Udaya Jātaka

Once upon a time, King Kāsi was reigning over the realm of Kāsi in the city of Surundha. He had neither a son nor a daughter. So he instructed his queens to offer prayer for children. Just then the Bodhisatta was passing out of Brahma’s world. He was conceived in the womb of the chief Queen. And because of his birth, he cheered the hearts of a great multitude. He received the name of “Udayabhadda,” or “Welcome.” When the lad was old enough to walk on his feet, another being came into this world from the world of Brahma. She became a girl child in the womb of another of this King’s wives, and she was given the same name, Udayabhaddā.

When the Prince came of age, he attained a mastery in all branches of education. Moreover, he was chaste and knew nothing of the ways of the flesh, not even in dream, nor was his heart bent on lust. The King wanted to make his son King with the solemn sprinkling (anointing) and to arrange entertainments for his pleasure. So he gave the order accordingly. But the Bodhisatta replied, “I do not want the kingdom, and my heart is not bent on sensual pleasure.” Again and again he was entreated. But his reply was to have made a woman’s image of red gold. He sent this to his parents with the message, “When I find a woman like this, I will accept the kingdom.” They dispatched this golden image all over India, but they found no woman like it. Then they decked out Udayabhaddā very beautifully and presented her with the image. Her beauty surpassed it as she stood. Then they married her to the Bodhisatta for his consort. This was against their wishes even though his sister, the Princess Udayabhaddā, was born of a different mother. Then they anointed him to be King.

These two lived a life of chastity together. In the course of time, when his parents were dead, the Bodhisatta ruled the realm. The two lived together in one chamber. Yet they denied any sensual desire, and they never so much as looked upon one another in the way of desire. Instead they made a promise that whichever of them should die first, they should return to the other from the place of new birth and say, “In such a place I have been born again.”

Now from the time of his anointing the Bodhisatta lived for 700 years, and then he died. Since there was no other King, the commands of Udayabhaddā were followed, and the courtiers administered the kingdom. The Bodhisatta had become Sakka in the Heaven of the Thirty-three (the Tāvatiṃsa heaven, and my personal favorite…), and by the magnificence of his glorious rebirth, he was unable to remember the past for seven days. So after the course of 700 years according to human reckoning (presumably this means that one of Sakka’s days is 700 human years), he remembered, and he said to himself, “I will go to the King’s daughter Udayabhaddā, and I will test her with riches. And roaring with the roar of a lion I will speak, and I will fulfil my promise!”

In that age they say that the length of person’s life was 10,000 years. Now at that time, it being night, the palace doors were closed fast. The guard was set, and the King’s daughter was sitting quiet and alone. She was in a magnificent chamber on the fine terrace of her seven-storied mansion, and she was meditating on her virtue. Then Sakka took a golden dish filled with gold coins, and he appeared in her sleeping-chamber. And standing on one side, he began to talk with her by reciting the first stanza:

“You, flawless in your beauty, pure and bright,

You, sitting lonely on this terrace-height,

In pose most graceful, eyed like nymphs of heaven,

I pray you, let me spend with you this night!”

To this the Princess replied in the following two stanzas:

“To this battlemented city, dug with moats, approach is hard,

While its trenches and its towers hand and sword unite to guard.

“Not the young and not the mighty entrance here can lightly gain.

Tell me— Why to meet me do you enter my palace domain?”

Then Sakka recited the fourth stanza:

“I, fair beauty, am a goblin, I that now appear to plea.

Grant to me your favor, lady, this full bowl receive from me.”

On hearing this the Princess replied by repeating the fifth stanza:

“I ask for none, since Udaya has died,

Neither god nor goblin, no man, beside.

Therefore, O mighty goblin, get thee gone,

Come here no more, sir, but far off abide.”

Hearing her lion’s note, he did not stand, but made as though to depart. And then he disappeared.

On the next day at the same hour, he took a silver bowl filled with gold coins and addressed her by repeating the sixth stanza:

“The greatest joy, to lovers known completely,

Which makes men do full many an evil thing,

Do not despise, O lady, smiling sweetly,

See, a full bowl of silver here I bring!”

Then the Princess began to think. “If I allow him to talk and go on foolishly, he will come again and again. I will say nothing to him now.” So she said nothing at all. Sakka, finding that she had nothing to say, disappeared at once from this place.

On the following day, at the same time, he took an iron bowl full of coins, and he said, “Lady, if you will bless me with your love, I will give you this iron bowl full of coins.” When she saw him, the Princess repeated the seventh stanza:

“Men who would woo a woman, raise and raise

The bids of gold, till she their will obeys.

The gods’ ways differ, as I judge by you,

You arrive now with less than other days.”

The Great Being, when he heard these words, replied, “Lady Princess, I am a weary trader, and I do not waste my substance for nothing. If you were increasing in youth or beauty, I would also increase the present I offer to you. But you are fading, and so I make the offering dwindle as well.” So saying, he repeated three stanzas:

“O woman! youthful bloom and beauty fade

Within this world of men, you fair-limbed maid.

And you today are older than before,

So dwindles less the sum I would have paid.

“Thus, glorious daughter of a King, before my gazing eyes

As goes the flight of day and night your beauty fades and dies.

“But if, O daughter of a King most wise, it pleases thee

Holy and pure to long endure, more lovely you shall be!”

Hereupon the Princess repeated another stanza:

“The gods are not like men, they grow not old,

Upon their flesh is seen no wrinkled fold.

How is it the gods have no physical frame?

This, mighty goblin, I would now be told!”

Then Sakka explained the matter by repeating another stanza:

“The gods are not like men, they grow not old,

Upon their flesh is seen no wrinkled fold.

Tomorrow and tomorrow ever more

Celestial beauty grows, and bliss untold.”

When she heard the beauty of the world of gods, she asked the way to go there in another stanza:

“What terrifies so many mortals here?

I ask you, mighty goblin, to make clear

That path, in such diversity explained,

What path to the heavens need no one fear?”

Then Sakka explained the matter in another stanza:

“Who keeps in due control both voice and mind,

Who with the body misdeeds do not do,

Within whose house much food and drink we find,

Large-handed, generous, in all faith all true,

Of favors free, soft-tongued, of kindly cheer—

Who that so walks to heaven need nothing fear.”

When the princess had heard his words, she rendered thanks in another stanza:

“Like a mother, like a father, goblin, you admonish me,

Mighty one, O beauteous being, tell me, tell me who you be?”

Then the Bodhisatta repeated another stanza:

“I am Udaya, fair lady, for my promise come to thee,

Now I go, for I have spoken, from the promise I am free.”

The Princess drew a deep breath and said, “You are King Udayabhadda, my lord!” Then she burst into a flood of tears and added, “Without you I cannot live! Instruct me, that I may live with you always!” So saying she repeated another stanza:

“If you’re Udaya, coming here for your promise—truly he—,

Then instruct me, that together we, O Prince, again may be!”

Then he repeated four stanzas by way of instruction:

“Youth passes soon, a moment—’tis gone by,

No standing-place is firm, all creatures die.

To new life born, this fragile frame decays,

Then be not careless, walk in piety.

“If the whole earth with all her wealth could be

The realm of one sole king to hold in fee,

A holy saint would leave him in the race,

Then be not careless, walk in piety.

“Mother and father, brother-kin, and she

(The wife) who with a price can purchased be,

They go, and each the other leave behind,

Then be not careless, walk in piety.

“Remember that this body food shall be

For others, joy alike and misery,

A passing hour, as life succeeds to life,

Then be not careless, walk in piety.”

In this manner the Great Being spoke. The lady was pleased and rendered thanks in the words of the last stanza:

“Sweet the saying of this goblin, brief the life that mortals know,

Sad it is, and short, and with it comes inseparable woe.

I renounce the world, from Kāsi, from Surundhana, I go.”

Having thus taught this lesson, the Bodhisatta went back to his own realm.

On the next day, the Princess entrusted her courtiers with the government. And in that very city of hers, in a delightful park, she became a recluse. There she lived righteously until at the end of her days she was born again in the Heaven of the Thirty-three as the Bodhisatta's companion.