Jataka 245
Mūlapariyāya Jātaka
The Root of All Things
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 Mūlapariyāya Sutta is the first sutta in the Majjhima Nikāya. Bhikkhu Ñanamoli called it “one of the deepest and most difficult suttas in the Pāli Canon.” Indeed, this story has rather complex themes for a Jātaka. It is certainly not a story for a child. It includes references to the Buddha’s most complex teaching, that on causation, or “dependent co-arising.” It also references abandoning craving for continued existence and becoming free from the rounds of rebirth.
This is another story that references the Three Piṭakas, which is a development that came after the Buddha’s death.
“Time all consumes.” The Master told this story while he was staying near Ukkaṭṭhā (a town in Kosala) in the Subhagavana Park. It is in connection with the Chapter on the Succession of Causes. (This is the Nidana Vagga – the Section on Causation – which is the 12th “vagga” in the Saṃyutta Nikāya. This is the teaching commonly known as “dependent origination” or “dependent co-arising”.)
At that time, it is said, 500 brahmins who had mastered the three Vedas, having embraced salvation, studied the Three Piṭakas (the Sutta Piṭaka, the Vinaya Piṭaka, and the Abhidhamma). Once they mastered these texts they became intoxicated with pride, thinking to themselves, “The Supreme Buddha knows just the Three Piṭakas, and we know them, too. So what is the difference between us?” They stopped visiting the Buddha and established a following of their own.
One day these men were seated before the Master when he repeated the Chapter on the Succession of Causes. Then he adorned it with the Eight Stages of Knowledge (the Noble Eightfold Path). They did not understand a word that he said. They thought to themselves, “Here we have been believing that there were none as wise as we, and yet we understand nothing of this. There is no one as wise as the Buddhas. Oh the excellence of the Buddhas!” After this they were humbled, and they became as quiet as serpents with their fangs extracted.
When the Master had stayed as long as he wished in Ukkaṭṭhā, he went to Vesāli (the capital of the Indian republic of Licchavi). And at Gotama’s shrine he repeated the Chapter on Gotama. (This may refer to the Buddhavaṃsa, which is a hagiographical Buddhist text that describes the life of Gotama Buddha and of the twenty-four Buddhas who preceded him. It may also refer to the sutta “Gotama: The Great Sage of the Sakya,” which is SN 12.10.) There was a quaking of a thousand worlds! Hearing this, these monks became arahants.
But, however, after the Master had finished repeating the Chapter on the Succession of Causes during his visit to Ukkaṭṭhā, the monastics discussed the whole affair in the Dharma Hall. “How great is the power of the Buddhas, friend! Why, these brahmin seekers who used to be so drunk with pride have been humbled by the lesson on the Succession of Causes!” The Master entered and asked what they were discussing. They told him. He said, “Brothers and sisters, this is not the first time that I have humbled these men who used to carry their heads so high with pride. I did the same before.” And then he told them this story from the past.
Once upon a time, when Brahmadatta reigned in Benares, the Bodhisatta was born into a brahmin family. When he grew up, he mastered the Three Vedas. He became a renowned teacher. He instructed 500 pupils in the sacred verses. These 500, having given their best energy to their work and perfected their learning, said to themselves, “We know as much as our teacher. There is no difference between us.”
Proud and stubborn, they would not go before their teacher and pay their respects, nor would they attend to their duties.
One day they saw their master seated beneath a jujube tree. They decided to mock him. They tapped on the tree with their fingers. “A worthless tree!” they said.
The Bodhisatta saw that they were mocking him. “My pupils,” he said, “I will ask you a question.”
They were delighted. “Ask your question,” they said, “and we will answer.”
Their teacher asked the question by repeating the first stanza:
“Time all consumes, even time itself as well.
Who is not consumes the all-consumer? Tell!”
(The “consumer of time” is someone who destroys craving for existence and escapes from the rounds of rebirth.)
The young men listened to the problem, but none of them could answer it. Then the Bodhisatta said, “Do not imagine that this question is in the Three Vedas. You imagine that you know all that I know, and so you act like the jujube tree. You don't know that I know a great deal that is unknown to you. Leave me now. I will give you seven days to think about this question.”
(According to the PTS notes, in India lore the jujube is considered to be only “externally pleasing,” as opposed to the cocoanut, which is externally pleasing but also yields good food.)
Figure: Challenging the Overconfident Students
So they saluted him and went back to their houses. For a week they pondered the question, yet they could not make any sense of the problem. On the seventh day they went to their teacher, greeted him, and sat down.
“Well, you of such auspicious speech, have you solved the question?”
“No, we have not,” they said.
The Bodhisatta rebuffed them, uttering the second stanza:
“Heads grow on necks, and hair on heads will grow,
How many heads have ears, I wish to know?”
“You are fools,” he went on, rebuking the youths. “You have ears with holes in them but no wisdom.” Then he solved the problem while they listened. “Ah,” they said, “great are our teachers!” They begged his forgiveness, and swallowing their pride they waited upon the Bodhisatta.
When the Master ended this discourse, he identified the birth: “At that time these monks were the 500 pupils, and I was their teacher.”
