Jataka 217
Seggu Jātaka
The Greengrocer’s Daughter
as told by Eric Van Horn
originally translated by William Henry Denham Rouse, Cambridge University
originally edited by Professor Edward Byles Cowell, Cambridge University
Some of these stories I find incredibly sordid. This one is essentially the same as Jātaka 102 in which a greengrocer tests his daughter’s virtue – essentially her virginity – by making a pass at her. Crikey (!).
“All the world is bent on pleasure.” The Master told this story while he was at Jetavana. It is about a greengrocer who was a lay follower of the Buddha.
The circumstances have been already given in the Paṇṇa Jātaka (Jātaka 102). Here again the Master asked him where he had been for so long. He replied, “My daughter, sir, is always smiling. After testing her, I gave her in marriage to a young gentleman. As this had to be done, I did not have time to pay you a visit.” To this the Master answered, “Not only now is your daughter virtuous, but she was virtuous in days gone by. And just as you have tested her now, you tested her in those days.” And at the man’s request he told this story from the past.
Once upon a time, when Brahmadatta was the King of Benares, the Bodhisatta was a tree spirit.
This same pious greengrocer took it into his head to test his daughter. He led her into the woods and seized her by the hand. He pretended to have passion for her. And as she cried out in woe, he addressed her in the words of the first stanza:
“All the world’s on pleasure bent,
Ah, my baby innocent!
Now I’ve caught you, pray don't cry,
As the town does, so do I.”
When she heard it, she answered, “Dear Father, I am an innocent maiden, and I know not the ways of sin.” And weeping she uttered the second stanza:
“He that should keep me safe from all distress,
The same betrays me in my loneliness,
My father, who should be my sure defense,
Here in the forest offers violence.”
Figure: “My father who should be my sure defense…”
And the greengrocer, after testing his daughter in this way, took her home and gave her in marriage to a young man. Afterwards he passed away according to his karma (which probably wasn’t all that great!).
When the Master had ended this discourse he taught the Four Noble Truths. When he finished his teaching the greengrocer attained stream-entry. The Master then identified the birth: “In those days the father and daughter were the same as now, and I was the tree spirit who saw it all.”
