Jataka 348
Arañña Jātaka
The Forest
as told by Eric Van Horn
originally translated by H.T. Francis and R.A. Neil, Cambridge University
originally edited by Professor Edward Byles Cowell, Cambridge University
I have heard similar stories to this one in modern times. Often young monks are tempted by the promise of a pretty girl. But I have also heard stories like these end the way the one in this story does. The overwhelming importance of the Dharma can overcome sense desire in those with wisdom.
“This doubt, my father.” The Master told this story the Master when he was at Jetavana. It is about the seduction of a youth by a certain pretty girl. The incident that led up to the story will be set forth in the Cullanāradakassapa Birth (Jātaka 477).
Once upon a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta was born into a brahmin household. And when he grew up he was educated in all the arts at Takkasilā University. Then his wife died, and he adopted the holy life. He went with his son to live in the Himālayas.
One day he left his son in the hermitage. He went out to gather all kinds of fruit. At that time some thugs were harassing a border village. They carried off some prisoners. A certain girl fled from them for refuge to this hermitage. There she seduced the son. She said to him, “Come, let us go away together.”
“Let my father first return,” he said, “and after I have seen him, I will go with you.”
“Well, when you have seen him, come to me,” she said. She left the hermitage, and then she sat down in the middle of the road. The young recluse, when his father came home, spoke the first stanza:
This doubt, my father, solve for me, I pray,
If to some village from this wood I stray,
Men of what school of morals, or what sect
Shall I most wisely for my friends affect?
Then his father, by way of warning him, repeated three stanzas:
One that can gain your confidence and love,
Can trust your word, and with you patient prove,
In thought and word and deed will ne’er offend—
Take to your heart and cling to him as friend.
To men capricious as the monkey-kind
And found unstable, be you not inclined,
Though to some desert lone your lot should be confined.
Figure: On the importance of virtue
On hearing this the young recluse said, “Dear father, how shall I find a man with these virtues? I will not go. I will only live with you.” And with that, he decided not to leave. Then his father taught him the preparatory practices to induce deep meditation. And both father and son, without falling away from the holy life, became destined to rebirth in the Brahma world.
The Master, his lesson ended, then identified the birth: “At that time the youth and the maiden were the same as in the later story, and I was the recluse.”
