Jataka 443
Culla Bodhi Jātaka
Small Wisdom
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 story is interesting on at least two counts. The first is the Bodhisatta’s declaration that women, too, can become mendicants. This once again emphasizes the Buddha’s insistence that in the holy life, women are equal. In a misogynistic society like ancient India, this was quite a radical assertion.
The second is the Buddha’s fierce denunciation of anger. You so often hear—even in Buddhist circles—that anger is “normal and natural,” as I recently heard a Dharma teacher pronounce. This is most definitely not what the Buddha taught. As he says in the Dhammapada, anger has a “honeyed tip and a poisoned root.” The Buddha always denounced anger as something that needed to be uprooted, abandoned, and overcome.
“If one seize.” The Master told this story at Jetavana. It is about a passionate man. This man, after having become a monk and following the Dharma that leads to liberation with all its blessings, was unable to control his passion. He was passionate, and as a result, he was full of resentment. But he said little. He grew angry. He flew into a rage and was bitter and obstinate. The Master, hearing of his passionate behavior, sent for him and asked, “Is it true that you are passionate as rumor has it.” “Yes, sir,” replied the man. “Brother,” the Master said, “passion must be restrained. Such behavior has no place in this world or the next. Why do you, after embracing the path of the Supreme Buddha who does not know passion, why do you show passion yourself? Wise men of old, even those who embraced a path other than ours, have refrained from anger.” And he told him this story from the past.
Once upon a time, when Brahmadatta was the King of Benares, there was in a certain town of Kāsi a rich brahmin. He was very wealthy. He had a great many possessions, but he was childless, and his wife longed for a son.
At that time the Bodhisatta descended from Brahma’s world. He was conceived in the womb of that lady. On his name day they gave him the name of Bodhi-kumāra, or “Wiseman.” When he came of age, he went to Takkasilā University. There he studied all sciences. And after his return home, much against his will, his parents found him a wife from a family of the same caste. She, too, had descended to this realm from the Brahma world. She was of unsurpassed beauty, like a nymph. The two were married, even though neither of them wanted it. Neither one of them had any sensual desire, and neither one of them so much as cast a look at the other in the way of passion. They never experienced desire even in sleep, so pure were they.
Now it happened that after a while, when his parents were dead, and he had decently disposed of their bodies, the Great Being called his wife and said to her, “Now, lady, you take this fortune of eighty crores and live in happiness.” “Not so, but you do so, noble sir." He said, “I do not want any wealth. I will go to the Himalaya Mountains. I will become a recluse and take refuge there.” “Well, noble sir, is it only men that should live the ascetic life?” “No,” he said, “but women can also.” “Then I will not accept that which you propose. I care for wealth no more than you, and I, like you, will live the life of a recluse.”
“Very good, lady,” he said. So they both distributed a great quantity of alms, and setting forth, they made a hermitage in a pleasant spot. There they lived on any wild fruits that they could find. They lived there for ten whole years, and yet they did not attain the bliss of deep meditation.
After living there in the happiness of the ascetic life for ten years, they traveled the country side to get salt and seasonings. In due course they arrived in Benares where they lived in the royal park.
Now one day the King saw the park keeper. He had arrived with a gift in his hand. He said, “We will make merry in our park. Therefore put it in order.” And when the park was cleaned and made ready, he entered it along with a great retinue.
At that time these two were also sitting in a certain part of the park. They were spending their time in the bliss of the holy life. And as the King was passing through the park, he saw them both sitting there. And as his eye fell on this amiable and very beautiful lady, he fell in love. Trembling with desire, he determined to ask what she was to the recluse. So he approached the Bodhisatta and put the question to him. “Great King,” he replied, “she is nothing to me. She only shares my holy life. But when I lived in the world, she was my wife.” On hearing this the King thought to himself, “So he says she is nothing to him, but in his worldly life she was his wife. Well, if I seize her by my sovereign power, what will he do? I will take her, then.” And so coming near he repeated the first stanza:
“If one seize the large-eyed lady, and carry her off from you,
The dear one that sits there smiling, brahmin, what would you do?”
In answer to this question, the Great Being repeated the second stanza:
“Once risen, it never would leave me my life long, no, never at all,
As a storm of rain lays the dust again, quench it while yet it be small.”
In this way the Great Being answered as loud as a lion’s roar. But the King, though he heard it, was unable from blind folly to master his passionate heart. So he gave orders to one of his company that he should take the lady into the palace.” The courtier, every obedient, led her away in spite of her complaints and cries that lawlessness and wrong were the world’s way. The Bodhisatta, who heard her cries, looked once, but then he looked no more. So weeping and wailing she was taken to the palace.
The King of Benares made no delay in his park. He quickly returned indoors, and sending for the woman, he showed her great honor. But she spoke of the worthlessness of such honor. She spoke only of the value of the solitary life. The King, finding that he could not win her over by any means, had her placed in another room. He began to think, “Here is an ascetic woman who cares nothing for all this honor, and that hermit never cast an angry look even when the man led away so beautiful a lady! Deep are the schemes of mendicants. He will no doubt formulate a plot to do me some harm. Well, I will return to him and find out why he just sits there.” And so, unable to keep still, he went back to the park.
The Bodhisatta sat there stitching his cloak. The King, almost alone, crept up softly without any sound. Without one look at the King, the Great One went on with his sewing. “This fellow,” thought the King, “will not speak to me because he is angry. This ascetic, humbug that he is, first roars out, ‘I will not let anger arise at all, but if it does, I will crush it while it is small,’ and then he is so obstinate in wrath that he won’t speak to me!” With this idea the King repeated the third stanza:
“You that were loud in boasting only a while ago,
Now dumb for very anger there you sit and sew!”
Figure: “…there you sit and sew!”
When the Great Being heard this, he perceived that the King thought he was silent from anger. And wishing to show that he was not influenced by anger, he repeated the fourth stanza:
“Once risen, it never had left me, it never would leave me at all,
As a storm of rain lays the dust again, I quenched it while it was small.”
On hearing these words, the King thought, “Is it anger of which he speaks, or some other thing? I will ask him.” And he asked the question, repeating the fifth stanza:
“What is it that never has left you your life long, never at all?
As a storm of rain lays the dust again, what quenched you while it was small?”
He replied, “Great King, anger brings much wretchedness and much ruin. It just began within me, but by cherishing kind feelings, I quenched it.” And then he repeated the following stanzas to declare the misery of anger.
“That without which a man sees clearly, with which he goes blindly ahead,
Arose within me, but was not left free—anger, on foolishness fed.
“What causes our foes satisfaction, who wish to bring woes on our head,
Arose within me, but was not left free—anger, on foolishness fed.
“That which if it rises within us blinds all to our spiritual good,
Arose within me, but was not left free—anger, with folly for food.
“That which, supreme, destroys each great blessing,
Which makes its dupes forsake each worthy thing,
Mighty, destructive, with its swarm of fears,—
Anger—refused to leave me, O great King!
“The fire will rise the higher, if the fuel be stirred and turned,
And because the fire uprises, the fuel itself is burned.
“And thus in the mind of the foolish, the man who cannot discern,
From wrangling arises anger, and with it himself will burn.
“Whose anger grows like fire with fuel and grass that blaze,
As the moon in the dark fortnight, so his honor wanes and decays.
“He who quiets his anger, like a fire that fuel has none,
As the moon in the light fortnight, his honor waxes well grown.”
When the King had listened to the Great Being’s discourse, he was well pleased. He had one of his courtiers lead the woman back,. He invited the passionless recluse to stay with her in that park in the enjoyment of their solitary life, and he promised to watch over them and defend them as he should. Then asking pardon, he politely took leave. And the two lived there. By and by the woman died, and after her death, the man returned to the Himalayas. There he cultivated the Five Faculties (1) faith/confidence, 2) energy, 3) mindfulness, 4) concentration/samadhi and 5) wisdom/insight) and the Attainments (jhānas). And causing the Excellences (the brahmavihārās: lovingkindness, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity) to arise up within him, he became destined for Brahma’s heaven.
When the Master ended his discourse, he taught the Four Noble Truths. At the conclusion of the teaching, the passionate monk became established in the fruit of the Third Path (a non-returner). Then he identified the birth: “At that time Rāhula’s mother was the ascetic lady, Ānanda was the King, and I was the recluse.”
(“Rahula’s mother was the Buddha’s wife during his worldly life. Her name was “Yasodara.”)
