Jataka Vol. I: Book I.--Ekanipāta: No. 147. Puppharatta-Jātaka
No. 147.
PUPPHARATTA-JĀTAKA.
"I count it not as pain."--This story was told by the Master while at Jetavana,
about a Brother who was passion-tost. Being questioned by the Master, he
admitted his frailty, explaining that he longed for the wife of his mundane
life, "For, oh sir!" said he, "she is so sweet a woman that I cannot live
without her."
"Brother," said the Master, "she is harmful to you. She it was that in former
days was the means whereby you were impaled on a stake; and it was for bewailing
her at your death that you were reborn in hell. Why then do you now long after
her?" And so saying, he told the following story of the past.
_____________________________
Once on a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta was born
a Spirit of the Air. Now in Benares there was held the night-festival of
Kattikā; the city was decorated like a city of the gods, and the whole people
kept holiday. And a poor man had only a couple of coarse cloths which he had
washed and pressed till they were in a hundred, nay, a thousand creases. But his
wife said, "My husband, I want
p. 313
a safflower-coloured cloth to wear outside and one to wear underneath, as I go
about at the festival hanging round your neck."
"How are poor people like us to get safflowers?" said he. "Put on your nice
clean attire and come along."
"If I can't have them dyed with safflower, I don't want to go at all," said his
wife. "Get some other woman to go to the festival with you."
"Now why torment me like this? How are we to get safflowers?"
"Where there's a will, there's a way," retorted the woman. "Are there no
safflowers in the king's conservatories?" [500]
"Wife," said he, "the king's conservatories are like a pool haunted by an ogre.
There's no getting in there, with such a strong guard on the watch. Give over
this fancy, and be content with what you've got."
"But when it's night-time and dark," said she, "what's to stop a man's going
where he pleases?"
As she persisted in her entreaties, his love for her at last made him give way
and promise she should have her wish. At the hazard of his own life, he sallied
out of the city by night and got into the conservatories by breaking down the
fence. The noise he made in breaking the fence roused the guard, who turned out
to catch the thief. They soon caught him and with blows and curses put him in
fetters. In the morning he was brought before the king, who promptly ordered him
to be impaled alive. Off he was hauled, with his hands tied behind his back, and
led out of the city to execution to the sound of the execution-drum, and was
impaled alive. Intense were his agonies; and, to add to them, the crows settled
on his head and pecked out his eyes with their dagger-like beaks. Yet, heedless
of his pain, and thinking only of his wife, the man murmured to himself, "Alas,
I shall miss going to the festival with you arrayed in safflower-coloured
cloths, with your arms twined round my neck." So saying, he uttered this
stanza:--
I count it not as pain that, here impaled,
By crows I'm torn. My heartfelt pain is this,
That my dear wife will not keep holiday
Attired in raiment gay of ruddy dye.
And as he was babbling thus about his wife, he died and was reborn in hell.
_____________________________
His lesson ended, the Master identified the Birth by saying, "This husband and
wife were the husband and wife of those days also, and I was the Spirit of the
Air who made their story known."
Next: No. 148. Sigāla-Jātaka
0 comments:
Post a Comment