Buddhist birth stories; or, Jataka tales, Volume 1
Religion
Buddhist birth stories; or, Jataka tales, Volume 1
Jataka stories, English
Then the hunter came out of his ambush, skinned that deer, made a fire,
cooked the sweet flesh in the glowing charcoal, ate and drank, and
carried off the rest all dropping with blood and gore, and went home to
give his children a treat.
Now the Bodisat of that time was a tree fairy, dwelling in that wood.
When he saw what had happened, he said to himself,
“Not through father, not through mother, but through lust, has this
poor fool of a deer come to his death. In the dawn of passion creatures
think themselves in bliss, but they end in losing their limbs in
misery, or tasting the grief of all kinds of bonds and blows. What
more shameful in this world than that which brings sorrow and death to
others? What more despicable than the country where women administer
and teach, a land under harem rule? What more wretched than the men
who give themselves up to women’s control?” And then, whilst all the
fairies of the wood cast bouquets before him and cheered him on, he
brought the three rebukes into one verse, and made the whole wood ring
as he uttered the stanza--
O dreadful barbéd dart of love, that tears men’s hearts!
O foolish land, where woman bears the rule!
O stupid men, who fall ‘neath woman’s power!
* * * * *
[288] When the Master had taught them this story, he proclaimed the
Four Truths. And at the conclusion thereof that love-sick monk was
converted. And the Master made the connexion, and summed up the Jātaka
by saying, “The mountain-deer of that time was the love-sick brother,
the roe was his former wife, and the tree fairy, who preached the
sermon showing the evil of passion, was I myself.”
END OF THE STORY OF THE DART OF LOVE.
No. 14.
VĀTA-MIGA JĀTAKA.
The Greedy Antelope.
“_There is nothing worse than greed, they say._”--This the Master told
when he was living at Jetavana about the Elder named Tissa the younger,
the keeper of the law concerning food.
For when the Master, we are told, was residing at the Bambu-grove,
near Rājagaha, a young man of a very wealthy family of distinction, by
name Prince Tissa, went one day to the Bambu-grove, and when he had
heard the Teacher’s discourse, he became desirous to devote himself to
a religious life. And when, on his asking leave to enter the Order,
his parents refused their consent, he compelled them to grant it, in
the same manner as Raṭṭhapāla had done, by refusing to eat for seven
days.[289] And he then took the vows under the Master.
The Master remained at the Bambu-grove about half a month after
receiving him into the Order, and then went to Jetavana. There
this young man of family passed his life, begging his daily food
in Sāvatthi, and observing all the Thirteen Practices by which the
passions are quelled. So under the name of “The Young Tissa who keeps
the law concerning food,”[290] he became as distinguished and famous
in Buddhadom as the moon in the vault of heaven.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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