Jataka 411
Susīma Jātaka
King Susīma
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
This is a story about renunciation, that is, giving up worldly aims and desires and pursuing the holy life.
If you think even for a moment about what the Buddha did before his spiritual quest, it is almost unimaginable. Consider for a moment a rich, famous, and powerful person today leaving it all behind, taking up the life of a mendicant, and subjecting themselves to the kinds of extreme austerities that the Buddha-to-be did. It is hard enough for us to do this today, and we know that enlightenment is possible. The Buddha showed us how to achieve it. But the Buddha-to-be didn’t know it was possible. He simply had the incredible faith and determination that there was a way out of suffering and the rounds of rebirth. Astonishing.
“Heretofore the hairs.” The Master told this story while he was living at Jetavana. It is about the Great Renunciation. The monks were sitting in the Dharma Hall. They were praising the Buddha’s renunciation. The Master, finding that this was their topic, said, “Monks, it is not strange that I should now make the Great Renunciation and retire from the world. I pursued perfection for many hundreds of thousands of ages. In the past I gave up the reign over the kingdom of Kāsi, a kingdom of 300 leagues in extent. Then, also, I made the renunciation.” And then he told this story from the past.
Once upon a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta was conceived in the womb of his priest’s chief wife. On the day of his birth, the King also had a son born. On the naming day, they called the Great Being “Susīma Kumāra,” and the King’s son was named “Brahmadatta Kumāra.” The King, seeing as the two were born on the same day, had the Bodhisatta given to the nurse and brought up together with his own son.
They both grew up fair, like sons of gods. They both learned all the sciences at Takkasilā University, and then they returned home. The prince became viceroy, eating, drinking, and living alongside the Bodhisatta. And at his father’s death, he became King. He gave great honor to the Bodhisatta and made him his priest.
One day he decorated the city, and adorned like Sakka, King of the gods, he went around the city in a grand procession. He sat proudly on the shoulders of a royal elephant who was equal to Erāvaṇa (Sakka’s elephant). The Bodhisatta was sitting behind him on the elephant’s back. The Queen Mother, looking out from the royal window to see her son, saw the priest sitting behind him as he came back from the procession. She immediately fell in love with him. And entering her chamber, she thought, “If I cannot win him, I will die right here.” So she left her food and simply lay there.
When the King did not see her, he asked about her welfare. When he heard she was ill, he went to her and asked with respect what ailed her. But she would not confess her feelings out of shame. So he sat on the royal throne and sent his own chief Queen to find what ailed his mother. She went and asked, stroking the Queen Mother’s back. Women do not hide secrets from women, and she confessed her feelings.
The Queen then went and told the King. He said, “Well, go and comfort her. I will make the priest King and make her his chief Queen.” She went and comforted her. The King sent for the priest and told him the situation. “Friend, save my mother’s life. You shall be King, she will be your chief Queen, and I will be your viceroy.” But the priest said, “It cannot be.” But after being pressed, he relented. So the King made the priest King, the Queen Mother chief Queen, and he made himself the viceroy.
They all lived in harmony together. But the Bodhisatta pined amid a householder’s life. He became disillusion with sensual desires and inclined to lead the holy life. Disinterested in sense pleasures, he stood and sat and lay alone, like a man bound in jail or a cock in a cage. The chief Queen thought, “The King avoids me. He stands and sits and lies alone. He is young and fresh; I am old and have grey hairs. What if I were to tell him that he has one grey hair, make him believe it, and then he will seek my company?”
One day, pretending to clean the King’s head, she said, “Your majesty is getting old. There is a grey hair on your head.” “Pull it out and put it in my hand.” She pulled a hair out, but she threw it away and put one of her own grey hairs into his hand. When he saw it, the fear of death made the sweat pour from his forehead, even though it was like a plate of gold. He admonished himself, saying, “Susīma, you have become old in your youth. All this time, sunk in the mud of desire like a village pig wallowing in filth and mire, you have not been able to leave it behind. Abandon sensual desires and become a recluse in the Himālaya Mountains. It is time to lead the holy life.” And with this thought, he uttered the first stanza:
Heretofore the hairs were dark
Clustering about my brow.
White today, Susīma, mark!
Time for holy life now!
Figure: A gray hair!
So the Bodhisatta praised the holy life. The Queen saw that she had caused him to leave her instead of loving her. And in fear, wishing to keep him from the holy life by praising his body, she uttered two stanzas:
Mine, not yours, the silvered hair,
Mine the head from which it came.
For your good the lie I dare.
One such fault forbear to blame!
You are young, and fair to see,
Like a tender plant in spring!
Keep your kingdom, smile on me!
Seek not now what age will bring!
But the Bodhisatta said, “Lady, you tell me what must come. As age ripens, these dark hairs must turn and become pale like betel. I see the change and breaking up of the body that comes in years, in the ripening of age. It comes to royal maids and all the rest, even though now they are tender as a wreath of blue lotus flowers, fair as gold, and drunken with the pride of their glorious youth. Such, lady, is the inevitable, dreary end of living beings.” And showing the truth with the charm of a Buddha, he uttered two stanzas:
I have marked the youthful maid,
Swaying like the tender stalk,
In her pride of form arrayed.
Men are witched where’er she walk.
’Tis the same one I have scanned
(Eighty, ninety, years have passed),
Quivering, palsied, staff in hand,
Bent like rafter tree at last.
In this stanza the Great Being showed the inevitable demise of beauty, and now he declared his discontent with the householder’s life:
Such the thoughts I ponder o’er;
Lonely nights the thoughts allow.
Layman’s life I love no more:
Time for holy life now!
Delight in layman’s life is a weak stay.
The wise man cuts it off and goes his way,
Renouncing joys of sense and all their sway.
Thus declaring both the delight and misery of desires, he showed the truth with all a Buddha’s charm. He sent for his friend and made him take the kingdom back again. He left his majesty and power amid the loud lamentations of kinsmen and friends. He became a recluse sage in the Himālaya Mountains, and entering on the bliss of meditation, he became destined to be reborn in the realm of Brahma.
After the lesson, the Master taught the Four Noble Truths. And giving the drink of bliss to many, he identified the birth: “At that time the chief Queen was the mother of Rāhula, the King was Ānanda, and I was King Susīma.”
