Jataka Vol. I: Book I.--Ekanipāta: No. 14. Vātamiga-Jātaka
p. 44
No. 14.
VĀTAMIGA-JĀTAKA.
"There's nothing worse." This story was told by the Master while at Jetavana,
about the Elder Tissa, called Direct-alms the Less. Tradition says that, while
the Master was dwelling at the Bamboo-grove near Rājagaha, the scion of a
wealthy house, Prince Tissa by name, coming one day to the Bamboo-grove and
there hearing a discourse from the Master, wished to join the Brotherhood, but,
being refused because his parents would not give their consent, obtained their
consent by following Raṭṭha-pāla's 1 example and refusing food for seven days,
and finally took the vows with the Master.
About a fortnight after admitting this young man, the Master repaired from the
Bamboo-grove to Jetavana, where the young nobleman undertook the Thirteen
Obligations 2 and passed his time in going his round for alms from house to
house, omitting none. Under the name of the Elder Tissa Direct-alms the Less, he
became as bright and shining a light in Buddhism as the moon in the vault of
heaven.
A festival having been proclaimed at this time at Rājagaha, the Elder's mother
and father laid in a silver casket the trinkets he used to wear as a-layman, and
took it to heart, bewailing thus,--"At other festivals our son used to wear this
or that bravery as he kept the festival; and he, our only son, has been taken
away by the sage Gotama to the town of Sāvatthi. Where is our son sitting now or
standing?" Now a slave-girl who came to the house, noticed the lady of the house
weeping, and asked her why she was weeping; and the lady told her all.
"What, madam, was your son fond of?" "Of such and such a thing," replied the
lady. "Well, if you will give me authority in this house, I'll fetch your son
back." "Very good," said the lady in assent, and gave the girl her expenses and
despatched her with a large following, saying, "Go, and manage to fetch my son
back."
So away the girl rode in a palanquin to Sāvatthi, where she took up her
residence in the street which the Elder used to frequent for alms. [157]
Surrounding herself with servants of her own, and never allowing the Elder to
see his father's people about, she watched the moment when the Elder entered the
street and at once bestowed on him an alms of victual and drink. And when she
had bound him in the bonds of the craving of taste, she got him eventually to
seat himself in the house, till she knew that her gifts of food as alms had put
him in her power. Then she feigned sickness and lay down in an inner chamber.
In the due course of his round for alms at the proper time, the Elder came to
the door of her house; and her people took the Elder's bowl and made him sit
down in the house.
When he had seated himself, he said, "Where is the lay-sister?" "She's ill, sir;
she would be glad to see you."
Bound as he was by the bonds of the craving of taste, he broke his vow and
obligation, and went to where the woman was lying.
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Then she told him the reason of her coming, and so wrought on him that, all
because of his being hound by the bonds of the craving of taste, she made him
forsake the Brotherhood; when he was in her power, she put him in the palanquin
and came back with a large following to Rājagaha again.
All this was noised abroad. Sitting in the Hall of Truth, the Brethren discussed
the matter, saying, "Sirs, it is reported that a slave-girl has bound in the
bonds of the craving of taste, and has carried off, the Elder Tissa the Less,
called Direct-alms." Entering the Hall the Master sat down on his jewelled seat,
and said, "What, Brethren, is the subject of discussion in this conclave?" They
told him the incident.
"Brethren," said he, "this is not the first time that, in bondage to the craving
of taste, he has fallen into her power; in bygone days too he fell into her
power in like manner." And so saying, he told this story of the past.
_____________________________
Once on a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares he had a gardener named
Sañjaya. Now there came into the king's pleasaunce a Wind-antelope, which fled
away at the sight of Sañjaya, but the latter let it go without terrifying the
timid creature. After several visits the antelope used to roam about in the
pleasaunce. Now the gardener was in the habit of gathering flowers and fruits
and taking them day by day to the king. Said the king to him one day, "Have you
noticed anything strange, friend gardener, in the pleasaunce?" "Only, sir, that
a Wind-antelope has come about the grounds." "Could you catch it, do you think?"
"Oh, yes; if I had a little honey, I'd bring it right into your majesty's
palace."
The king ordered the honey to be given to the man and he went off with it to the
pleasaunce, where he first anointed with the honey the grass at the spots
frequented by the antelope, [158] and then hid himself. When the antelope came
and tasted the honied grass it was so snared by the lust of taste that it would
go nowhere else but only to the pleasaunce. Marking the success of his snare,
the gardener began gradually to show himself. The appearance of the man made the
antelope take to flight for the first day or two, but growing familiar with the
sight of him, it gathered confidence and gradually came to eat grass from the
man's hand. He, noting that the creature's confidence had been won, first
strewed the path as thick as a carpet with broken boughs; then tying a gourd
full of honey on his shoulder and sticking a bunch of grass in his waist-cloth,
he kept dropping wisps of the honied grass in front of the antelope till at last
he got it right inside the palace. No sooner was the antelope inside than they
shut the door. At sight of men the antelope, in fear and trembling for its life,
dashed to and fro about the hall; and the king coming down from his chamber
above, and seeing the trembling creature, said, "So timid is the Wind-antelope
that for a whole week it will not revisit a spot where it has so much as seen a
man; and if it has once been frightened anywhere, it never goes back there again
all its life long. Yet,
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ensnared by the lust of taste, this wild thing from the jungle has actually come
to a place like this. Truly, my friends, there is nothing viler in the world
than this lust of taste." And he put his teaching into this stanza:--
There's nothing worse, men say, than taste to snare,
At borne or with one's friends. Lo! taste it was
That unto Sañjaya deliver’d up
The jungle-haunting antelope so wild.
And with these words he let the antelope go back to its forest again.
_____________________________
[159] When the Master had ended his lesson, and had repeated what he had said as
to that Brother's having fallen into that woman's power in bygone days as well
as in the present time, he shewed the connexion and identified the Birth, by
saying, "In those days this slave-girl was Sañjaya, Direct-alms the Less was the
wind-antelope, and I myself was the King of Benares."
Footnotes
44:1 See Raṭṭhapāla-sutta in the Majjhima-Nikāya (No. 83), translated in the
Ceylon R. A. S. Journal, 1847. See also Vinaya, Vol. III. pages 13 and 148.
44:2 These are meritorious ascetic practices for quelling the passions, of which
the third is an undertaking to eat no food except alms received direct from the
giver in the Brother's alms-bowl. Hence "ticket-food" (Jātaka No. 5) was
inadmissible.
Next: No. 15. Kharādiya-Jātaka
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