Buddhist birth stories; or, Jataka tales, Volume 1

by Unknown

The guards went to the king and said, describing him, “O king! such and such a being is begging through the town. We cannot tell whether he is a god, or a man, or a Nāga, or a Supaṇṇa,[197] or what he is.”

The king, watching the Great Being from his palace, became full of wonder, and gave orders to his guards, saying, “Go, my men, and see. If it is a superhuman being, it will disappear as soon as it leaves the city; if a god, it will depart through the air; if a snake, it will dive into the earth; if a man, it will eat the food just as it is.”

But the Great Being collected scraps of food. And when he perceived there was enough to support him, he left the city by the gate at which he had entered. And seating himself, facing towards the East, under the shadow of the Paṇḍava rock, he began to eat his meal. His stomach, however, turned, and made as if it would come out of his mouth. Then, though distressed by that revolting food, for in that birth he had never even beheld such food with his eyes, he himself admonished himself, saying, “Siddhattha, it is true you were born in a family where food and drink were easily obtainable, into a state of life where your food was perfumed third-season’s rice, with various curries of the finest kinds. But ever since you saw one clad in a mendicant’s garb, you have been thinking, ‘When shall I become like him, and live by begging my food? would that that time were come!’ And now that you have left all for that very purpose, what is this that you are doing?” And overcoming his feelings, he ate the food.

The king’s men saw this, and went and told him what had happened. Hearing what his messengers said, the king quickly left the city, and approaching the Bodisat, was so pleased at the mere sight of his dignity and grace, that he offered him all his kingdom.

The Bodisat said, “In me, O king! there is no desire after wealth or sinful pleasures. It is in the hope of attaining to complete enlightenment that I have left all.” And when the king gained not his consent, though he asked it in many ways, he said, “Assuredly thou wilt become a Buddha! Deign at least after thy Buddhahood to come to my kingdom first.”

This is here concisely stated; but the full account, beginning, “I sing the Renunciation, how the Wise One renounced the world,” will be found on referring to the Pabbajjā Sutta and its commentary.

And the Bodisat, granting the king’s request, went forward on his way. And joining himself to Āḷāra Kāḷāma, and to Uddaka, son of Rāma, he acquired their systems of ecstatic trance. But when he saw that that was not the way to wisdom, he left off applying himself to the realization of that system of Attainment.[198] And with the intention of carrying out the Great Struggle against sin, and showing his might and resolution to gods and men, he went to Uruvela. And saying, “Pleasant, indeed, is this spot!” he took up his residence there, and devoted himself to the Great Struggle.[199]

And those five mendicants, Kondanya and the rest, begging their way through villages, market towns, and royal cities, met with the Bodisat there. And for six years they stayed by him and served him, while he was carrying out the Great Struggle, with different kinds of service, such as sweeping out the hermitage, and so on; thinking the while, “Now he will become a Buddha! now he will become a Buddha!”

Now the Bodisat thought, “I will perform the uttermost penance.” And he brought himself to live on one seed of the oil plant, or one grain of rice, and even to fast entirely; but the angels gathered the sap of life and infused it into him through the pores of his skin. By this fasting, however, he became as thin as a skeleton; the colour of his body, once fair as gold, became dark; and the Thirty-two signs of a Great Being disappeared. And one day, when walking up and down, plunged in intense meditation, he was overcome by severe pain; and he fainted, and fell.

Then certain of the angels began to say, “The mendicant Gotama is dead.” But others said, “Such is the condition of Arahats (saints).” And those who thought he was dead went and told Suddhodana the king, saying, “Your son is dead.”