākata.Muga-pakkhaJākata.
5.xxvi.LaṭuwaJākata.LaṭukikāJākata.
6.xxvi.Cha-dantiyaJākata.Chad-dantaJākata.
7.xxvi.Isi-siŋgiyaJākata.Isa-siŋgaJākata.
8.xxvi.(?) Yambumane-
ayavesi		Jākata.Andha-bhūtaJākata.
9.xxvii.?[111]Kuruŋga-migaJākata.
10.xxvii.HaŋsaJākata.NaccaJākata.[112]
11.xxvii.KinaraJākata.Canda-kinnaraJākata.[113]
12.xxvii.?[111]AsadisaJākata.
13.xxvii.?[111]Jākata.DasarathaJākata.
14.xliii.Isi-migoJākata.?[114]
15.xlvi.UdaJākata.?[114]
16.xlvi.SechaJākata.Dūbhiya-makkaṭa.
17.xlvii.Sujāto gahutoJākata.SujātaJākata.
18.{BiḍalaJākata.
xlvii.{KukuṭaJākata.KukkuṭaJākata.
19.xlviii.Maghā-deviyaJākata.Makhā-devaJākata.[115]
20.xlviii.Bhisa-haraniyaJākata.?[114]
21.xviii.Vitura-panakayaJākata.[116]VidhūraJākata.
22.xxviii.{Janako RājaJākata.JanakaJākata.
{Sivala DeviJākata.

There are numerous other scenes without titles, and not yet identified in the Jātaka Book, but which are almost certainly illustrative of Jātaka Stories; and several scenes with titles illustrative of passages in the Nidāna Kathā of the Jātaka Book. So, for instance, Pl. xvi. fig. 1 is the worship in heaven of the Buddha’s Head-dress, whose reception into heaven is described below, p. 86; and the heavenly mansion, the Palace of Glory, is inscribed Vejayanto Pāsādo, the origin of which name is explained below, p. 287. Plate xxviii. has a scene entitled ‘Bhagavato Okkanti’ (The Descent of the Blessed One),[117] in illustration of Māyā Devi’s Dream (below, pp. 62, 63); and Plate lvii. is a representation of the Presentation of the Jetavana Monastery (below, pp. 130-133). The identifications of Nos. 12 and 13 in the above list are very doubtful.

Besides the above, Mr. Fergusson, in his ‘Tree and Serpent Worship,’ has identified bas-reliefs on the Sanchi Tope in illustration of the Sama and Asadisa Jātakas (Pl. xxxvi p. 181) and of the Vessantara Jātaka (Pl. xxiv. p. 125); and there are other Jātaka scenes on the Sanchi Tope not yet identified.

Mr. Simpson also has been kind enough to show me drawings of bas-reliefs he discovered in Afghanistān, two of which I have been able to identify as illustrations of the Sumedha Jātaka (below, p. 11-13), and another as illustrative of the scene described below on pp. 125, 126.

THE NIDĀNAKATHĀ
OR
THE THREE EPOCHS.

[vv. 1-11.] The Apannaka and other Births, which in times gone by were recounted on various occasions by the great illustrious Sage, and in which during a long period our Teacher and Leader, desirous of the salvation of mankind, fulfilled the vast conditions of Buddhahood,[118] were all collected together and added to the canon of Scripture by those who made the recension of the Scriptures, and rehearsed by them under the name of THE JĀTAKA. Having bowed at the feet of the Great Sage, the lord of the world, by whom in innumerable existences[119] boundless benefits were conferred upon mankind, and having paid reverence to the Law, and ascribed honour to the Clergy, the receptacle of all honour; and having removed all dangers by the efficacy of that meritorious act of veneration and honour referring to the Three Gems, I proceed to recite a Commentary upon this Jātaka, illustrating as it does the infinite efficacy of the actions of great men—a commentary based upon the method of exposition current among the inmates of the Great Monastery. And I do so at the personal request of the elder Atthadassin, who lives apart from the world and ever dwells with his fraternity, and who desires the perpetuation of this chronicle of Buddha; and likewise of Buddhamitta the tranquil and wise, sprung from the race of Mahimsāsaka, skilled in the canons of interpretation; and moreover of the monk Buddhadeva of clear intellect. May all good men lend me their favourable attention while I speak![120]

Inasmuch as this comment on the Jātaka, if it be expounded after setting forth the three Epochs, the distant, the middle, and proximate, will be clearly understood by those who hear it by being understood from the beginning, therefore I will expound it after setting forth the three Epochs. Accordingly from the very outset it will be well to determine the limits of these Epochs. Now the narrative of the Bodhisatta’s existence, from the time that at the feet of Dīpankara he formed a resolution to become a Buddha to his rebirth in the Tusita heaven after leaving the Vessantara existence, is called the Distant Epoch. From his leaving the Tusita heaven to his attainment of omniscience on the throne of Knowledge, the narrative is called the Intermediate Epoch. And the Proximate Epoch is to be found in the various places in which he sojourned (during his ministry on earth). The following is

THE DISTANT EPOCH.

Tradition tells us that four asankheyyas[121] and a hundred thousand cycles ago there was a city called Amaravatī. In this city there dwelt a brahmin named Sumedha, of good family on both sides, on the father’s and the mother’s side, of pure conception for seven generations back, by birth unreproached and respected, a man comely, well-favoured and amiable, and endowed with remarkable beauty. He followed his brahminical studies without engaging in any other pursuit. His parents died while he was still young. A minister of state, who acted as steward of his property, bringing forth the roll-book of his estate, threw open the stores filled with gold and silver, gems and pearls, and other valuables, and said, “So much, young man, belonged to your mother, so much to your father, so much to your grandparents and great-grandparents,” and pointing out to him the property inherited through seven generations, he bade him guard it carefully. The wise Sumedha thought to himself, “After amassing all this wealth my parents and ancestors when they went to another world took not a farthing with them, can it be right that I should make it an object to take my wealth with me when I go?” And informing the king of his intention, he caused proclamation to be made[122] in the city, gave largess to the people, and embraced the ascetic life of a hermit.

To make this matter clear the Story of Sumedha must here be related. This story, though given in full in the Buddhavamsa, from its being in a metrical form, is not very easy to understand. I will therefore relate it with sentences at intervals explaining the metrical construction.

Four asankheyyas and a hundred thousand cycles ago there was a city called Amaravatī or Amara, resounding with the ten city cries, concerning which it is said in Buddhavamsa,

12. Four asankheyyas and a hundred thousand cycles ago

A city there was called Amara, beautiful and pleasant,

Resounding with the ten cries, abounding in food and drink.[123]

Then follows a stanza of Buddhavamsa, enumerating some of these cries,

13. The trumpeting of elephants, the neighing of horses, (the sound of) drums, trumpets, and chariots,

And viands and drinks were cried, with the invitation, “Eat and drink.”

It goes on to say,

14. A city supplied with every requisite, engaged in every sort of industry,

Possessing the seven precious things, thronged with dwellers of many races;

The abode of devout men, like the prosperous city of the angels.

15. In the city of Amaravatī dwelt a brahmin named Sumedha,

Whose hoard was many tens of millions, blest with much wealth and store;

16. Studious, knowing the Mantras, versed in the three Vedas,

Master of the science of divination and of the traditions and observances of his caste.

Now one day the wise Sumedha, having retired to the splendid upper apartment of his house, seated himself cross-legged, and fell a thinking. “Oh! wise man,[124] grievous is rebirth in a new existence, and the dissolution of the body in each successive place where we are reborn. I am subject to birth, to decay, to disease, to death,—it is right, being such, that I should strive to attain the great deathless Nirvāna, which is tranquil, and free from birth, and decay, and sickness, and grief and joy; surely there must be a road that leads to Nirvāna and releases man from existence.” Accordingly it is said,

17. Seated in seclusion, I then thought as follows:

Grievous is rebirth and the breaking up of the body.

18. I am subject to birth, to decay, to disease,

Therefore will I seek Nirvāna, free from decay and death, and secure.

19. Let me leave this perishable body, this pestilent congregation of vapours,

And depart without desires and without wants.

20. There is, there must be a road, it cannot but be:

I will seek this road, that I may obtain release from existence.

Further he reasoned thus, “For as in this world there is pleasure as the correlative of pain, so where there is existence there must be its opposite the cessation of existence; and as where there is heat there is also cold which neutralizes it, so there must be a Nirvāna[125] that extinguishes (the fires of) lust and the other passions; and as in opposition to a bad and evil condition there is a good and blameless one, so where there is evil Birth there must also be Nirvāna, called the Birthless, because it puts an end to all rebirth.” Therefore it is said,

21. As where there is suffering there is also bliss,

So where there is existence we must look for non-existence.

22. And as where there is heat there is also cold,

So where there is the threefold fire of passion extinction must be sought.

23. And as coexistent with evil there is also good,

Even so where there is birth[126] the cessation of birth should be sought.

Again he reasoned thus, “Just as a man who has fallen into a heap of filth, if he beholds afar off a great pond covered with lotuses of five colours, ought to seek that pond, saying, ‘By what way shall I arrive there?’ but if he does not seek it the fault is not that of the pond; even so where there is the lake of the great deathless Nirvāna for the washing of the defilement of sin, if it is not sought it is not the fault of the lake. And just as a man who is surrounded by robbers, if when there is a way of escape he does not fly it is not the fault of the way but of the man; even so when there is a blessed road loading to Nirvāna for the man who is encompassed and held fast by sin, its not being sought is not the fault of the road but of the person. And as a man who is oppressed with sickness, there being a physician who can heal his disease, if he does not get cured by going to the physician that is no fault of the physician; even so if a man who is oppressed by the disease of sin seeks not a spiritual guide who is at hand and knows the road which puts an end to sin, the fault lies with him and not with the sin-destroying teacher.” Therefore it is said,

24. As a man fallen among filth, beholding a brimming lake,

If he seek not that lake, the fault is not in the lake;

25. So when there exists a lake of Nirvāna that washes the stains of sin,

If a man seek not that lake, the fault is not in the lake of Nirvāna.

26. As a man beset with foes, there being a way of escape,

If he flee not away, the fault is not with the road;

27. So when there is a way of bliss, if a man beset with sin

Seek not that road, the fault is not in the way of bliss.

28. And as one who is diseased, there being a physician at hand,

If he bid him not heal the disease, the fault is not in the healer:

29. So if a man who is sick and oppressed with the disease of sin

Seek not the spiritual teacher, the fault is not in the teacher.

And again he argued, “As a man fond of gay clothing, throwing off a corpse bound to his shoulders, goes away rejoicing, so must I, throwing off this perishable body, and freed from all desires, enter the city of Nirvāna. And as men and women depositing filth on a dungheap do not gather it in the fold or skirt of their garments, but loathing it, throw it away, feeling no desire for it; so shall I also cast off this perishable body without regret, and enter the deathless city of Nirvāna. And as seamen abandon without regret an unseaworthy ship and escape, so will I also, leaving this body, which distils corruption from its nine festering apertures, enter without regret the city of Nirvāna. And as a man carrying various sorts of jewels, and going on the same road with a band of robbers, out of fear of losing his jewels withdraws from them and gains a safe road; even so this impure body is like a jewel-plundering robber, if I set my affections thereon the precious spiritual jewel of the sublime path of holiness will be lost to me, therefore ought I to enter the city of Nirvāna, forsaking this robber-like body.” Therefore it is said,

30. As a man might with loathing shake off a corpse bound upon his shoulders,

And depart secure, independent, master of himself;

31. Even so let me depart, regretting nothing, wanting nothing,

Leaving this perishable body, this collection of many foul vapours.

32. And as men and women deposit filth upon a dungheap,

And depart regretting nothing, wanting nothing,

33. So will I depart, leaving this body filled with foul vapours,

As one leaves a cesspool after depositing ordure there.

34. And as the owners forsake the rotten bark that is shattered and leaking,

And depart without regret or longing,

35. So shall I go, leaving this body with its nine apertures ever running,

As its owners desert the broken ship.

36. And as a man carrying wares, walking with robbers,

Seeing danger of losing his wares, parts company with the robbers and gets him gone,

37. Even so is this body like a mighty robber,—

Leaving it I will depart through fear of losing good.

Having thus in nine similes pondered upon the advantages connected with retirement from the world, the wise Sumedha gave away at his own house, as aforesaid, an immense hoard of treasure to the indigent and wayfarers and sufferers, and kept open house. And renouncing all pleasures, both material and sensual, departing from the city of Amara, away from the world in Himavanta he made himself a hermitage near the mountain called Dhammaka, and built a hut and a perambulation hall free from the five defects which are hindrances (to meditation). And with a view to obtain the power residing in the supernatural faculties, which are characterized by the eight causal qualities described in the words beginning “With a mind thus tranquillised,”[127] he embraced in that hermitage the ascetic life of a Rishi, casting off the cloak with its nine disadvantages, and wearing the garment of bark with its twelve advantages. And when he had thus given up the world, forsaking this hut, crowded with eight drawbacks, he repaired to the foot of a tree with its ten advantages, and rejecting all sorts of grain lived constantly upon wild fruits. And strenuously exerting himself both in sitting and in standing and in walking, within a week he became the possessor of the eight Attainments, and of the five Supernatural Faculties; and so, in accordance with his prayer, he attained the might of supernatural knowledge. Therefore it is said,

38. Having pondered thus I gave many thousand millions of wealth

To rich and poor, and made my way to Himavanta.

39. Not far from Himavanta is the mountain called Dhammaka,

Here I made an excellent hermitage, and built with care a leafy hut.

40. There I built me a cloister, free from five defects,

Possessed of the eight good qualities, and attained the strength of the supernatural Faculties.

41. Then I threw off the cloak possessed of the nine faults,

And put on the raiment of bark possessed of the twelve advantages.

42. I left the hut, crowded with the eight drawbacks,

And went to the tree-foot possessed of ten advantages.[128]

43. Wholly did I reject the grain that is sown and planted,

And partook of the constant fruits of the earth, possessed of many advantages.

44. Then I strenuously strove, in sitting, in standing, and in walking,

And within seven days attained the might of the Faculties.[129]

Now while the hermit Sumedha, having thus attained the strength of supernatural knowledge, was living in the bliss of the (eight) Attainments, the Teacher Dīpankara appeared in the world. At the moment of his conception, of his birth, of his attainment of Buddhahood, of his preaching his first discourse, the whole universe of ten thousand worlds trembled, shook and quaked, and gave forth a mighty sound, and the thirty-two prognostics showed themselves. But the hermit Sumedha, living in the bliss of the Attainments, neither heard that sound nor beheld those signs. Therefore it is said,

45. Thus when I had attained the consummation, while I was subjected to the Law,

The Conqueror named Dīpankara, chief of the universe, appeared.

46. At his conception, at his birth, at his Buddhahood, at his preaching,

I saw not the four signs, plunged in the blissful trance of meditation.

At that time Dīpankara Buddha, accompanied by a hundred thousand saints, wandering his way from place to place, reached the city of Ramma, and took up his residence in the great monastery of Sudassana. And the dwellers of the city of Ramma heard it said, “Dīpankara, lord of ascetics, having attained supreme Buddhaship, and set on foot the supremacy of the Law, wandering his way from place to place, has come to the town of Ramma, and dwells at the great monastery of Sudassana.” And taking with them ghee and butter and other medicinal requisites and clothes and raiment, and bearing perfumes and garlands and other offerings in their hands, their minds bent towards the Buddha, the Law, and the Clergy, inclining towards them, hanging upon them, they approached the Teacher and worshipped him, and presenting the perfumes and other offerings, sat down on one side. And having heard his preaching of the Law, and invited him for the next day, they rose from their seats and departed. And on the next day, having prepared almsgiving for the poor, and having decked out the town, they repaired the road by which the Buddha was to come, throwing earth in the places that were worn away by water and thereby levelling the surface, and scattering sand that looked like strips of silver. And they sprinkled fragrant roots and flowers, and raised aloft flags and banners of many-coloured cloths, and set up banana arches and rows of brimming jars. Then the hermit Sumedha, ascending from his hermitage, and proceeding through the air till he was above those men, and beholding the joyous multitude, exclaimed, “What can be the reason?” and alighting stood on one side and questioned the people, “Tell me, why are you adorning this road?” Therefore it is said,

47. In the region of the border districts, having invited the Buddha,

With joyful hearts they are clearing the road by which he should come.

48. And I at that time leaving my hermitage,

Rustling my barken tunic, departed through the air.

49. And seeing an excited multitude joyous and delighted,

Descending from the air I straightway asked the men,

50. The people is excited, joyous and happy,

For whom is the road being cleared, the path, the way of his coming?

And the men replied, “Lord Sumedha, dost thou not know? Dīpankara Buddha, having attained supreme Knowledge, and set on foot the reign of the glorious Law, travelling from place to place, has reached our town, and dwells at the great monastery Sudassana; we have invited the Blessed One, and are making ready for the blessed Buddha the road by which he is to come.” And the hermit Sumedha thought, “The very sound of the word Buddha is rarely met with in the world, much more the actual appearance of a Buddha; it behoves me to join those men in clearing the road.” He said therefore to the men, “If you are clearing this road for the Buddha, assign to me a piece of ground, I will clear the ground in company with you.” They consented, saying, “It is well;” and perceiving the hermit Sumedha to be possessed of supernatural power, they fixed upon a swampy piece of ground, and assigned it to him, saying, “Do thou prepare this spot.” Sumedha, his heart filled with joy of which the Buddha was the cause, thought within himself, “I am able to prepare this piece of ground by supernatural power, but if so prepared it will give me no satisfaction; this day it behoves me to perform menial duties;” and fetching earth he threw it upon the spot.

But ere the ground could be cleared by him,—with a train of a hundred thousand miracle-working saints endowed with the six supernatural faculties, while angels offered celestial wreaths and perfumes, while celestial hymns rang forth, and men paid their homage with earthly perfumes and with flowers and other offerings, Dīpankara endowed with the ten Forces, with all a Buddha’s transcendant majesty, like a lion rousing himself to seek his prey on the Vermilion plain, came down into the road all decked and made ready for him. Then the hermit Sumedha—as the Buddha with unblenching eyes approached along the road prepared for him, beholding that form endowed with the perfection of beauty, adorned with the thirty-two characteristics of a great man, and marked with the eighty minor beauties, attended by a halo of a fathom’s depth, and sending forth in streams the six-hued Buddha-rays, linked in pairs of different colours, and wreathed like the varied lightnings that flash in the gem-studded vault of heaven—exclaimed, “This day it behoves me to make sacrifice of my life for the Buddha: let not the Blessed one walk in the mire—nay, let him advance with his four hundred thousand saints trampling on my body as if walking upon a bridge of jewelled planks, this deed will long be for my good and my happiness.” So saying, he loosed his hair, and spreading in the inky mire his hermit’s skin mantle, roll of matted hair and garment of bark, he lay down in the mire like a bridge of jewelled planks. Therefore it is said,

51. Questioned by me they replied, An incomparable Buddha is born into the world,

The Conqueror named Dīpankara, lord of the universe,

For him the road is cleared, the way, the path of his coming.

52. When I heard the name of Buddha joy sprang up forthwith within me,

Repeating, a Buddha, a Buddha! I gave utterance to my joy.

53. Standing there I pondered, joyful and excited,

Here I will sow the seed, may the happy moment not pass away.

54. If you clear a path for the Buddha, assign to me a place,

I also will clear the road, the way, the path of his coming.

55. Then they gave me a piece of ground to clear the pathway;

Then repeating within me, a Buddha, a Buddha! I cleared the road.

56. But ere my portion was cleared, Dīpankara the great sage,

The Conqueror, entered the road with four hundred thousand saints like himself,

Possessed of the six supernatural attributes, pure from all taint of sin.

57. On every side men rise to receive him, many drums send forth their music,

Men and angels overjoyed, shout forth their applause.

58. Angels look upon men, men upon angels,

And both with clasped hands upraised approach the great Being.

59. Angels with celestial music, men with earthly music,

Both sending forth their strains approach the great Being.

60. Angels floating in the air sprinkle down in all directions

Celestial Erythrina flowers, lotuses and coral flowers.

61. Men standing on the ground throw upwards in all directions

Champac and Salala flowers, Cadamba and fragrant Mesua, Punnaga, and Ketaka.

62. Then I loosed my hair, and spreading in the mire

Bark robe and mantle of skin, lay prone upon my face.

63. Let the Buddha advance with his disciples, treading upon me;

Let him not tread in the mire, it will be for my blessing.

And as he lay in the mire, again beholding the Buddha-majesty of Dīpankara Buddha with his unblenching gaze, he thought as follows: “Were I willing, I could enter the city of Ramma as a novice in the priesthood, after having destroyed all human passions; but why should I disguise myself[130] to attain Nirvāna after the destruction of human passion? Let me rather, like Dīpankara, having risen to the supreme knowledge of the Truth, enable mankind to enter the Ship of the Truth and so carry them across the Ocean of Existence, and when this is done afterwards attain Nirvāna; this indeed it is right that I should do.” Then having enumerated the eight conditions (necessary to the attainment of Buddhahood), and having made the resolution to become Buddha, he laid himself down. Therefore it is said,

64. As I lay upon the ground this was the thought of my heart,

If I wished it I might this day destroy within me all human passions.

65. But why should I in disguise arrive at the knowledge of the Truth?

I will attain omniscience and become a Buddha, and (save) men and angels.

66. Why should I cross the ocean resolute but alone?

I will attain omniscience, and enable men and angels to cross.

67. By this resolution of mine, I a man of resolution

Will attain omniscience, and save men and angels,

68. Cutting off the stream of transmigration, annihilating the three forms of existence,

Embarking in the ship of the Truth, I will carry across with me men and angels.[131]

And the blessed Dīpankara having reached the spot stood close by the hermit Sumedha’s head. And opening his eyes possessed of the five kinds of grace as one opens a jewelled window, and beholding the hermit Sumedha lying in the mire, thought to himself, “This hermit who lies here has formed the resolution to be a Buddha; will his prayer be fulfilled or not?” And casting forward his prescient gaze into the future, and considering, he perceived that four asankheyyas and a hundred thousand cycles from that time he would become a Buddha named Gotama. And standing there in the midst of the assembly he delivered this prophecy, “Behold ye this austere hermit lying in the mire?” “Yes, Lord,” they answered. “This man lies here having made the resolution to become a Buddha, his prayer will be answered; at the end of four asankheyyas and a hundred thousand cycles hence he will become a Buddha named Gotama, and in that birth the city Kapilavatthu will be his residence, Queen Māyā will be his mother, King Suddhodana his father, his chief disciple will be the thera Upatissa, his second disciple the thera Kolita, the Buddha’s servitor will be Ānanda, his chief female disciple the nun Khemā, the second the nun Uppalavannā. When he attains to years of ripe knowledge, having retired from the world and made the great exertion, having received at the foot of a banyan-tree a meal of rice milk, and partaken of it by the banks of the Neranjarā, having ascended the throne of Knowledge, he will, at the foot of an Indian fig-tree, attain Supreme Buddhahood. Therefore it is said,

70. Dīpankara, knower of all worlds, receiver of offerings,

Standing by that which pillowed my head, spoke these words:

71. See ye this austere hermit with his matted hair,

Countless ages hence he will be a Buddha in this world.

72. Lo, the great Being departing from pleasant Kapila,

Having fought the great fight, performed all manner of austerities.

73. Having sat at the foot of the Ajapāla tree, and there received rice pottage,

Shall approach the Neranjarā river.

74. Having received the rice pottage on the banks of the Neranjarā, the Conqueror

Shall come by a fair road prepared for him to the foot of the Bodhi-tree.

75. Then, unrivalled and glorious, reverentially saluting the throne of Bodhi,

At the foot of an Indian fig-tree he shall attain Buddhahood.

76. The mother that bears him shall be called Māyā,

His father will be Suddhodana, he himself will be Gotama.

77. His chief disciples will be Upatissa and Kolita,

Void of human passion, freed from desire, calm-minded and tranquil.

78. The servitor Ānanda will attend upon the Conqueror,

Khemā and Uppalavannā will be his chief female disciples,

79. Void of human passion, freed from desire, calm-minded and tranquil.

The sacred tree of this Buddha is called Assattha.

The hermit Sumedha, exclaiming, “My prayer, it seems, will be accomplished,” was filled with happiness. The multitudes, hearing the words of Dīpankara Buddha, were joyous and delighted, exclaiming, “The hermit Sumedha, it seems, is an embryo Buddha, the tender shoot that will grow up into a Buddha.” For thus they thought, “As a man fording a river, if he is unable to cross to the ford opposite him, crosses to a ford lower down the stream, even so we, if under the dispensation of Dīpankara Buddha we fail to attain the Paths and their fruition, yet when thou shalt become Buddha we shall be enabled in thy presence to make the paths and their fruition our own,”—and so they recorded their prayer (for future sanctification). And Dīpankara, Buddha also having praised the Bodhisatta, and made an offering to him of eight handfuls of flowers, reverentially saluted him and departed. And the Arhats, also, four hundred thousand in number, having made offerings to the Bodhisatta of perfumes and garlands, reverentially saluted him and departed. And the angels and men having made the same offerings, and bowed down to him, went their way.

And the Bodhisatta, when all had retired, rising from his seat and exclaiming, “I will investigate the Perfections,” sat himself down cross-legged on a heap of flowers. And as the Bodhisatta sat thus, the angels in all the ten thousand worlds assembling shouted applause. “Venerable hermit Sumedha,” they said, “all the auguries which have manifested themselves when former Bodhisattas seated themselves cross-legged, saying, ‘We will investigate the Perfections,’—all these this day have appeared: assuredly thou shalt become Buddha. This we know, to whom these omens appear, he surely will become Buddha; do thou make a strenuous effort and exert thyself.” With these words they lauded the Bodhisatta with varied praises. Therefore it is said,

80. Hearing these words of the incomparable Sage,

Angels and men delighted, exclaimed, This is an embryo Buddha.

81. A great clamour arises, men and angels in ten thousand worlds

Clap their hands, and laugh, and make obeisance with clasped hands.

82. “Should we fail,” they say, “of this Buddha’s dispensation,

Yet in time to come we shall stand before him.

83. As men crossing a river, if they fail to reach the opposite ford,

Gaining the lower ford cross the great river,

84. Even so we all, if we lose this Buddha,

In time to come shall stand before him.”

85. The world-knowing Dīpankara, the receiver of offerings,

Having celebrated my meritorious act, went his way.[132]

86. All the disciples of the Buddha that were present saluted me with reverence,

Men, Nāgas, and Gandhabbas bowed down to me and departed.

87. When the Lord of the world with his following had passed beyond my sight,

Then glad, with gladsome heart, I rose up from my seat.

88. Joyful I am with a great joy, glad with a great gladness;

Flooded with rapture then I seated myself cross-legged.

89. And even as thus I sat I thought within myself,

I am subject to ecstatic meditation, I have mastered the supernatural Faculties.

90. In a thousand worlds there are no sages that rival me,

Unrivalled in miraculous powers I have reached this bliss.

91. When thus they beheld me sitting,[133] the dwellers of ten thousand worlds

Raised a mighty shout, Surely thou shalt be a Buddha!

92. The omens[134] beheld in former ages when Bodhisatta sat cross-legged,

The same are beheld this day.

93. Cold is dispelled and heat ceases,

This day these things are seen,—verily thou shalt be Buddha.

94. A thousand worlds are stilled and silent,

So are they seen to-day,—verily thou shalt be Buddha.

95. The mighty winds blow not, the rivers cease to flow,

These things are seen to-day,—verily thou shalt be Buddha.

96. All flowers blossom on land and sea,

This day they all have bloomed,—verily thou shalt be Buddha.

97. All creepers and trees are laden with fruit,

This day they all bear fruit,—verily thou shalt be Buddha.

98. Gems sparkle in earth and sky,

This day all gems do glitter,—verily thou shalt be Buddha.

99. Music earthly and celestial sounds,

Both these to-day send forth their strains,—verily thou shalt be Buddha.

100. Flowers of every hue rain down from the sky,

This day they are seen,—verily thou shalt be Buddha.

101. The mighty ocean bends itself, ten thousand worlds are shaken,

This day they both send up their roar,—verily thou shalt be Buddha.

102. In hell the fires of ten thousand worlds die out,

This day these fires are quenched,—verily thou shalt be Buddha.

103. Unclouded is the sun and all the stars are seen,

These things are seen to-day,—verily thou shalt be Buddha.

104. Though no water fell in rain, vegetation burst forth from the earth,

This day vegetation springs from the earth,—verily thou shalt be Buddha.

105. The constellations are all aglow, and the lunar mansions in the vault of heaven,

Visākhā is in conjunction with the moon,—verily thou shalt be Buddha.

106. Those creatures that dwell in holes and caves depart each from his lair,

This day these lairs are forsaken,—verily thou shalt be Buddha.

107. There is no discontent among mortals, but they are filled with contentment,

This day all are content,—verily thou shalt be Buddha.

108. Then diseases are dispelled and hunger ceases,

This day these things are seen,—verily thou shalt be Buddha.

109. Then Desire wastes away, Hate and Folly perish,

This day all these are dispelled,—verily thou shalt be Buddha.

110. No danger then comes near; this day this thing is seen,

By this sign we know it,—verily thou shalt become Buddha.

111. No dust flies abroad; this day this thing is seen,

By this sign we know it,—verily thou shalt be Buddha.

112. All noisome odours flee away, celestial fragrance breathes around,

Such fragrance breathes this day,—verily thou shalt be Buddha.

113. All the angels are manifested, the Formless only excepted,

This day they all are seen,—verily thou shalt be Buddha.

114. All the hells become visible,

These all are seen this day,—verily thou shalt be Buddha.

115. Then walls, and doors, and rocks are no impediment,

This day they have melted into air,[135]—verily thou shalt be Buddha.

116. At that moment death and birth do not take place,

This day these things are seen,—verily thou shalt be Buddha.

117. Do thou make a strenuous effort, hold not back, go forward,

This thing we know,—verily thou shalt be Buddha.

And the Bodhisatta, having heard the words of Dīpankara Buddha, and of the angels in ten thousand worlds, filled with immeasurable resolution, thought thus within himself, “The Buddhas are beings whose word cannot fail; there is no deviation from truth in their speech. For as the fall of a clod thrown into the air, as the death of a mortal, as the sunrise at dawn, as a lion’s roaring when he leaves his lair, as the delivery of a woman with child, as these things are sure and certain,—even so the word of the Buddhas is sure and cannot fail, verily I shall become a Buddha.” Therefore it is said,

118. Having heard the words of Buddha and of the angels of ten thousand worlds,

Glad, joyous, delighted, I then thought thus within myself:

119. The Buddhas speak not doubtful words, the Conquerors speak not vain words,

There is no falsehood in the Buddhas,—verily I shall become a Buddha.

120. As a clod cast into the air doth surely fall to the ground,

So the word of the glorious Buddhas is sure and everlasting.

121. As the death of all mortals is sure and constant,

So the word of the glorious Buddhas is sure and everlasting.

122. As the rising of the sun is certain when night has faded,

So the word of the glorious Buddhas is sure and everlasting.

123. As the roaring of a lion who has left his den is certain,

So the word of the glorious Buddhas is sure and everlasting.

124. As the delivery of women with child is certain,

So the word of the glorious Buddhas is sure and everlasting.

And having thus made the resolution, “I shall surely become Buddha,” with a view to investigating the conditions that constitute a Buddha, exclaiming, “Where are the conditions that make the Buddha, are they found above or below, in the principal or the minor directions?” investigating successively the principles of all things, and beholding the first Perfection of Almsgiving, practised and followed by former Bodhisattas, he thus admonished his own soul: “Wise Sumedha, from this time forth thou must fulfil the perfection of Almsgiving; for as a water-jar overturned discharges the water so that none remains, and cannot recover it, even so if thou, indifferent to wealth and fame, and wife and child, and goods great and small, give away to all who come and ask everything that they require till nought remains, thou shalt seat thyself at the foot of the tree of Bodhi and become a Buddha.” With these words he strenuously resolved to attain the first perfection of Almsgiving. Therefore it is said,

125. Come, I will search the Buddha-making conditions, this way and that,

Above and below, in all the ten directions, as far as the principles of things extend.

126. Then, as I made my search, I beheld the first Gift-perfection,

The high road followed by former sages.

127. Do thou strenuously taking it upon thyself advance

To this first perfection of almsgiving, if thou wilt attain Buddhaship.

128. As a brimming water-jar, overturned by any one,

Discharges entirely all the water, and retains none within,

129. Even so, when thou seest any that ask, great, small, and middling,

Do thou give away all in alms, as the water-jar overthrown.

But considering further, “There must be beside this other conditions that make a Buddha,” and beholding the second Perfection of Moral Practice, he thought thus, “O wise Sumedha, from this day forth mayest thou fulfil the perfection of Morality; for as the Yak ox, regardless of his life, guards his bushy tail, even so thou shalt become Buddha, if from this day forward regardless of thy life thou keepest the moral precepts.” And he strenuously resolved to attain the second perfection of Moral Practice. Therefore it is said,

130. For the conditions of a Buddha cannot be so few,

Let me investigate the other conditions that bring Buddhaship to maturity.

131. Then investigating I beheld the second Perfection of Morality

Practised and followed by former sages.

132. This second one do thou strenuously undertake,

And reach the perfection of Moral Practice if thou wilt attain Buddhahood.

133. And as the Yak cow, when her tail has got entangled in anything,

Then and there awaits death, and will not injure her tail,[136]

134. So also do thou, having fulfilled the moral precepts in the four stages,

Ever guard the Sīla as the Yak guards her tail.

But considering further, “These cannot be the only Buddha-making conditions,” and beholding the third Perfection of Self-abnegation, he thought thus, “O wise Sumedha, mayest thou henceforth fulfil the perfection of Abnegation; for as a man long the denizen of a prison feels no love for it, but is discontented, and wishes to live there no more, even so do thou, likening all births to a prison-house, discontented with all births, and anxious to get rid of them, set thy face toward abnegation, thus shalt thou become Buddha.” And he strenuously made the resolution to attain the third perfection of Self-abnegation. Therefore it is said,

135. For the conditions that make a Buddha cannot be so few,

I will investigate others, the conditions that bring Buddhaship to maturity.

136. Investigating then I beheld the third Perfection of Abnegation

Practised and followed by former sages.

137. This third one do thou strenuously undertake,

And reach the perfection of abnegation, if thou wilt attain Buddhahood.

138. As a man long a denizen of the house of bonds, oppressed with suffering,

Feels no pleasure therein, but rather longs for release,

139. Even so do thou look upon all births as prison-houses,

Set thy face toward self-abnegation, to obtain release from Existence.

But considering further, “These cannot be the only Buddha-making conditions,” and beholding the fourth Perfection of Wisdom, he thought thus, “O wise Sumedha, do thou from this day forth fulfil the perfection of Wisdom, avoiding no subject of knowledge, great, small, or middling,[137] do thou approach all wise men and ask them questions; for as the mendicant friar on his begging rounds, avoiding none of the families, great and small, that he frequents,[138] and wandering for alms from place to place, speedily gets food to support him, even so shalt thou, approaching all wise men, and asking them questions, become a Buddha.” And he strenuously resolved to attain the fourth perfection of Wisdom. Therefore it is said,

140. For the conditions that make a Buddha cannot be so few,

I will investigate the other conditions that bring Buddhaship to maturity.

141. Investigating then I beheld the fourth Perfection of Wisdom

Practised and followed by former sages.

142. This fourth do thou strenuously undertake,

And reach the perfection of wisdom, if thou wilt attain Buddhahood.

143. And as a monk on his begging rounds avoids no families,

Either small, or great, or middling, and so obtains subsistence,

144. Even so thou, constantly questioning wise men,

And reaching the perfection of wisdom, shalt attain supreme Buddhaship.

But considering further, “These cannot be the only Buddha-making conditions,” and seeing the fifth Perfection of Exertion, he thought thus, “O wise Sumedha, do thou from this day forth fulfil the perfection of Exertion. As the lion, the king of beasts, in every action[139] strenuously exerts himself, so if thou in all existences and in all thy acts art strenuous in exertion, and not a laggard, thou shalt become a Buddha.” And he made a firm resolve to attain the fifth perfection of Exertion. Therefore it is said,

145. For the conditions of a Buddha cannot be so few,

I will investigate the other conditions which bring Buddhaship to maturity.

146. Investigating then I beheld the fifth Perfection of Exertion

Practised and followed by former sages.

147. This fifth do thou strenuously undertake,

And reach the perfection of exertion, if thou wilt attain Buddhahood.

148. As the lion, king of beasts, in lying, standing and walking,

Is no laggard, but ever of resolute heart,

149. Even so do thou also in every existence strenuously exert thyself,

And reaching the perfection of exertion, thou shalt attain the supreme Buddhaship.

But considering further, “These cannot be the only Buddha-making conditions,” and beholding the sixth Perfection of Patience, he thought to himself, “O wise Sumedha, do thou from this time forth fulfil the perfection of Longsuffering; be thou patient in praise and in reproach. And as when men throw things pure or foul upon the earth, the earth does not feel either desire or repulsion towards them, but suffers them, endures them and acquiesces in them, even so thou also, if thou art patient in praise and reproach, shalt become Buddha.” And he strenuously resolved to attain the sixth perfection of Longsuffering. Therefore it is said,

150. For the conditions of a Buddha cannot be so few,

I will seek other conditions also which bring about Buddhaship.

151. And seeking then I beheld the sixth Perfection of Longsuffering

Practised and followed by former Buddhas.

152. Having strenuously taken upon thee this sixth perfection,

Then with unwavering mind thou shalt attain supreme Buddhaship.

153. And as the earth endures all that is thrown upon it,

Whether things pure or impure, and feels neither anger nor pity,

154. Even so enduring the praises and reproaches of all men,

Going on to perfect longsuffering, thou shalt attain supreme Buddhaship.

But further considering, “These cannot be the only conditions that make a Buddha,” and beholding the seventh Perfection of Truth, he thought thus within himself, “O wise Sumedha, from this time forth do thou fulfil the perfection of Truth; though the thunderbolt descend upon thy head, do thou never under the influence of desire and other passions utter a conscious lie, for the sake of wealth or any other advantage. And as the planet Venus at all seasons pursues her own course, nor ever goes on another course forsaking her own, even so, if thou forsake not truth and utter no lie, thou shalt become Buddha.” And he strenuously turned his mind to the seventh perfection of Truth. Therefore it is said,

155. For these are not all the conditions of a Buddha,

I will seek other conditions which bring about Buddhaship.

156. Seeking then I beheld the seventh Perfection of Truth

Practised and followed by former Buddhas.

157. Having strenuously taken upon thyself this seventh perfection,

Then free from duplicity of speech thou shalt attain supreme Buddhaship.

158. And as the planet Venus, balanced in all her times and seasons,

In the world of men and devas, departs not from her path,

159. Even so do thou not depart from the course of truth,[140]

Advancing to the perfection of truth, thou shalt attain supreme Buddhaship.

But further considering, “These cannot be the only conditions that make a Buddha,” and beholding the eighth Perfection of Resolution, he thought thus within himself, “O wise Sumedha, do thou from this time forth fulfil the perfection of Resolution; whatsoever thou resolvest be thou unshaken in that resolution. For as a mountain, the wind beating upon it in all directions, trembles not, moves not, but stands in its place, even so thou, if unswerving in thy resolution, shalt become Buddha.” And he strenuously resolved to attain the eighth perfection of Resolution. Therefore it is said,

160. For these are not all the conditions of a Buddha,

I will seek out other conditions that bring about Buddhaship.

161. Seeking then I beheld the eighth Perfection of Resolution

Practised and followed by former Buddhas.

162. Do thou resolutely take upon thyself this eighth perfection,

Then thou being immovable shalt attain supreme Buddhaship.

163. And as the rocky mountain, immovable, firmly based,

Is unshaken by many winds, and stands in its own place,

164. Even so do thou also remain ever immovable in resolution,

Advancing to the perfection of resolution, thou shalt attain supreme Buddhaship.

But further considering, “These cannot be the only conditions that make a Buddha,” and beholding the ninth Perfection of Good-will, he thought thus within himself, “O wise Sumedha, do thou from this time forth fulfil the perfection of Good-will, mayest thou be of one mind towards friends and foes. And as water fills with its refreshing coolness good men and bad alike,[141] even so, if thou art of one mind in friendly feeling towards all mortals, thou shalt become Buddha.” And he strenuously resolved to attain the ninth perfection of Good-will. Therefore it is said,

165. For these are not all the conditions of a Buddha,

I will seek out other conditions that bring about Buddhaship.

166. Seeking I beheld the ninth Perfection of Good-will

Practised and followed by former Buddhas.

167. Do thou, taking resolutely upon thyself this ninth perfection,

Become unrivalled in kindness, if thou wilt become Buddha.

168. And as water fills with its coolness

Good men and bad alike, and carries off all impurity,

169. Even so do thou look with friendship alike on the evil and the good,

Advancing to the perfection of kindness, thou shalt attain supreme Buddhaship.

But further considering, “These cannot be the only conditions that make a Buddha,” and beholding the tenth Perfection of Equanimity, he thought thus within himself, “O wise Sumedha, from this time do thou fulfil the perfection of Equanimity, be thou of equal mind in prosperity and adversity. And as the earth is indifferent when things pure or impure are cast upon it, even so, if thou art indifferent in prosperity and adversity, thou shalt become Buddha.” And he strenuously resolved to attain the tenth perfection of Equanimity. Therefore it is said,

170. For these cannot be all the conditions of a Buddha,

I will seek other conditions that bring about Buddhaship.

171. Seeking then I beheld the tenth Perfection of Equanimity

Practised and followed by former Buddhas.

172. If thou take resolutely upon thyself this tenth perfection,

Becoming well-balanced and firm, thou shalt attain supreme Buddhaship.

173. And as the earth is indifferent to pure and impure things cast upon her,

To both alike, and is free from anger and favour,

174. Even so do thou ever be evenly-balanced in joy and grief,

Advancing to the perfection of equanimity, thou shalt attain supreme Buddhaship.

Then he thought, “These are the only conditions in this world that, bringing Buddhaship to perfection and constituting a Buddha, have to be fulfilled by Bodhisattas; beside the ten Perfections there are no others. And these ten Perfections are neither in the heaven above nor in the earth below, nor are they to be found in the east or the other quarters, but reside in my heart of flesh.” Having thus realized that the Perfections were established in his heart, having strenuously resolved to keep them all, grasping them again and again, he mastered them forwards and backwards;[142] taking them at the end he went backward to the beginning, taking them at the beginning he placed them at the end,[143] taking them at the middle he carried them to the two ends, taking them at both ends he carried them to the middle. Repeating, “The Perfections are the sacrifice of limbs, the Lesser Perfections are the sacrifice of property, the Unlimited Perfections are the sacrifice of life,” he mastered them as the Perfections, the Lesser Perfections and the Unlimited Perfections,—like one who converts two kindred oils into one,[144] or like one who, using Mount Meru for his churning-rod, churns the great Cakkavāla ocean. And as he grasped again and again the ten Perfections, by the power of his piety this earth, four nahutas and eight hundred thousand leagues in breadth, like a bundle of reeds trodden by an elephant, or a sugar-mill in motion, uttering a mighty roar, trembled, shook and quaked, and spun round like a potter’s wheel or the wheel of an oil-mill. Therefore it is said,

175. These are all the conditions in the world that bring Buddhaship to perfection:

Beyond these are no others, therein do thou stand fast.

176. While he grasped these conditions natural and intrinsic,[145]

By the power of his piety the earth of ten thousand worlds quaked.

177. The earth sways and thunders like a sugar-mill at work,

Like the wheel of an oil-mill so shakes the earth.

And while the earth was trembling the people of Ramma, unable to endure it, like great Sāl-trees overthrown by the wind that blows at the end of a cycle, fell swooning here and there, while water-pots and other vessels, revolving like a jar on a potter’s wheel, struck against each other and were dashed and ground to pieces. The multitudes in fear and trembling approaching the Teacher said, “Tell us, Blessed one, is this turmoil caused by dragons, or is it caused by either demons, or ogres, or by celestial beings?—for this we know not, but truly this whole multitude is grievously afflicted. Pray does this portend evil to the world or good?—tell us the cause of it.” The Teacher hearing their words said, “Fear not nor be troubled, there is no danger to you from this. The wise Sumedha, concerning whom I predicted this day, ‘Hereafter he will be a Buddha named Gotama,’ is now mastering the Perfections, and while he masters them and turns them about, by the power of his piety the whole ten thousand worlds with one accord quake and thunder,” Therefore it is said,

178. All the multitude that was there in attendance on the Buddha,

Trembling, fell swooning there upon the ground.

179. Many thousands of water-pots and many hundred jars

Were crushed and pounded there and dashed against each other.

180. Excited, trembling, terrified, confused, their sense disordered,

The multitudes assembling, approached the Buddha,

181. Say, will it be good or evil to the world?

The whole world is afflicted, ward off this (danger), thou Omniscient One.

182. Then the Great Sage Dīpankara enjoined upon them,

Be confident, be not afraid at this earthquaking:

183. He concerning whom I predicted this day, He will be a Buddha in this world,

The same is investigating the time-honoured Conditions followed by the Buddhas.

184. Therefore while he is investigating fully these Conditions, the groundwork of a Buddha,

The earth of ten thousand worlds is shaken in the world of men and of angels.

And the people hearing the Buddha’s words, joyful and delighted, taking with them garlands, perfumes and unguents, left the city of Ramma, and went to the Bodhisatta. And having offered their flowers and other presents, and bowed to him and respectfully saluted him, they returned to the city of Ramma. And the Bodhisatta, having made a strenuous exertion and resolve, rose from the seat on which he sat. Therefore it is said,

185. Having heard the Buddha’s word, their minds were straightway calmed,

All of them approaching me again paid me their homage.

186. Having taken upon me the Perfections of a Buddha, having made firm my resolve,

Having bowed to Dīpankara, I rose from my seat.

And as the Bodhisatta rose from his seat, the angels in all the ten thousand worlds having assembled and offered him garlands and perfumes, uttered these and other words of praise and blessing, “Venerable hermit Sumedha, this day thou hast made a mighty resolve at the feet of Dīpankara Buddha, mayest thou fulfil it without let or hindrance: fear not nor be dismayed, may not the slightest sickness visit thy frame, quickly exercise the Perfections and attain supreme Buddhaship. As the flowering and fruit-bearing trees bring forth flowers and fruit in their season, so do thou also, not letting the right season pass by, quickly reach the supreme knowledge of a Buddha.” And thus having spoken, they returned each one to his celestial home. Then the Bodhisatta, having received the homage of the angels, made a strenuous exertion and resolve, saying, “Having fulfilled the ten Perfections, at the end of four asankheyyas and a hundred thousand cycles I shall become a Buddha.” And rising into the air he returned to Himavanta. Therefore it is said,

187. As he rose from his seat both angels and men

Sprinkle him with celestial and earthly flowers.

188. Both angels and men pronounce their blessing,

A great prayer thou hast made, mayest thou obtain it according to thy wish.

189. May all dangers be averted, may every sickness vanish,

Mayest thou have no hindrance,— quickly reach the supreme knowledge of a Buddha.

190. As when the season is come the flowering trees do blossom,

Even so do thou, O mighty One, blossom with the wisdom of a Buddha.

191. As all the Buddhas have fulfilled the ten Perfections,

Even so do thou, O mighty One, fulfil the ten Perfections.

192. As all the Buddhas are enlightened on the throne of knowledge,

Even so do thou, O mighty One, receive enlightenment in the wisdom of a Buddha.

193. As all the Buddhas have established the supremacy of the Law,

Even so do thou, O mighty One, establish the supremacy of the Law.

194. As the moon on the mid-day of the month shines in her purity,

Even so do thou, with thy mind at the full, shine in ten thousand worlds.

195. As the sun released by Rāhu glows fervently in his heat,

Even so, having redeemed mankind, do thou shine in all thy majesty.

196. As all the rivers find their way to the great ocean,

Even so may the worlds of men and angels take refuge in thee.

197. The Bodhisatta extolled with these praises, taking on himself the ten Conditions,

Commencing to fulfil these Conditions, entered the forest.

End of the Story of Sumedha.

And the people of the city of Ramma, having returned to the city, kept open house to the priesthood with the Buddha at their head. The Teacher having preached the Law to them, and established them in the three Refuges and the other branches of the Faith, departing from the city of Ramma, living thereafter his allotted span of life, having fulfilled all the duties of a Buddha, in due course attained Nirvāna in that element of annihilation in which no trace of existence remains. On this subject all that need be said can be learnt from the narrative in the Buddhavamsa, for it is said in that work,

198. Then they, having entertained the Chief of the world with his clergy,

Took refuge in the Teacher Dīpankara.

199. Some the Buddha established in the Refuges,

Some in the five Precepts, others in the ten.

200. To some he gives the privilege of priesthood, the four glorious Fruitions,

On some he bestows those peerless qualities the analytical Knowledges.

201. To some the Lord of men grants the eight sublime Acquisitions,

On some he bestows the three Wisdoms and the six supernatural Faculties.

202. In this order[146] the Great Sage exhorts the multitude.

Therewith the commandment of the world’s Protector was spread wide abroad.

203. He of the mighty jaw, of the broad shoulder, Dīpankara by name,

Procured the salvation of many men, warded off from them future punishment.

204. Beholding persons ripe for salvation, reaching them in an instant,

Even at a distance of four hundred thousand leagues, the Great Sage awakened them (to the knowledge of the truth).

205. At the first conversion the Buddha converted a thousand millions.

At the second the Protector converted a hundred thousand.

206. When the Buddha preached the truth in the angel world,

There took place a third conversion of nine hundred millions.

207. The Teacher Dīpankara had three assemblies,

The first was a meeting of a million millions.

208. Again when the Conqueror went into seclusion at Nārada Kūta,

A thousand million spotless Arhats met together.

209. When the Mighty One dwelt on the lofty rock Sudassana,

Then the Sage surrounded himself with nine hundred thousand millions.

210. At that time I was an ascetic wearing matted hair, a man of austere penances,

Moving through the air, accomplished in the five supernatural Faculties.

211. The (simultaneous) conversion of tens of thousands, of twenties of thousands, took place,

Of ones and twos the conversions were beyond computation.[147]

212. Then did the pure religion of Dīpankara Buddha become widely spread,

Known to many men prosperous and flourishing.

213. Four hundred thousand saints, possessed of the six Faculties, endowed with miraculous powers,

Ever attend upon Dīpankara, knower of the three worlds.

214. Blameworthy are all they who at that time leave the human existence,

Not having obtained final sanctity, still imperfect in knowledge.

215. The word of Buddha shines in the world of men and angels, made to blossom by saints such as these,

Freed from human passion, void of all taint (of sin).

216. The city of Dīpankara Buddha was called Rammavatī,

The khattiya Sumedha was his father, Sumedhā his mother.

217. Sumangala and Tissa were his chief disciples,

And Sāgata was the servitor of Dīpankara Buddha.

218. Nandā and Sunandā were his chief female disciples.

The Bodhi-tree of this Buddha is called the Pipphali.[148]

219. Eighty cubits in height the Great Saga Dīpankara

Shone conspicuous as a Deodar pine, or as a noble Sāl-tree in full bloom.

220. A hundred thousand years was the age of this Great Sage,

And so long as he was living on earth he brought many men to salvation.

221. Having made the Truth to flourish, having saved great multitudes of men,

Having flamed like a mass of fire, he died together with his disciples.

222. And all this power, this glory, there jewel-wheels on his feet,

All is wholly gone,—are not all existing things vanity!

223. After Dīpankara was the Leader named Kondañña,

Of infinite power, of boundless renown, immeasurable, unrivalled.

Next to the Dīpankara Buddha, after the lapse of one asankheyya, the Teacher Kondañña appeared. He also had three assemblies of saints, at the first assembly there were a million millions, at the second ten thousand millions, at the third nine hundred millions. At that time the Bodhisatta, having been born as a universal monarch named Vijitāvin, kept open house to the priesthood with the Buddha at their head, in number a million of millions. The Teacher having predicted of the Bodhisatta, “He will become a Buddha,” preached the Law. He having heard the Teacher’s preaching gave up his kingdom and became a Buddhist monk. Having mastered the three Treasuries,[149] having obtained the six supernatural Faculties, and having practised without failure the ecstatic meditation, he was reborn in the Brahma heavens. The city of Kondañña Buddha was Rammavatī, the khattiya Sunanda was his father, his mother was queen Sujātā, Bhadda and Subhadda were his two chief disciples, Anuruddha was his servitor, Tissā and Upatissā his chief female disciples, his Bodhi-tree was the Sālakalyāni, his body was eighty-eight cubits high, and the duration of his life was a hundred thousand years.

After him, at the end of one asankheyya, in one and the same cycle four Buddhas were born, Mangala, Sumana, Revata and Sobhita. Mangala Buddha had three assemblies of saints, of these at the first there were a million million priests, at the second ten thousand millions, at the third nine hundred millions. It is related that a step-brother of his, prince Ānanda, accompanied by an assembly of nine hundred millions, went to the Teacher to hear him preach the Law. The Teacher gave a discourse dealing successively with his various doctrines, and Ānanda and his whole retinue attained Arhatship together with the analytical Knowledges. The Teacher looking back upon the meritorious works done by these men of family in former existences, and perceiving that they had merit to acquire the robe and bowl by miraculous means, stretching forth his right hand exclaimed, “Come, priests.”[150] Then straightway all of them having become equipped with miraculously obtained robes and bowls, and perfect in decorum,[151] as if they were elders of sixty years standing, paid homage to the Teacher and attended upon him. This was his third assembly of saints. And whereas with other Buddhas a light shone from their bodies to the distance of eighty cubits on every side, it was not so with this Buddha, but the light from his body permanently filled ten thousand worlds, and trees, earth, mountains, seas and all other things, not excepting even pots and pans and such-like articles, became as it were overspread with a film of gold. The duration of his life was ninety thousand years, and during the whole of this period the sun, moon and other heavenly bodies could not shine by their own light, and there was no distinction between night and day. By day all living beings went about in the light of the Buddha as if in the light of the sun, and men ascertained the limits of night and day only by the flowers that blossomed in the evening and by the birds and other animals that uttered their cries in the morning. If I am asked, “What, do not other Buddhas also possess this power?” I reply, Certainly they do, for they might at will fill with their lustre ten thousand worlds or more. But in accordance with a prayer made by him in a former existence, the lustre of Mangala Buddha permanently filled ten thousand worlds, just as the lustre of the others permanently extended to the distance of a fathom.[152] The story is that when he was performing the duties of a Bodhisatta,[153] being in an existence corresponding to the Vessantara existence,[154] he dwelt with his wife and children on a mountain like the Vanka mountain (of the Vessantara Jātaka). One day a demon named Kharadāthika,[155] hearing of the Bodhisatta’s inclination to giving, approached him in the guise of a brahmin, and asked the Bodhisatta for his two children. The Bodhisatta, exclaiming, “I give my children to the brahmin,” cheerfully and joyfully gave up both the children, thereby causing the ocean-girt earth to quake.[156] The demon, standing by the bench at the end of the cloistered walk, while the Bodhisatta looked on, devoured the children like a bunch of roots. Not a particle of sorrow[157] arose in the Bodhisatta as he looked on the demon, and saw his mouth as soon as he opened it disgorging streams of blood like flames of fire, nay, a great joy and satisfaction welled within him as he thought, “My gift was well given.” And he put up the prayer, “By the merit of this deed may rays of light one day issue from me in this very way.” In consequence of this prayer of his it was that the rays emitted from his body when he became Buddha filled so vast a space. There was also another deed done by him in a former existence. It is related that, when a Bodhisatta, having visited the relic shrine of a Buddha, he exclaimed, “I ought to sacrifice my life for this Buddha,” and having wrapped round the whole of his body in the same way that torches are wrapped, and having filled with clarified butter a golden vessel with jewelled wick-holders, worth a hundred thousand pieces, he lit therein a thousand wicks, and having set fire to the whole of his body beginning with his head, he spent the whole night in circumambulating the shrine. And as he thus strove till dawn not the root of a hair of his head was even heated, ’twas as one enters the calyx of a lotus, for the Truth guards him who guards himself. Therefore has the Blessed One said,

224. Religion verily protects him who walks according thereto,

Religion rightly followed brings happiness.

This blessing is then in rightly following the Law,

The righteous man goes not to a state of punishment.

And through the merit of this work also the bodily lustre of this Buddha constantly extended through ten thousand worlds. At this time our Bodhisatta,[158] having been born as the brahmin Suruci, approached the Teacher with the view of inviting him to his house, and having heard his sweet discourse, said, “Lord, take your meal with me to-morrow.” “Brahmin, how many monks do you wish for?” “Nay but how many monks have you in your escort?” At that time was the Teacher’s first assembly, and accordingly he replied, “A million millions.” “Lord, bring them all with you and come and take your meal at my house.” The Teacher consented. The Brahmin having invited them for the next day, on his way home thought to himself, “I am perfectly well able to supply all these monks with broth and rice and clothes and such-like necessaries, but how can there be room for them to sit down?” This thought of his caused the marble throne of the archangel Indra, three hundred and thirty-six thousand leagues away, to become warm.[159] Indra exclaiming, “Who wishes to bring me down from my abode?” and looking down with the divine eye beheld the Bodhisatta, and said, “The brahmin Suruci having invited the clergy with the Buddha at their head is perplexed for room to seat them, it behoves me also to go thither and obtain a share of his merit.” And having miraculously assumed the form of a carpenter, axe in hand he appeared before the Bodhisatta and said, “Has any one got a job to be done for hire?” The Bodhisatta seeing him said, “What sort of work can you do?” “There’s no art that I do not know; any house or hall that anybody orders me to build, I’ll build it for him.” “Very well, I’ve got a job to be done.” “What is it, sir?” “I’ve invited a million million priests for to-morrow, will you build a hall to seat them all?” “I’ll build one with pleasure if you’ve the means of paying me.” “I have, my good man.” “Very well, I’ll build it.” And he went and began looking out for a site. There was a spot some fifty leagues in extent[160] as level as a kasina circle.[161] Indra fixed his eyes upon it, while he thought to himself, “Let a hall made of the seven precious stones rise up over such and such an extent of ground.” Immediately the edifice bursting through the ground rose up. The golden pillars of this hall had silver capitals,[162] the silver pillars had golden capitals, the gem pillars had coral capitals, the coral pillars had gem capitals, while those pillars which were made of all the seven precious stones had capitals of the same. Next he said, “Let the hall have hanging wreaths of little bells at intervals,” and looked again. The instant he looked a fringe of bells hung down, whose musical tinkling, as they were stirred by a gentle breeze, was like a symphony of the five sorts of instruments, or as when the heavenly choirs are going on. He thought, “Let there be hanging garlands of perfumes and flowers,” and there the garlands hung. He thought, “Let seats and benches for a million million monks rise up through the earth,” and straightway they appeared. He thought, “Let water vessels rise up at each corner of the building,” and the water vessels arose. Having by his miraculous power effected all this, he went to the brahmin and said, “Come, sir, look at your hall, and pay me my wages.” The Bodhisatta went and looked at the hall, and as he looked his whole frame was thrilled in every part with fivefold joy. And as he gazed on the hall he thought thus within himself, “This hall was not wrought by mortal hands, but surely through my good intention, my good action, the palace of Indra became hot, and hence this hall must have been built by the archangel Indra; it is not right that in such a hall as this I should give alms for a single day, I will give alms for a whole week.” For the gift of external goods, however great, cannot give satisfaction to the Bodhisattas, but the Bodhisattas feel joy at their self-renunciation when they sever the crowned head, put out the henna-anointed eyes, cut out the heart and give it away. For when our Bodhisatta in the Sivijātaka gave alms in the middle of his capital, at the four gates of the city, at a daily expenditure of five bushels of gold coins, this liberality failed to arouse within him a feeling of satisfaction at his renunciation. But on the other hand, when the archangel Indra came to him in the disguise of a brahmin, and asked for his eyes, then indeed, as he took them out and gave them away, laughter rose within him, nor did his heart swerve a hair’s breadth from its purpose. And hence we see that as regards almsgiving the Bodhisattas can have no satiety. Therefore this Bodhisatta also thinking, “I ought to give alms for seven days to a million million priests,” seated them in that hall, and for a week gave them the alms called gavapâna.[163] Men alone were not able to wait upon them, but the angels themselves, taking turns with men, waited upon them. A space of fifty leagues or more sufficed not to contain the monks, yet they seated themselves each by his own supernatural power. On the last day, having caused the bowls of all the monks to be washed, and filled them with butter clarified and unclarified, honey and molasses, for medicinal use, he gave them back to them, together with the three robes. The robes and cloaks received by novices and ordained priests were worth a hundred thousand. The Teacher, when he returned thanks, considering, “This man has given such great alms, who can he be?” and perceiving that at the end of two asankheyyas and four thousand cycles he would become a Buddha named Gotama, addressing the Bodhisatta, made this prediction: “After the lapse of such and such a period thou shalt become a Buddha named Gotama.” The Bodhisatta, hearing the prediction, thought, “It seems that I am to become a Buddha, what good can a householder’s life do me? I will give up the world,” and, treating all this prosperity like so much drivel, he received ordination at the hands of the Teacher. And having embraced the ascetic life and learnt the word of Buddha, and having attained the supernatural Faculties and the Attainments, at the end of his life he was reborn in the Brahma heavens. The city of Mangala Buddha was called Uttara, his father was the khattiya Uttara; his mother was Uttarā, Sudeva and Dhammasena were his two chief disciples, Pālita was his servitor, Sīvalī and Asokā his two chief female disciples. The Nāga was his Bodhi-tree, his body was eighty-eight cubits high. When his death took place, after he had lived ninety thousand years, at the same instant ten thousand worlds were involved in darkness, and in all worlds there was a great cry and lamentation of men.

225. After Kondañña the Leader named Mangala,

Dispelling darkness in the world, held aloft the torch of truth.

And after the Buddha had died, shrouding in darkness ten thousand worlds, the Teacher named Sumana appeared. He also had three great assemblies of saints, at the first assembly the priests were a million millions, at the second, on the Golden Mountain, ninety million of millions, at the third eighty million of millions. At this time the Bodhisatta was the Nāga king Atula, mighty and powerful. And he, hearing that a Buddha had appeared, left the Nāga world, accompanied by his assembled kinsmen, and, making offerings with celestial music to the Buddha, whose retinue was a million million of monks, and having given great gifts, bestowing upon each two garments of fine cloth, he was established in the Three Refuges. And this Teacher also foretold of him, “One day he will be a Buddha.” The city of this Buddha was named Khema, Sudatta was his father, Sirimā his mother, Sarana and Bhāvitatta his chief disciples, Udena his servitor, Sonā and Upasonā his chief female disciples. The Nāga was his Bodhi-tree, his body was ninety cubits high, and his age ninety thousand years.

226. After Mangala came the Leader named Sumana,

In all things unequalled, the best of all beings.

After him the Teacher Revata appeared. He also had three assemblies of saints. At the first assembly the priests were innumerable, at the second there were a million millions, so also at the third. At that time the Bodhisatta having been born as the brahmin Atideva, having heard the Teacher’s preaching, was established in the Three Refuges. And raising his clasped hands to his head, having praised the Teacher’s abandonment of human passion, presented him with a monk’s upper robe. And he also made the prediction, “Thou wilt become a Buddha.” Now the city of this Buddha was called Sudhaññavatī, his father was the khattiya Vipula, his mother Vipulā, Varuṇa and Brahmadeva his chief disciples, Sambhava his servitor, Bhaddā and Subhaddā his chief female disciples, and the Nāga-tree his Bo-tree. His body was eighty cubits high, and his age sixty thousand years.

227. After Sumana came the Leader named Revata,

The Conqueror unequalled, incomparable, unmatched, supreme.

After him appeared the Teacher Sobhita. He also had three assemblies of saints; at the first assembly a thousand million monks were present, at the second nine hundred millions, at the third eight hundred millions. At that time the Bodisat having been born as the brahman Ajita, and having heard the Teacher’s preaching, was established in the Three Refuges, and gave a great donation to the Order of monks, with the Buddha at their head. To this man also he prophesied, saying, “Thou shalt become a Buddha.” Sudhamma was the name of the city of this Blessed One, Sudhamma the king was his father, Sudhammā his mother, Asama and Sunetta his chief disciples, Anoma his servitor, Nakulā and Sujātā his chief female disciples, and the Nāga-tree his Bo-tree; his body was fifty-eight cubits high, and his age ninety thousand years.

228. After Revata came the Leader named Sobhita,

Subdued and mild, unequalled and unrivalled.

After him, when an asaŋkheyya had elapsed, three Buddhas were born in one kalpa—Anomadassin, Paduma, and Nārada. Anomadassin had three assemblies of saints; at the first eight hundred thousand monks were present, at the second seven, at the third six. At that time the Bodisat was a Yakkha chief, mighty and powerful, the lord of many millions of millions of yakkhas. He, hearing that a Buddha had appeared, came and gave a great donation to the Order of monks, with the Buddha at their head. And the Teacher prophesied to him too, saying, “Hereafter thou shalt be a Buddha.” The city of Anomadassin the Blessed One was called Candavatī, Yasava the king was his father, Yasodharā his mother, Nisabha and Anoma his chief disciples, Varuṇa his servitor, Sundarī and Sumanā his chief female disciples, the Arjuna-tree his Bo-tree; his body was fifty-eight cubits high, his age a hundred thousand years.

229. After Sobhita came the perfect Buddha—the best of men—

Anomadassin, of infinite fame, glorious, difficult to surpass.

After him appeared the Teacher named Paduma. He too had three assemblies of saints; at the first assembly a million million monks were present, at the second three hundred thousand, at the third two hundred thousand of the monks who dwelt at a great grove in the uninhabited forest. At that time, whilst the Tathāgata was living in that grove, the Bodisat having been born as a lion, saw the Teacher plunged in ecstatic trance, and with trustful heart made obeisance to him, and walking round him with reverence, experienced great joy, and thrice uttered a mighty roar. For seven days he laid not aside the bliss arising from the thought of the Buddha, but through joy and gladness, seeking not after prey, he kept in attendance there, offering up his life. When the Teacher, after seven days, aroused himself from his trance, he looked upon the lion and thought, “He will put trust in the Order of monks and make obeisance to them; let them draw near.” At that very moment the monks drew near, and the lion put faith in the Order. The Teacher, knowing his thoughts, prophesied, saying, “Hereafter he shall be a Buddha.” Now the city of Paduma the Blessed One was called Champaka, his father was Paduma the king, his mother Asamā, Sāla and Upasāla were his chief disciples, Varuṇa his servitor, Rāmā and Uparāmā his chief female disciples, the Crimson-tree his Bo-tree; his body was fifty-eight cubits high, and his age was a hundred thousand years.

230. After Anomadassin came the perfect Buddha, the best of men,

Paduma by name, unequalled, and without a rival.

After him appeared the Teacher named Nārada. He also had three assemblies of saints; at the first assembly a million million monks were present, at the second ninety million million, at the third eighty million million. At that time the Bodisat, having taken the vows as a sage, acquired the five kinds of Wisdom and the eight sublime Acquisitions, and gave a great donation to the Order, with the Buddha at their head, making an offering of red sandal wood. And to him also he prophesied, “Hereafter thou shalt be a Buddha.” The city of this Blessed One was called Dhaññavati, his father was Sumedha the warrior, his mother Anomā, Bhaddasāla and Jetamitta his chief disciples, Vāseṭṭha his servitor, Uttarā and Pagguṇī his chief female disciples, the great Crimson-tree was his Bo-tree; his body was eighty-eight cubits high, and his age was ninety thousand years.

231. After Paduma came the perfect Buddha, the best of men,

Nārada by name, unequalled, and without a rival.

After Nārada the Buddha, a hundred thousand world-cycles ago there appeared in one kalpa only one Buddha called Padumuttara. He also had three assemblies of saints; at the first a million million monks were present, at the second, on the Vebhāra Mountain, nine hundred thousand million, at the third eight hundred thousand million. At that time the Bodisat, born as the Mahratta of the name of Jaṭila, gave an offering of robes to the Order, with the Buddha at their head. And to him also he announced, “Hereafter thou shalt be a Buddha.” And at the time of Padumuttara the Blessed One there were no infidels, but all, men and angels, took refuge in the Buddha. His city was called Haŋsavatī, his father was Ānanda the warrior, his mother Sujātā, Devala and Sujāta his chief disciples, Sumana his servitor, Amitā and Asamā his chief female disciples, the Sāla-tree his Bo-tree; his body was eighty-eight cubits high, the light from his body extended twelve leagues, and his age was a hundred thousand years.

232. After Nārada came the perfect Buddha, the best of men,

Padumuttara by name, the Conqueror unshaken, like the sea.

After him, when thirty thousand world-cycles had elapsed, two Buddhas, Sumedha and Sujāta, were born in one kalpa. Sumedha also had three assemblies of his saints; at the first assembly, in the city Sudassana, a thousand million sinless ones were present, at the second nine hundred, at the third eight hundred. At that time the Bodisat, born as the brahman youth named Uttara, lavished eight hundred millions of money he had saved in giving a great donation to the Order, with the Buddha at their head. And he then listened to the Law, and accepted the Refuges, and abandoned his home, and took the vows. And to him also the Buddha prophesied, saying, “Hereafter thou shalt be a Buddha.” The city of Sumedha the Blessed One was called Sudassana, Sudatta the king was his father, Sudattā his mother, Sarana and Sabbakāma his two chief disciples, Sāgara his servitor, Rāmā and Surāmā his two chief female disciples, the great Champaka-tree his Bo-tree; his body was eighty-eight cubits high, and his age was ninety thousand years.

233. After Padumuttara came the Leader named Sumedha,

The Sage hard to equal, brilliant in glory, supreme in all the world.

After him appeared the Teacher Sujāta. He also had three assemblies of his saints; at the first assembly sixty thousand monks were present, at the second fifty, at the third forty. At that time the Bodisat was a universal monarch; and hearing that a Buddha was born he went to him and heard the Law, and gave to the Order, with the Buddha at their head, his kingdom of the four continents with its seven treasures, and took the vows under the Teacher. All the dwellers in the land, taking advantage of the birth of a Buddha in their midst, did duty as servants in the monasteries, and continually gave great donations to the Order, with the Buddha at their head. And to him also the Teacher prophesied. The city of this Blessed One was called Sumangala, Uggata the king was his father, Pabhāvatī his mother, Sudassana and Deva his chief disciples, Nārada his servitor, and Nāgā and Nāgasamālā his chief female disciples, and the great Bambu-tree his Bo-tree; this tree, they say, had smaller hollows and thicker wood than ordinary bambus have,[164] and in its mighty upper branches it was as brilliant as a bunch of peacocks’ tails. The body of this Blessed One was fifty cubits high, and his age was ninety thousand years.

234. In that age, the Maṇḍakalpa, appeared the Leader Sujāta,

Mighty jawed and grandly framed, whose measure none can take, and hard to equal.

After him, when eighteen hundred world-cycles had elapsed, three Buddhas, Piyadassin, Atthadassin, and Dhammadassin, were born in one kalpa. Piyadassin also had three assemblies of his saints; at the first a million million monks were present, at the second nine hundred million, at the third eight hundred million. At that time the Bodisat, as a young brahman called Kassapa, who had thoroughly learnt the three Vedas, listened to the Teacher’s preaching of the Law, and built a monastery at a cost of a million million, and stood firm in the Refuges and the Precepts. And to him the Teacher prophesied, saying, “After the lapse of eighteen hundred kalpas thou shalt become a Buddha.” The city of this Blessed One was called Anoma, his father was Sudinna the king, his mother Candā, Pālita and Sabbadassin his chief disciples, Sobhita his servitor, Sujātā and Dhammadinnā his chief female disciples, and the Priyaŋgu-tree his Bo-tree. His body was eighty cubits high, and his age ninety thousand years.

235. After Sujāta came Piyadassin, Leader of the world,

Self-taught, hard to match, unequalled, of great glory.

After him appeared the Teacher called Atthadassin. He too had three assemblies of his saints; at the first nine million eight hundred thousand monks were present, at the second eight million eight hundred thousand, and the same number at the third. At that time the Bodisat, as the mighty ascetic Susima, brought from heaven the sunshade of Mandārava flowers, and offered it to the Teacher, who prophesied also to him. The city of this Blessed One was called Sobhita, Sāgara the king was his father, Sudassanā his mother, Santa and Apasanta his chief disciples, Abhaya his servitor, Dhammā and Sudhammā his chief female disciples, and the Champaka his Bo-tree. His body was eighty cubits high, the glory from his body always extended over a league, and his age was a hundred thousand years.

236. In the same Maṇḍakalpa Atthadassin, best of men,

Dispelled the thick darkness, and attained supreme Enlightenment.

After him appeared the Teacher named Dhammadassin. He too had three assemblies of his saints; at the first a thousand million monks were present, at the second seven hundred millions, at the third eight hundred millions. At that time the Bodisat, as Sakka the king of the gods, made an offering of sweet-smelling flowers from heaven, and heavenly music. And to him too the Teacher prophesied. The city of this Blessed One was called Saraṇa, his father was Saraṇa the king, his mother Sunandā, Paduma and Phussadeva his chief disciples, Sunetta his servitor, Khemā and Sabbanāmā his chief female disciples, and the red Kuravaka-tree (called also Bimbijāla) his Bo-tree. His body was eighty cubits high, and his age a hundred thousand years.

237. In the same Maṇḍakalpa the far-famed Dhammadassin

Dispelled the thick darkness, illumined earth and heaven.

After him, ninety-four world-cycles ago, only one Buddha, by name Siddhattha, appeared in one kalpa. Of his disciples too there were three assemblies; at the first assembly a million million monks were present, at the second nine hundred millions, at the third eight hundred millions. At that time the Bodisat, as the ascetic Mangala of great glory and gifted with the powers derived from the Higher Wisdom, brought a great jambu fruit and presented it to the Tathāgata. The Teacher, having eaten the fruit, prophesied to the Bodisat, saying, “Ninety-four kalpas hence thou shalt become a Buddha.” The city of this Blessed One was called Vebhāra, Jayasena the king was his father, Suphassā his mother, Sambala and Sumitta his chief disciples, Revata his servitor, Sīvalī and Surāmā his chief female disciples, and the Kanikāra-tree his Bo-tree. His body was sixty cubits high, and his age a hundred thousand years.

238. After Dhammadassin, the Leader named Siddhattha

Rose like the sun, bringing all darkness to an end.

After him, ninety-two world-cycles ago, two Buddhas, Tissa and Phussa by name, were born in one kalpa. Tissa the Blessed One had three assemblies of his saints; at the first a thousand millions of monks were present, at the second nine hundred millions, at the third eight hundred millions. At that time the Bodisat was born as the wealthy and famous warrior-chief Sujāta. When he had taken the vows and acquired the wonderful powers of a rishi, he heard that a Buddha had been born; and taking a heaven-grown Mandārava lotus, and flowers of the Pāricchattaka-tree (which grows in Indra’s heaven), he offered them to the Tathāgata as he walked in the midst of his disciples, and he spread an awning of flowers in the sky. To him, too, the Teacher prophesied, saying, “Ninety-two kalpas hence thou shalt become a Buddha.” The city of this Blessed One was called Khema, Janasandha the warrior-chief was his father, Padumā his mother, the god Brahmā and Udaya his chief disciples, Sambhava his servitor, Phussā and Sudattā his chief female disciples, and the Asana-tree his Bo-tree. His body was sixty cubits high, and his age a hundred thousand years.

239. After Siddhattha, Tissa, the unequalled and unrivalled,

Of infinite virtue and glory, was the chief Guide of the world.

After him appeared the Teacher named Phussa. He too had three assemblies of his saints; at the first assembly six million monks were present, at the second five, at the third three million two hundred thousand. At that time the Bodisat, born as the warrior-chief Vijitavī, laid aside his kingdom, and, taking the vows under the Teacher, learnt the three Piṭakas, and preached the Law to the people, and fulfilled the Perfection of Morality.[165] And the Buddha prophesied to him in the same manner. The city of this Blessed One was called Kāsi (Benares), Jayasena the king was his father, Sirimā his mother, Surakkhita and Dhammasena his chief disciples, Sabhiya his servitor, Cālā and Upacālā his chief female disciples, and the Āmalaka-tree his Bo-tree. His body was fifty-eight cubits high, and his age ninety thousand years.

240. In the same Maṇḍakalpa Phussa was the Teacher supreme,

Unequalled, unrivalled, the chief Guide of the world.

After him, ninety world-cycles ago, appeared the Blessed One named Vipassin. He too had three assemblies of his saints; at the first assembly six million eight hundred thousand monks were present; in the second one hundred thousand, in the third eighty thousand. At that time the Bodisat, born as the mighty and powerful snake king Atula, gave to the Blessed One a golden chair, inlaid with the seven kinds of gems. To him also he prophesied, saying, “Ninety-one world-cycles hence thou shalt become a Buddha.” The city of this Blessed One was called Bandhumatī, Bandhumā the king was his father, Bandhumatī his mother, Khandha and Tissa his chief disciples, Asoka his servitor, Candā and Candamittā his chief female disciples, and the Bignonia (or Pāṭali-tree) his Bo-tree. His body was eighty cubits high, the effulgence from his body always reached a hundred leagues, and his age was a hundred thousand years.

241. Alter Phussa, the Supreme Buddha, the best of men,

Vipassin by name, the far-seeing, appeared in the world.

After him, thirty-one world-cycles ago, there were two Buddhas, called Sikhin and Vessabhū. Sikhin too had three assemblies of his saints; at the first assembly a hundred thousand monks were present, at the second eighty thousand, at the third seventy. At that time the Bodisat, born as king Arindama, gave a great donation of robes and other things to the Order with the Buddha at their head, and offered also a superb elephant, decked with the seven gems and provided with all things suitable. To him too he prophesied, saying, “Thirty-one world-cycles hence thou shalt become a Buddha.” The city of that Blessed One was called Aruṇavatī, Aruṇa the warrior-chief was his father, Pabhāvatī his mother, Abhibhū and Sambhava his chief disciples, Khemaŋkura his servitor, Makhelā and Padumā his chief female disciples, and the Puṇḍarīka-tree his Bo-tree. His body was thirty-seven cubits high, the effulgence from his body reached three leagues, and his age was thirty-seven thousand years.

242. After Vipassin came the Supreme Buddha, the best of men,

Sikhin by name, the Conqueror, unequalled and unrivalled.

After him appeared the Teacher named Vessabhū. He also had three assemblies of his saints; at the first eight million priests were present, at the second seven, at the third six. At that time the Bodisat, born as the king Sudassana, gave a great donation of robes and other things to the Order, with the Buddha at their head. And taking the vows at his hands, he became righteous in conduct, and found great joy in meditating on the Buddha. To him too the Blessed One prophesied, saying, “Thirty-one world-cycles hence thou shalt be a Buddha.” The city of this Blessed One was called Anopama, Suppatīta the king was his father, Yasavatī his mother, Soṇa and Uttara his chief disciples, Upasanta his servitor, Dāmā and Sumālā his chief female disciples, and the Sal-tree his Bo-tree. His body was sixty cubits high, and his age sixty thousand years.

243. In the same Maṇḍakalpa, the Conqueror named Vessabhū,

Unequalled and unrivalled, appeared in the world.

After him, in this world-cycle, four Buddhas have appeared—Kakusandha, Koṇāgamana, Kassapa, and our Buddha. Kakusandha the Blessed One had one assembly, at which forty thousand monks were present. At that time the Bodisat, as Kshema the king, gave a great donation, including robes and bowls, to the Order, with the Buddha at their head, and having given also collyriums and drugs, he listened to the Law preached by the Teacher, and took the vows. And to him also the Buddha prophesied. The city of Kakusandha the Blessed One was called Khema, Aggidatta the Brāhman was his father, Visākhā the Brahman woman his mother, Vidhura and Sanjīva his chief disciples, Buddhija his servitor, Sāmā and Campakā his chief female disciples, and the great Sirīsa-tree his Bo-tree. His body was forty cubits high, and his age forty thousand years.

244. After Vessabhū came the perfect Buddha, the best of men,

Kakusandha by name, infinite and hard to equal.

After him appeared the Teacher Koṇāgamana. Of his disciples too there was one assembly, at which thirty thousand monks were present. At that time the Bodisat, as Pabbata the king, went, surrounded by his ministers, to the Teacher, and listened to the preaching of the Law. And having given an invitation to the Order, with the Buddha at their head, he kept up a great donation, giving cloths of silk, and of fine texture, and woven with gold. And he took the vows from the Teacher’s hands. And to him too the Buddha prophesied. The city of this Blessed One was called Sobhavatī, Yaññadatta the Brahman was his father, Uttarā the Brahman woman his mother, Bhiyyosa and Uttara his chief disciples, Sotthija his servitor, Samuddā and Uttarā his chief female disciples, and the Udumbara-tree his Bo-tree. His body was twenty cubits high, and his age was thirty thousand years.

245. After Kakusandha came the Perfect Buddha, the best of men,

Koṇāgamana by name, Conqueror, chief of the world, supreme among men.

After him the Teacher named Kassapa appeared in the world. Of his disciples too there was one assembly, at which twenty thousand monks were present. At that time the Bodisat, as the Brahman youth Jotipāla, accomplished in the three Vedas, was well known on earth and in heaven as the friend of the potter Ghaṭīkāra. Going with him to the Teacher and hearing the Law, he took the vows; and zealously learning the three Piṭakas, he glorified, by faithfulness in duty and in works of supererogation, the religion of the Buddhas. And to him too the Buddha prophesied. The birthplace of the Blessed One was called Benāres, Brahma-datta the brahman was his father, Dhanavatī of the brahman caste his mother, Tissa and Bhāradvāja his chief disciples, Sabbamitta his servitor, Anuḷā and Uruveḷā his chief female disciples, and the Nigrodha-tree his Bo-tree. His body was twenty cubits high, and his age was twenty thousand years.

246. After Koṇāgamana came the Perfect Buddha, best of men,

Kassapa by name, that Conqueror, king of Righteousness, and giver of Light.

Again, in the kalpa in which Dīpaŋkara the Buddha appeared, three other Buddhas appeared also. On their part no prophecy was made to the Bodisat, they are therefore not mentioned here; but in the commentary, in order to mention all the Buddhas from this kalpa, it is said,

247. Taṇhaŋkara and Medhaŋkara, and Saranaŋkara,

And the perfect Buddha Dīpaŋkara, and Kondañña best of men,

248. And Maŋgala, and Sumana, and Revata, and Sobhita the sage,

Anomadassin, Paduma, Nārada, Padumuttara,

249. And Sumedha, and Sujāta, Piyadassin the famous one,

Atthadassin, Dhammadassin, Siddhattha guide of the world,

250. Tissa, and Phussa the perfect Buddha, Vipassin, Sikhin, Vessabhū,

Kakusandha, Koṇāgamana, and Kassapa too the Guide,—

251. These were the perfect Buddhas, the sinless ones, the well-controlled;

Appearing like suns, dispelling the thick darkness;

They, and their disciples too, blazed up like flames of fire and went out.

Thus our Bodisat has come down to us through four asaŋkheyyas plus one hundred thousand kalpas, making resolve in the presence of the twenty-four Buddhas, beginning with Dīpaŋkara. Now after Kassapa there is no other Buddha beside the present supreme Buddha. So the Bodisat received a prophecy from each of the twenty-four Buddhas, beginning at Dīpaŋkara.

And furthermore in accordance with the saying,

“The resolve (to become a Buddha) only succeeds by the combination of eight qualifications: being a man, and of the male sex, and capable of attaining arahatship, association with the Teachers, renunciation of the world, perfection in virtue, acts of self-sacrifice, and earnest determination,”

he combined in himself these eight qualifications. And exerting himself according to the resolve he had made at the feet of Dīpaŋkara, in the words,

“Come, I will search for the Buddha-making conditions, this way and that;”[166]

and beholding the Perfections of Almsgiving and the rest to be the qualities necessary for the making of a Buddha, according to the words,

“Then, as I made my search, I beheld the first Perfection of Almsgiving;”[167]

he came down through many births, fulfilling these Perfections, even up to his last appearance as Vessantara. And the rewards which fell to him on his way, as they fall to all the Bodisats who have resolved to become Buddhas, are lauded thus:

252. So the men, perfect in every part, and destined to Buddhahood,

Traverse the long road through thousands of millions of ages.

253. They are not born in hell, nor in the space between the worlds;

They do not become ghosts consumed by hunger, thirst, and want,

And they do not become small animals, even though born to sorrow.

254. When born among men they are not blind by birth,

They are not hard of hearing, they are not classed among the dumb.

255. They do not become women; among hermaphrodites and eunuchs

They are not found,—these men destined to Buddhahood.

256. Free from the deadly sins, everywhere pure-living,

They follow not after vain philosophy, they perceive the working of Karma.

257. Though they dwell in heaven, they are not born into the Unconscious state,

Nor are they destined to rebirth among the angels in the Pure Abodes.[168]

258. Bent upon renunciation, holy in the world and not of it,

They walk as acting for the world’s welfare, fulfilling all perfection.

While he was thus fulfilling the Perfections, there was no limit to the existences in which he fulfilled the Perfection of Almsgiving. As, for instance, in the times when he was the brahman Akitti, and the brahmin Saŋkha, and the king Dhanañjaya, and Mahā-sudassana, and Maha-govinda, and the king Nimi, and the prince Canda, and the merchant Visayha, and the king Sivi, and Vessantara. So, certainly, in the Birth as the Wise Hare, according to the words,[169]

259. When I saw one coming for food, I offered my own self,

There is no one like me in giving, such is my Perfection of Almsgiving,

he, offering up his own life, acquired the Supreme Perfection called the Perfection of Almsgiving.

In like manner there is no limit to the existences—as, for instance, in the times when he was the snake king Sīlava, and the snake king Campeyya, the snake king Bhūridatta, the snake king Chad-danta, and the prince Alīnasattu, son of king Jayaddisa—in which he fulfilled the Perfection of Goodness. So, certainly, in the Saŋkhapāla Birth, according to the words,

260. Even when piercing me with stakes, and striking me with javelins,

I was not angry with the sons of Bhoja, such is my Perfection of Goodness,

he, offering up himself, acquired the Supreme Perfection, called the Perfection of Goodness.

In like manner there is no limit to existences—as, for instance, in the times when he was the prince Somanassa, and the prince Hatthipāla, and the wise man Ayoghara—in which, forsaking his kingdom, he fulfilled the Perfection of Renunciation. So, certainly, in the Cūla-Sutasoma Birth, according to the words,

261. The kingdom, which was in my power, like spittle I rejected it,

And, rejecting, cared not for it, such is my Perfection of Renunciation,

he, renouncing the kingdom for freedom from the ties of sin,[170] acquired the Supreme Perfection, called the Perfection of Renunciation.

In like manner, there is no limit to the existences—as, for instance, in the times when he was the wise man Vidhūra, and the wise man Mahā-govinda, and the wise man Kuddāla, and the wise man Araka, and the ascetic Bodhi, and the wise man Mahosadha—in which he fulfilled the Perfection of Wisdom. So, certainly, in the time when he was the wise man Senaka in the Sattubhatta Birth, according to the words,

262. Searching the matter out by wisdom, I set the brahman free from pain,

There is no one like me in wisdom; such is my Perfection of Wisdom,

he, pointing out the snake which had got into the bellows, acquired the Supreme Perfection called the Perfection of Wisdom.

So, certainly, in the Mahā-Janaka Birth, according to the words,

263. Out of sight of the shore, in the midst of the waters, all men are as if dead,

There is no other way of thinking; such is my Perfection of Resolution,

he, crossing the Great Ocean, acquired the Supreme Perfection called the Perfection of Resolution.

And so in the Khantivāda Birth, according to the words,

264. Even when he struck me with a sharp axe, as if I were a senseless thing,

I was not angry with the king of Kāsi; such is my Perfection of Patience,

he, enduring great sorrow as if he were a senseless thing, acquired the Perfection of Patience.

And so in the Mahā-Sutasoma Birth, according to the words,

265. Guarding the word of Truth, and offering up my life,

I delivered the hundred warriors; such is my Perfection of Truth,

he, offering up his life, and observing truth, obtained the Perfection of Truth.

And in the Mūgapakkha Birth, according to the words,

266. Father and mother I hated not, reputation I hated not,

But Omniscience was dear to me, therefore was I firm in duty,

offering up even his life, and being resolute in duty, he acquired the Perfection of Resolution.

And so in the Ekarāja Birth, according to the words,

267. No man terrifies me, nor am I in fear of any man;

Firm in the power of kindness, in purity I take delight,

regarding not even his life while attaining to kindness, he acquired the Perfection of Good-will.

So in the Somahaŋsa Birth, according to the words,

268. I lay me down in the cemetery, making a pillow of dead bones:

The village children mocked and praised: to all I was indifferent,

he was unshaken in equanimity, even when the villagers tried to vex or please him by spitting or by offering garlands and perfumes, and thus he acquired the Perfection of Equanimity.

This is a summary only, the account will be found at length in the Cariyā Piṭaka.

Having thus fulfilled the Perfections, in his birth as Vessantara, according to the words,

269. This earth, unconscious though she be and ignorant of joy or grief,

E’en she by my free-giving’s mighty power was shaken seven times,

he performed such mighty acts of virtue as made the earth to shake. And when, in the fullness of time, he had passed away, he reassumed existence in the Tusita heaven.

Thus should be understood the period, called Dūrenidāna, from the Resolution at the feet of Dīpaŋkara down to this birth in the City of Delight.