Buddhist birth stories; or, Jataka tales, Volume 1
Religion
Buddhist birth stories; or, Jataka tales, Volume 1
Jataka stories, English
The Bodisat, saying, “This cannot, I think, be the right place for
attaining Buddhahood,” turned round it, keeping it on the right hand;
and went to the Northern side, and stood facing the South. Then the
Northern horizon seemed to descend beneath the lowest hell, and the
Southern horizon to ascend above the highest heaven.
The Bodisat, saying, “This cannot, I think, be the right place for
attaining Buddhahood,” turned round it, keeping it on the right hand;
and went to the Western side, and stood facing towards the East. Now in
the East is the place where all the Buddhas have sat cross-legged; and
that place neither trembles nor shakes.
The Great Being, perceiving, “This is the steadfast spot chosen by all
the Buddhas, the spot for the throwing down of the temple of sin,” took
hold of the grass by one end, and scattered it there. And immediately
there was a seat fourteen cubits long. For those blades of grass
arranged themselves in such a form as would be beyond the power of even
the ablest painter or carver to design.
The Bodisat turning his back upon the trunk of the Bo-tree, and with
his face towards the East, made the firm resolve, “My skin, indeed, and
nerves, and bones, may become arid, and the very blood in my body may
dry up; but till I attain to complete insight, this seat I will not
leave!” And he sat himself down in a cross-legged position, firm and
immovable, as if welded with a hundred thunderbolts.
At that time the angel Māra, thinking, “Siddhattha the prince wants to
free himself from my dominion. I will not let him get free yet!” went
to the hosts of his angels, and told the news. And sounding the drum,
called “Satan’s War-cry,” he led forth the army of Satan.
That army of Māra stretches twelve leagues before him, twelve leagues
to right and left of him, behind him it reaches to the rocky limits
of the world, above him it is nine leagues in height; and the sound
of its war-cry is heard, twelve leagues away, even as the sound of an
earthquake.
Then Māra, the angel, mounted his elephant, two hundred and fifty
leagues high, named, “Girded with mountains.” And he created for
himself a thousand arms, and seized all kinds of weapons. And of the
remainder, too, of the army of Māra, no two took the same weapon; but
assuming various colours and various forms, they went on to overwhelm
the Great Being.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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