Jataka 477
Culla Nārada Jātaka
The Young Nārada
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 am always afraid that the point of these stories may get lost because of the gender roles. In this story a seductive woman represents sense desire and temptation in the general sense. The gender roles could just as easily be reversed. It is sense desire that is the problem, and it is freedom from sense desire that provides freedom from suffering, stress, and dukkha.
“No wood is chopped.” The Master told this story when he was living at Jetavana. It is about the allure of a seductive girl.
There was then, we learn, a girl of about 16. She was the daughter of a citizen of Sāvatthi. He was prosperous in a way that should bring good luck to a man, yet no man chose her. So her mother thought to herself, “My daughter is of age, yet no one chooses her. I will use her as a bait for a fish and make one of those Shakya (Buddhist) ascetics come back to the worldly life, and she will live off of him.”
At the time there was a young man of good birth living in Sāvatthi. He had given his heart to the Dharma and joined the Saṇgha. But from the time when he received full ordination, he had lost all desire for learning. He lived devoted to self-indulgence. The lay sister (the mother) used to prepare rice porridge and other food hard or soft in her house. And standing at the door, as the monks walked along the streets, she looked for someone who could be tempted by the craving for these delicacies.
A group of men who kept the Tipiṭaka (discourses), Abhidhaṃma (higher teaching), and Vinaya (monastic code) went streaming by. But she did not see anyone among them ready to fall into her trap. She did not see one among the figures with bowl and robe, preachers of the Dharma with honey-sweet voice, moving like fleecy clouds before the wind. But at last she saw a man approaching. The outer corners of his eyes were anointed (he had eye makeup) and his hair was hanging down. He was wearing an under-robe of fine cloth and an outer robe that was shaken and clean. He held a bowl colored like some precious gem. He was a man who let his senses have their own way. His body was bronzed (sun tan). “Here is a man I can catch!” she thought. And greeting him, she took his bowl and invited him into the house.
She found him a seat and provided rice porridge and all the rest. Then after the meal, she begged him to make that house his resort in the future. So he used to visit the house after that, and in the course of time, they became intimate.
One day, the lay sister said within his hearing range, “In this household we are happy enough, but I have no son or son-in-law capable of taking care of it.” The man heard this and wondered why she would say such a thing. Soon it pierced his heart. She said to her daughter, “Tempt this man and get him into your power.” So after that the girl decked herself and adorned herself and tempted him with seductive tricks and wiles. (She was a “coarse” girl. This does not mean one whose body is fat, but she is one who uses the power of the five sensual passions.) Then the man, being young and under the power of passion, thought in his heart, “I cannot now hold to the Buddha’s teaching.” So he went to the monastery, and laying down his bowl and robe, he said to his spiritual teachers, “I am discontented.”
They took him to the Master and said, “Sir, this brother is discontented.” “Is this true what they say,” he asked, “that you are discontented, brother?” “Yes, sir, true it is.” “Then what made you so?” “A coarse girl, sir.” “Brother,” he said, “long, long ago, when you were living in the forest, this same girl was a hindrance to your virtue, and she did you great harm. So why are you again discontented on her account?” Then at the request of the monks, he told them this story from the past.
Once upon a time, when Brahmadatta was King in Benares, the Bodhisatta was born into a brahmin family of great wealth. After his education was complete, he managed the estate. Then his wife gave birth to a son, but she died. He thought, “As with my beloved wife, death will come to me as well. What is a home to me? I will become a recluse.” So forsaking his sensual desires, he went with his son to the Himalayas. And there with him he entered upon the holy life. He attained deep states of meditation (samadhi) and gained transcendent knowledge. He lived in the woods, supporting his life on fruits and roots.
At that time there were raiders who assaulted the countryside. They attacked a town and took prisoners. Then—laden with spoils—they returned to the border. Among the prisoners was a maiden. She was beautiful and endowed with a scoundrel’s cunning. This girl thought to herself, “When they have carried us off, these men will use us as slaves. I must find some way to escape.” So she said, “My lord, I wish to rest. Let me go and lay down for a moment.” In this way she deceived the robbers and fled.
Now the Bodhisatta had gone out in the morning to gather fruits and the like leaving his son in the hut. While he was away, this girl, as she wandered about in the forest, came to the hut. And tempting the son of the recluse with the passion of love, she destroyed his virtue and got him under her power. She said to him, “Why live here in the forest? Come, let us go to a village and make a home for ourselves. There it is easy to enjoy all the pleasures and passions of the senses.” He agreed and said, “My father is now out in the woods looking for wild fruits. Once we have seen him, we will both go away together.” Then the girl thought, “This young innocent knows nothing. His father must have become a recluse in his old age. When he comes in, he will want to know what I am doing here. He will beat me and drag me out by the feet and throw me into the forest. I will get away before he comes.” So she said to the lad, “I will go first, and you may follow.” Then pointing out the way, she left. After she left, the boy became sad. He did not do any of his usual duties, but he wrapped himself up from head to toe and lay down in the hut, fretting.
When the Great Being came in with his wild fruits, he saw the girl’s footprint. “That is a woman’s footprint,” he thought. “My son’s virtue must have been lost.” Then he entered the hut, laid down the wild fruit and put the question to his son by repeating the first stanza:
“No wood is chopped, and you have brought no water from the pool.
No fire is kindled. Why do you lie mooning like a fool?”
Hearing his father’s voice, the lad rose and greeted him. And with all respect he made it known that he could not endure a forest life, repeating a couple of stanzas:
“I cannot live in forests. This, O Kassapa, I swear.
Hard is the woodland life, and back to men I would repair.
“Teach me, O brahmin, when I leave, that wheresoe’er I go,
The customs of the countryside I may most fully know.”
“Very good, my son,” said the Great Being. “I will tell you the customs of the country.” And he repeated this couple of stanzas:
“If ’tis your mind to leave behind the woodland fruits and roots
And live in cities, hear me teach the way which that life suits.
“Keep clear of every precipice, from poison keep afar,
Never sit in the mud, and walk with care where serpents are.”
The recluse’s son, not understanding this pithy counsel, asked:
“What has your precipice to do with the holy way,
Your mud, your poison, and your snake? Come tell me this, I pray.”
The father explained:
“There is a liquor in the world, my son, that men call wine,
Fragrant, delicious, honey-sweet, and cheap, of flavor fine.
This, Nārada, for holy men is poison, say the wise.
“And women in the world can set fools’ wits a whirling round,
They catch young hearts, as hurricanes catch cotton from the ground.
The precipice I mean is this before the good man lies.
“High honors shown by other men, respect and fame and gain,
This is the mud, O Nārada, which holy men may stain.
“Great monarchs with their retinue have in that world dwelling,
And they are great, O Nārada, and each a mighty king.
“Before the feet of sovereign lords and monarchs walk not thou,
For, Nārada, these are the snakes of whom I spoke just now.
“The house you go to for some food, when men sit down to meet,
If you see good within that house, there take your fill and eat.
“When by another entertained with food or drink, this do,
Eat not too much, nor drink too much, and fleshly lusts eschew.
“From gossip, drink, lewd company, and shops of goldsmith’s ware,
Keep you afar as those who by the uneven pathway fare.”
As his father went on talking and talking, the boy came to his senses. He said, “Enough of the world for me, dear father!” Then his father taught him how to develop kindness and other good feelings. The son followed his father’s instruction, and before long the joy of deep meditation sprang up within him. And both of them, father and son, without a break in deep meditation, were born again in the world of Brahma.
Figure: “Enough of the world for me, dear father!”
When the Master ended this discourse, he identified the birth: “At that time this coarse girl was the young woman, the discontented monk was the recluse’s son, and I was the father.”
