Citta Sambhūta Jātaka

Once upon a time, in the kingdom of Avanti and the city of Ujjenī, there reigned a great king. He was named King Avanti. At that time, a Caṇḍāla (outcaste) village lay outside Ujjenī, and it was there that the Great Being was born. Another person was born the son of his mother’s sister. One of these two was named Citta, and the other was named Sambhūta.

When they grew up, these two learned the art of sweeping in the Caṇḍāla caste. They thought that one day they would go and show off this art at the city gate. So one of them showed off at the north gate, and one of them showed at the east.

Now in this city there were two women who were wise in omens of sight. One was a merchant’s daughter. The other was the daughter of a chaplain. One day they went to enjoy themselves in the park. They ordered hard and soft food to be brought, as well as garlands and perfumes. It so happened that one went out by the northern gate and one the eastern. Seeing the two young Caṇḍālas showing their art, the girls asked, “Who are these?” “Caṇḍālas,” they were informed. “This is an evil omen to see!” they said. And after washing their eyes with perfumed water, they returned. Then the multitude cried, “O vile outcasts, you have made us lose food and strong drink which would have cost us nothing!” They belabored the two kinsmen and did them much misery and mischief.

When they recovered their senses, they got up and joined company. They told each the other what had happened. They were weeping and wailing and wondering what to do. “All this misery has come upon us,” they thought, “because of our birth. We shall never be able to play the part of Caṇḍālas. Let us conceal our birth and go to Takkasilā University in the disguise of young brahmins and study there.”

Having made this decision, they went off. They followed their studies in the law under a widely acclaimed master. A rumor flew all over India that two young Caṇḍālas were students and that they had concealed their birth. The wise Citta was successful in his studies, but Sambhūta was not so.

One day a villager invited the teacher intending to offer food to the brahmins. Now it happened that rain fell during the night. It flooded all the hollows in the road. Early in the morning the teacher summoned wise Citta and said, “My lad, I cannot go. You go with the young men. Give a blessing, eat what you get for yourself, and then bring home what is left for me.” Accordingly, he took the young brahmins and went off.

While the young men bathed and rinsed their mouths, the people prepared rice porridge. They set it up to be ready for them, saying, “Let it cool.” Before it was cool, the young men came and sat down. The people gave them a water offering, and then they set the bowls in front of them. Sambhūta’s wits were somewhat muddled, and imagining it to be cool, he took up a ball of the rice and put it in his mouth. But it burned him like a red-hot ball of metal. In his pain he forgot his part altogether, and glancing at wise Citta, he said in the Caṇḍāla dialect, “Hot, aint it?” The other forgot himself too, and answered in their manner of speech, “Spit it out, spit it out.” At this the other young men looked at each other and said, “What kind of language is this?” It was then that wise Citta pronounced a blessing.

When the young men came home, they gathered in little knots and sat here and there discussing the words that had been used. Finding that it was the dialect of the Caṇḍālas, they cried out, “O vile outcasts! You have been tricking us all this while and pretending to be brahmins!” They beat them both. One good man drove them out, saying, “Away! the defect is in the blood. Be off! Go somewhere and become recluses.” Then the young brahmins told their teacher that these two were Caṇḍālas.

The pair went out into the woods. There they took up the life of a recluse, and after little time had passed, they died. They were born again as the young of a doe on the banks of the Nerañjarā River. From the time of their birth, they always went about together. One day, after they had fed, a hunter saw them under a tree ruminating and cuddling together. They were very happy, head-to-head, nozzle-to-nozzle, and horn-to-horn. He threw a javelin at them and killed them both with one blow.

After this they were born as the young of an osprey on the bank of Nerbudda River (Narmada). There too, when they grew up, after feeding they would cuddle together, head-to-head and beak-to-beak. A bird snarer saw them, caught them together, and killed them both.

Next the wise Citta was born at Kosambī as a chaplain’s son. The wise Sambhūta was born as the son of the King of Uttarapañcāla. From the time of their their name-days they could remember their former births. But Sambhūta was not able to remember all of them without breaks, and all he could remember was the fourth Caṇḍāla birth. Citta, however, remembered all four in due order. When Citta was sixteen years old, he went away and became a recluse in Himalaya. He developed the faculty of samadhi and lived in meditative bliss.

Wise Sambhūta—after his father’s death—had the umbrella spread over him (the umbrella is the symbol of royal authority), and on the very day of the umbrella ceremony, amid a great concourse, he sang a ceremonial hymn and uttered two stanzas in aspiration. When they heard this, the royal wives and the musicians all rejoiced, saying, “Our King’s own coronation hymn!” In the course of time all the citizens sang it as the hymn that their King loved.

Wise Citta, in his home in the Himalaya Mountains, wondered whether his brother Sambhūta had assumed the umbrella or not. Perceiving that he had, he thought, “I will never be able to instruct a young ruler. But when he is old, I will visit him and persuade him to be a recluse.” For 50 years he did not go, and by that time the King was endowed with sons and daughters. Then by his supernatural power, he went. He landed in the park and sat down on the seat of ceremony like an image of gold. Just then a lad was picking up sticks, and as he did so he sang that hymn. Wise Citta told him to approach. He approached with respect and waited. Citta said to him, “Since early morning you have been singing that hymn. Do you know no other?” “Oh yes, sir, I know many more, but these are the verses the King loves. That is why I sing no others.” “Is there anyone who can sing a refrain to the King’s hymn?” “No, Sir.” “Could you?” “Yes, if I am taught one.” “Well, when the King chants these two verses, you sing this by way of a third.” And he recited a hymn. “Now,” he said, “go and sing this before the King. The King will be pleased with you, and he will honor you for it.”

The lad went to his mother quickly. He dressed up in his finest clothing. Then he went to the King’s door and sent word that a lad would sing a refrain to his hymn. The King said, “Let him approach.” When the lad came in and saluted him, the King said, “They say you will sing a refrain to my hymn?” “Yes, my lord,” he said. “Bring in the whole court to hear.” As soon as the court had assembled, the lad said, “Sing your hymn, my lord, and I will answer with mine.” The King repeated a pair of stanzas:

“Every good deed bears fruit or soon or late,

No deed without result, and nothing vain,

I see Sambhūta mighty grown and great,

Thus do his virtues bear him fruit again.

“Every good deed bears fruit or soon or late,

No deed without result, and nothing vain.

Who knows if Citta also may be great,

And like myself, his heart have brought him gain?”

At the end of this hymn, the lad chanted the third stanza:

"Every good deed bears fruit or soon or late,

No deed without result, and nothing vain.

Behold, my lord, see Citta at your gate,

And like yourself, his heart has brought him gain."

On hearing this the King repeated the fourth stanza:

“Then you are Citta, or the tale did hear

From him, or did some other make you know?

Thy hymn is very sweet, I have no fear,

A village and a bounty I bestow."

(The reference to a “village and a bounty” means the King is giving him “100 villages.”)

Then the lad repeated the fifth stanza:

“I am not Citta, but I heard the thing.

It was a sage laid on me this command,

Go and recite an answer to the King,

And be rewarded by his grateful hand.”

Hearing this, the King thought, “It must be my brother Citta. Now I will go and see him.” Then he instructed his men in the words of these two stanzas:

“Come, yoke the royal chariots, so finely wrought and made,

Gird up with girths the elephants, in necklets bright arrayed.

“Beat drums for joy, and let the conchs be blown,

Prepare the swiftest chariots I own,

For to that hermitage I will away,

To see the sage that sits within, this day.”

So he spoke. Then mounting his fine chariot, he went swiftly to the park gate. There he checked his chariot and approached wise Citta with respect. He sat down on one side, greatly pleased, and he recited the eighth stanza:

“A precious hymn it was I sang so sweet

While thronging multitudes around me pressed,

For now this holy sage I come to greet

And all is joy and gladness in my breast.”

Happy from the instant he saw wise Citta, he gave the necessary commands to prepare a seat for his brother. Then he repeated the ninth stanza:

“Accept a seat, and for your feet fresh water, it is right

To offer gifts of food to guests, accept, as we invite.”

After this sweet invitation, the King repeated another stanza, offering him the half of his kingdom:

“Let them make glad the place where you will dwell,

Let throngs of waiting women wait on thee,

O let me show you that I love you well,

And let us be kings together here be.”

When he had heard these words, wise Citta spoke to him in six stanzas:

“Seeing the fruit of evil deeds, O King,

Seeing what profit deeds of goodness bring,

I fain would exercise stern self-control,

Sons, wealth, and cattle cannot charm my soul.

“Ten decades has this mortal life, which each to each succeed,

This limit reached, man withers fast like to a broken reed.

“Then what is pleasure, what is love, wealth-hunting what to me?

What sons and daughters? Know, O King, from fetters I am free.

“For this is true, I know it well—death will not pass me by,

And what is love, or what is wealth, when you must come to die?

“The lowest race that go upon two feet

Are the Caṇḍālas, meanest men on earth,

When all our deeds were ripe, as rewards meet

We both as young Caṇḍālas had our birth.

“Caṇḍālas in Avanti land, deer by Nerañjara,

Ospreys by the Nerbudda, now brahmin and Khattiya.”

Having thus made clear his low births in the past, likewise here in this birth he declared the impermanency of things created, and he recited four stanzas to arouse an effort:

“Life is but short, and death the end must be,

The aged have no hiding where to flee.

Then, O Pañcāla, what I bid you, do.

All deeds which grow to misery, eschew.

“Life is but short, and death the end must be,

The aged have no hiding where to flee.

Then, O Pañcāla, what I bid you, do.

All deeds whose fruit is misery, eschew.

“Life is but short, and death the end must be,

The aged have no hiding where to flee.

Then, O Pañcāla, what I bid you, do,

All deeds that are with passion stained, eschew.

“Life is but short, and death the end must be,

Old age will sap our strength, we cannot flee.

Then, O Pañcāla, what I bid you, do,

All deeds that lead to lowest hell, eschew.”

The King rejoiced as the Great Being spoke and repeated three stanzas:

“True is that word, O brother! which you say,

You like a holy saint your words dictate,

But my desires are hard to cast away,

By such as I am, they are very great.

“As elephants deep sunken in the mire

Cannot climb out, although they see the land,

So, sunken in the slough of strong desire

Upon the seekers path I cannot stand.

“As father or as mother would their son

Admonish, good and happy how to grow,

Admonish me how happiness is won,

And tell me by which way I ought to go.”

Then the Great Being said to him:

“O lord of men! You cannot cast away

These passions that are common to mankind,

Let not your people unjust taxes pay,

Equal and righteous ruling let them find.

“Send messengers to north, south, east, and west

The brahmins and ascetics to invite,

Provide them food and drink, a place to rest,

Clothes, and all else that may be requisite.

“Give them the food and drink that satisfies

Sages and holy brahmins, full of faith,

Who gives and rules as well as in him lies

Will go to heaven all blameless after death.

“But if, surrounded by your womankind

You feel your passion and desire too strong,

This verse of poetry then bear in mind

And sing it in the midst of all the throng.

"No roof to shelter from the sky, amid the dogs he lay,

His mother nursed him as she walked, but he’s a king to-day.”

Such was the Great Being’s advice. Then he said, “I have given you my counsel. And now become a recluse or not, as you think fit. But I will inherit the result of my own deeds.” Then he rose up in the air and shook off the dust of his feet over him. Then he departed to the Himalaya Mountains.

The King saw this. He was greatly moved. And relinquishing his kingdom to his eldest son, he called out his army. He set his face in the direction of the Himalaya Mountains. When the Great Being heard of his coming, he went with his attendant sages and received him. He ordained him into the holy life. He taught him how to attain samadhi. He developed the bliss of meditation. And thus, these two together became destined for Brahma’s world.