Buddhist birth stories; or, Jataka tales, Volume 1
Religion
Buddhist birth stories; or, Jataka tales, Volume 1
Jataka stories, English
From the hands of the angels who had received him in the golden net,
four kings received him on cloth of antelope skins, soft to the touch,
such as are used on occasions of royal state. From their hands men
received him on a roll of fine cloth; and on leaving their hands he
stood up upon the ground and looked towards the East. Thousands of
world-systems became visible to him like a single open space. Men and
angels offering him sweet-smelling garlands, said, “O great Being,
there is no other like thee, how then a greater?” Searching the ten
directions (the four points of the compass, the four intermediate
points, the zenith and the nadir), and finding no one like himself, he
took seven strides, saying, “This is the best direction.” And as he
walked the archangel Brahma held over him the white umbrella, and the
archangel Suyāma followed him with the fan, and other deities with the
other symbols of royalty in their hands. Then stopping at the seventh
step, he sent forth his noble voice and shouted the shout of victory,
beginning with, “I am the chief of the world.”[177]
Now the future Buddha in three births thus uttered his voice
immediately on leaving his mother’s womb; in his birth as Mahosadha, in
his birth as Vessantara, and in this birth. In the Mahosadha birth the
archangel Sakka came to him as he was being born, and placing some fine
sandal-wood in his hand, went away. He came out from the womb holding
this in his fist. His mother asked him, “What is it you hold, dear, as
you come?” He answered, “Medicine, mother!” So because he came holding
medicine, they gave him the name of Medicine-child (Osadhadāraka).
Taking the medicine they kept it in a chatty (an earthenware
water-pot); and it became a drug by which all the sickness of the blind
and deaf and others, as many as came, was healed. So the saying sprang
up, “This is a powerful drug, this is a powerful drug;” and hence he
was called Mahosadha (The Great Medicine Man).
Again, in the Vessantara birth, as he left his mother’s womb, he
stretched out his right hand, saying, “But is there anything in the
house, mother? I would give a gift.” Then his mother, saying, “You are
born, dear, in a wealthy family,” took his hand in hers, and placed on
it a bag containing a thousand.
Lastly, in this birth he sang the song of victory. Thus the future
Buddha in three births uttered his voice as he came out of his mother’s
womb. And as at the moment of his conception, so at the moment of his
birth, the thirty-two Good Omens were seen.
Now at the very time when our Bodisat was born in the Lumbini grove,
the lady, the mother of Rāhula, Channa the attendant, Kāḷudāyi the
minister, Kanthaka the royal horse, the great Bo-tree, and the four
vases full of treasure, also came into being. Of these last, one was
two miles, one four, one six, and one eight miles in size. These seven
are called the Sahajātā, the Connatal Ones.[178]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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