Jataka 232
Vīṇā Thūṇa Jātaka
The Lute with Broken Strings
as told by Eric Van Horn
originally translated by William Henry Denham Rouse, Cambridge University
originally edited by Professor Edward Byles Cowell, Cambridge University
The Buddha once spoke about the dangers of reason. That may seem curious to a western audience, but we can come to all sorts of wrong conclusions based on reason. The Age of Reason was full of them. (See the witch sketch in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”) This story might fall under that category.
“Your own idea.” The Master told this story while he was staying at Jetavana. It is about a young lady.
She was the only daughter of a rich merchant from Sāvatthi. One day she noticed a great fuss was being made over a fine bull in her father’s house. She asked her nurse what it meant. “Who is this, nurse, that is honored so?” The nurse replied that it was a right royal bull.
On another day she was looking out from an upper story down the street, when lo, she saw a hunchback. She thought, “In the cow tribe, the leader has a hump. I suppose it’s the same with men. That must be a right, royal man, and I must go and be his humble follower.” (The cow is probably a brahma bull.) So she sent her maid to say that the merchant’s daughter wished to be his follower, and he should wait for her in a certain spot. She collected her treasures together, and disguising herself, she left the mansion and went off with the hunchback.
By and bye all this became known in the town and among the Saṇgha. In the Dharma Hall, the monks discussed its meaning. “Friend, there is a merchant’s daughter who has eloped with a hunchback!” The Master came in and asked what they were discussing. They told him. He replied, “This is not the first time, monks, that she has fallen in love with a hunchback. She did the same before.” And he told them this story from the past.
Once upon a time, when Brahmadatta was the King of Benares, the Bodhisatta was born into a rich man’s family in a certain market town. When he came of age, he lived as a householder. He was blessed with sons and daughters, and for his son’s wife he chose the daughter of a rich citizen of Benares. Then he set the day for the wedding.
Now the girl saw honor and reverence offered to a bull in her home. She asked her nurse, “What is that?”
“A right royal bull,” the nurse replied.
And afterward the girl saw a hunchback walking down the street. “That must be a right royal man!” she thought, and taking with her the best of her belongings in a bundle, she went off with him.
The Bodhisatta also, having a mind to bring the girl home, set out for Benares with a great company. He traveled by the same road.
The pair went along the road all night long. All night long the hunchback was overcome with thirst, and at the sunrise, he was attacked by colic. Great pain came upon him. So he went off the road, dizzy with pain, and fell down, like a broken lute with broken strings. The girl sat down at his feet. The Bodhisatta saw her sitting at the hunchback’s feet and recognized her. Approaching, he talked with her, repeating the first stanza:
“Your own idea! This foolish man can’t move without a guide,
This foolish hunchback! ‘Tis unsuitable you should be by his side.”
Hearing him speak, the girl answered by the second stanza:
“I thought the crookback king of men, and loved him for his worth,
Who, like a lute with broken strings, lies huddled on the earth."
Figure: “I thought the crookback king of men!”
And when the Bodhisatta realized that she had only followed him in disguise, he had her bathed. He adorned her, took her into his carriage, and went to his home.
When this discourse ended, the Master identified the birth: “The girl is the same in both cases, and I was the merchant from Benares.”
