Jataka Vol. II: Book II. Dukanipāta: No. 203. Khandha-Vatta-Jātaka
No. 203 2.
KHANDHA-VATTA-JĀTAKA.
"Virūpakkha snakes I love," etc.--This story the Master told whilst living at
Jetavana, about a certain brother.
As he sat, we are told, at the door of his living room, chopping sticks, a snake
crept out of a rotten log, and bit his toe; he died on the spot. All the
monastery learnt how he had come by his sudden death. In the Hall of Truth
p. 101
they began talking about it; saying how Brother So-and-so was sitting at his
door, chopping wood, when a snake bit him, and he died immediately of the bite.
[145] The Master came in, and wanted to know what they were discussing as they
sat there together. They told him. Said he, "Brethren, if our brother had
practised kindness towards the four royal races of serpents, that snake would
not have bitten him: wise anchorites in by-gone days, before the Buddha was
born, by using kindness to these four royal races, were released from the fear
that sprang from these serpents." Then he told them an old-world tale.
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Once upon a time, during the reign of Brahmadatta king of Benares, the
Bodhisatta came into the world as a young brahmin of Kāsi. When he came of age,
he quelled his passions and took upon him the life of an ascetic; he developed
the Supernatural Faculties and the Attainments; he built an hermitage by the
bend of the Ganges near the foot of Himalaya, and there he dwelt, surrounded by
a band of ascetics, lost in the rapture of meditation.
At that time there were many kinds of snakes upon the Ganges bank, which did
mischief to the hermits, and many of them perished by snake-bite. The ascetics
told the matter to the Bodhisatta. He summoned all the ascetics to meet him, and
thus addressed them: "If you showed goodwill to the four royal races of snakes,
no serpents would bite you. Therefore from this time forward do you show
goodwill to the four royal races." Then he added this verse:--
"Virūpakkha snakes I love,
Erāpatha snakes I love,
Chabbyāputta snakes I love,
Kaṇhāgotamas I love."
After thus naming the four royal families of the snakes, he added: "If you can
cultivate goodwill towards these, no snake creature will bite you or do you
harm." Then he repeated the second verse:--[146]
"Creatures all beneath the sun,
Two feet, four feet, more, or none--
How I love you, every one!"
Having declared the nature of the love within him, he uttered another verse by
way of prayer:
"Creatures all, two feet or four,
You with none, and you with more,
Do not hurt me, I implore!"
p. 102
Then again, in general terms, he repeated one verse more:--
"All ye creatures that have birth,
Breathe, and move upon the earth,
Happy be ye, one and all,
Never into mischief fall 1."
[147] Thus did he set forth how one must show love and goodwill to all creatures
without distinction; he reminded his hearers of the virtues of the Three
Treasures, saying--"Infinite is the Buddha, infinite the Law, and the Order
infinite." He said, "Remember the quality of the Three Treasures;" and thus
having shown them the infinity of the Three Treasures, and wishing to show them
that all beings are finite, he added, "Finite and measurable are creeping
things, snakes, scorpions, centipedes, spiders, lizards, mice." Then again, "As
the passions and lusts in these creatures are the qualities which make them
finite and limited, let us be protected night and day against these finite
things by the power of the Three Treasures, which are infinite: wherefore
remember the worth of the Three Treasures." Then he recited this stanza:--
"Now I am guarded safe, and fenced around;
Now let all creatures leave nee to my ground.
All honour to the Blessed One I pay,
And the seven Buddhas who have passed away."
[148] And bidding them also remember the seven Buddhas 2 whilst they did honour,
the Bodhisatta composed this guardian charm and delivered it to his band of
sages. Thenceforward the sages bore in mind the Bodhisatta's admonition, and
cherished love and goodwill, and remembered the Buddha's virtues. As they did
this, all the snake kind departed from them. And the Bodhisatta cultivated the
Excellencies, and attained to Brahma's heaven.
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When the Master had ended this discourse, he identified the Birth:--"The
Buddha's followers were then the followers of the sage; and their Teacher was I
myself."
Footnotes
100:2 See Cullavagga v. 6 (iii. 75 in Vinaya Texts, S. B. E.), where the verses
occur again. The verses partly recur in the 'Bower MS,' a Sanskrit MS lately
found in the p. 101 ruins of an ancient city in Kashgaria (see J. P. T. S.,
1893, p. 64). The kinds of snakes mentioned cannot be identified. Snake charms
are extremely common in Sanskrit; there are many in the Atharva Veda.
102:1 All the verses hitherto given match, and are to be taken together as the
"First gāthā." The other is in a different metre, and is the "Second gāthā."
102:2 For the seven Buddhas, see Wilson, Select Works, ii. 5.
Next: No. 204. Vīraka-Jātaka
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