Jataka 207
Assaka Jātaka
The Story of Assaka
as told by Eric Van Horn
originally translated by William Henry Denham Rouse, Cambridge University
originally edited by Professor Edward Byles Cowell, Cambridge University
This is a poignant - and funny story - about getting too attached. This story features a worm who is apparently unafraid to threaten the King!
“Once with the great King Assaka.” The Master told this story while he was staying at Jetavana. It is about someone who was distracted by the recollection of a former wife. He asked the monk whether he was really lovesick. The man said “Yes.” “With whom are you in love?” The Master continued. “My former wife,” was the reply. Then the Master said, “Not just now, brother, have you been full of desire for this woman. And in olden days her love brought you great misery.” And he told this story from the past.
Once upon a time, there was a king named “Assaka.” He reigned in Potali, which is a city in the kingdom of Kāsi. His queen consort, named Ubbarī, was very dear to him. She was charming and graceful and beautiful, surpassing the beauty of other women. She was as fair as a goddess.
She died, and the King plunged into grief. He became sad and miserable. He had the body laid in a coffin and embalmed with oil and ointments. He laid underneath his bed, and there he lay without food, weeping and wailing. His parents and kinsfolk, friends and courtiers, priests and laymen, implored him not to grieve since all things pass away. They could not move him. As he lay in sorrow, seven days passed by.
Now the Bodhisatta was at that time a recluse who had gained the Five Supernatural Faculties (1. walking on water or through walls, 2. ESP, 3. telepathy, 4. recollecting previous lives and 5. “the divine eye,” which is seeing peoples’ next rebirth) and the Eight Attainments (jhānas). He lived at the foot of the Himalaya Mountains. He possessed perfect supernatural insight, and as he looked around India with his heavenly vision, he saw this King lamenting. He decided to help him. By his miraculous power he rose up into the air. He landed in the King’s park and sat down on the ceremonial stone like a golden image.
A young brahmin of the city of Potali entered the park. Seeing the Bodhisatta, he greeted him and sat down. The Bodhisatta began to talk pleasantly with him. “Is the King a just ruler?” he asked.
“Yes, sir, the King is just,” the young man replied. “But his Queen just died. He has laid her body in a coffin and lies down lamenting her. Today is the seventh day since he began. Why don’t you free the King from this great grief? Virtuous beings like you ought to be able to overcome the King’s sorrow.”
“I do not know the King, young man,” the Bodhisatta said. “But if he were to come and ask me, I would tell him where she has been reborn and make her speak herself.”
“Then, venerable sir, stay here and I will bring the King to you,” the young man said. The Bodhisatta agreed, and the young brahmin hurried into the King’s presence. “You should visit this being with the divine insight!” he told the King.
The King was overjoyed at the thought of seeing Ubbarī. He got into his chariot and drove to the park. Greeting the Bodhisatta, he sat down on one side and asked, “Is it true, as I am told, that you know where my Queen has been reborn?”
“Yes, I do, my lord King,” he replied.
Then the King asked where it was.
The Bodhisatta replied, “Oh King, she was intoxicated with her own beauty. She fell into negligence and did not do fair and virtuous acts. So now she has become a little dung worm in this very park.”
“I don't believe it!” said the King.
“Then I will show her to you and make her speak,” answered the Bodhisatta.
“Please make her speak!” the King said.
The Bodhisatta commanded, “Let the two that are busy rolling a lump of cow dung come forth before the King.” And by his power they came. The Bodhisatta pointed one out to the King, “There is your Queen Ubbarī, oh King! She has just come out of this lump following her dung worm husband. Look and see.”
"What! My Queen Ubbarī a dung worm? I don’t believe it!” cried the King.
I will make her speak, oh King!"
“Please make her speak, holy sir!” he said.
Using his power, the Bodhisatta gave her the ability to speak.
“Ubbarī!” he said.
“What is it, holy Sir?” she asked in a human voice.
“What was your name in your former life?” the Bodhisatta asked her.
“My name was Ubbarī, sir,” she replied, “the consort of King Assaka.”
“Tell me,” the Bodhisatta went on, “who do you love best now, King Assaka or this dung worm?”
“Oh sir, that was my former birth,” she said. “Then I lived with him in this park, enjoying shape and sound, scent, taste, and touch. But now that my memory is confused by rebirth, what is he? Why, now I would kill King Assaka and smear the feet of my husband the dung worm with the blood flowing from his throat!” and right there in the King's company, she uttered these verses in a human voice:
“Once with the great King Assaka, who was my husband dear,
Beloving and beloved, I walked about this garden here.
“But now new sorrows and new joys have made the old ones flee,
And dearer far than Assaka my worm is now to me.”
Figure: “Who do you love best now?”
When King Assaka heard this, he repented on the spot. He saluted the Bodhisatta and went back into the city. He had the Queen’s body removed. Then he married another Queen, and he ruled in righteousness. And the Bodhisatta, having instructed the King and set him free from sorrow, returned again to the Himalayas.
When the Master had ended this discourse, he declared the Four Noble Truths, at the conclusion of which the lovesick monk reached the Fruit of the First Path (stream-entry). Then the Master identified the birth: “Your late wife was Ubbarī. You, lovesick brother, were King Assaka. Sāriputta was the young brahmin, and I was the recluse.”
