Jataka Vol. I: Book I.--Ekanipāta: No. 63. Takka-Jātaka
No. 63.
TAKKA-JĀTAKA.
"Wrathful are women."--This story was told by the Master while at Jetavana,
about another passion-tost Brother. When on being questioned the Brother
confessed that he was passion-tost, the Master said, "Women are ingrates and
treacherous; why are you passion-tost because of them?" And he told this story
of the past.
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p. 156
Once on a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta, who had
chosen an anchorite's life, built himself a hermitage by the banks of the
Ganges, and there won the Attainments and the Higher Knowledges, and so dwelt in
the bliss of Insight. In those days the Lord High Treasurer of Benares had a
fierce and cruel daughter, known as Lady Wicked, who used to revile and beat her
servants and slaves. And one day they took their young mistress [296] to disport
herself in the Ganges; and the girls were playing about in the water, when the
sun set and a great storm burst upon them. Hereon folks scampered away, and the
girl's attendants, exclaiming, "Now is the time to see the last of this
creature!" threw her right into the river and hurried off. Down poured the rain
in torrents, the sun set, and darkness came on. And when the attendants reached
home without their young mistress, and were asked where she was, they replied
that she had got out of the Ganges but that they did not know where she had
gone. Search was made by her family, but not a trace of the missing girl could
be found.
Meantime she, screaming loudly, was swept down by the swollen stream, and at
midnight approached where the Bodhisatta dwelt in his hermitage. Hearing her
cries, he thought to himself, "That's a woman's voice. I must rescue her from
the water." So he took a torch of grass and by its light descried her in the
stream. "Don't be afraid; don't be afraid!" he shouted cheerily, and waded in,
and, thanks to his vast strength, as of an elephant, brought her safe to land.
Then he made a fire for her in his hermitage and set luscious fruits of divers
kinds before her. Not till she had eaten did he ask, "Where is your home, and
how came you to fall in the river?" And the girl told him all that had befallen
her. "Dwell here for the present," said he, and installed her in his hermitage,
whilst for the next two or three days he himself abode in the open air. At the
end of that time he bade her depart, but she was set on waiting till she had
made the ascetic fall in love with her; and would not go. And as time went by,
she so wrought on him by her womanly grace and wiles that he lost his Insight.
With her he continued to dwell in the forest. But she did not like living in
that solitude and wanted to be taken among people. So yielding to her
importunities he took her away with him to a border village, where he supported
her by selling dates, and so was called the Date-Sage 1. And the villagers paid
p. 157
him to teach them what were lucky and unlucky seasons, and gave him a hut to
live in at the entrance to their village.
Now the border was harried by robbers from the mountains; and they made a raid
one day [297] on the village where the pair lived, and looted it. They made the
poor villagers pack up their belongings, and off they went--with the Treasurer's
daughter among the rest--to their own abodes. Arrived there, they let everybody
else go free; but the girl, because of her beauty, was taken to wife by the
robber chieftain.
And when the Bodhisatta learned this, he thought to himself, "She will not
endure to live away from me. She will escape and come back to me." And so he
lived on, waiting for her to return. She meantime was very happy with the
robbers, and only feared that the Date-sage would come to carry her away again.
"I should feel more secure," thought she, "if he were dead. I must send a
message to him feigning love and so entice him here to his death." So she sent a
messenger to him with the message that she was unhappy, and that she wanted him
to take her away.
And he, in his faith in her, set out forthwith, and came to the entrance of the
robbers' village, whence be sent a message to her. "To fly now, my husband,"
said she, "would only be to fall into the robber chieftain's hands who would
kill us both. Let us put off our flight till night." So she took him and hid him
in a room; and when the robber came home at night and was inflamed with strong
drink, she said to him, "Tell me, love, what would you do if your rival were in
your power?"
And he said he would do this and that to him.
"Perhaps he is not so far away as you think," said she. "He is in the next
room."
Seizing a torch, the robber rushed in and seized the Bodhisatta and beat him
about the head and body to his heart's content. Amid the blows the Bodhisatta
made no cry, only murmuring, "Cruel ingrates! slanderous traitors!" And this was
all he said. And when he had thus beaten, bound, and laid by the heels the
Bodhisatta, the robber finished his supper, and lay down to sleep. In the
morning, when he had slept off his over-night's debauch, he fell anew to beating
the Bodhisatta, who still made no cry but kept repeating the same four words.
And the robber was struck with this and asked why, even when beaten, he kept
saying that. [298]
"Listen," said the Date-Sage, "and you shall hear. Once I was a hermit dwelling
in the solitude of the forest, and there I won Insight. And I rescued this woman
from the Ganges and helped her in her need, and by her allurements fell from my
high estate. Then I quitted the forest and supported her in a village, whence
she was carried off by robbers. And she sent me a message that she was unhappy,
entreating
p. 158
me to come and take her away. Now she has made me fall into your hands. That is
why I thus exclaim."
This set the robber a-thinking again, and he thought, "If she can feel so little
for one who is so good and has done so much for her, what injury would she not
do to me? She must die." So having reassured the Bodhisatta and having awakened
the woman, he set out sword in hand, pretending to her that he was about to kill
him outside the village. Then bidding her hold the Date-Sage he drew his sword,
and, making as though to kill the sage, clove the woman in twain. Then he bathed
the Date-Sage from head to foot and for several days fed him with dainties to
his heart's content.
"Where do you purpose to go now?" said the robber at last.
"The world," answered the sage, "has no pleasures for me. I will become a hermit
once more and dwell in my former habitation in the forest."
"And I too will become a hermit," exclaimed the robber. So both became hermits
together, and dwelt in the hermitage in the forest, where they won the Higher
Knowledges and the Attainments, and qualified themselves when life ended to
enter the Realm of Brahma.
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After telling these two stories, the Master chewed the connexion, by reciting,
as Buddha, this stanza:--
Wrathful are women, slanderers, ingrates,
The sowers of dissension and fell strife!
Then, Brother, tread the path of holiness,
And Bliss therein thou shalt not fail to find.
[299] His lesson ended, the Master preached the Truths, at the close whereof the
passion-tost Brother won the Fruit of the First Path. Also, the Master
identified the Birth by saying, "Ānanda was the robber-chief of those days, and
I myself the Date-Sage."
Footnotes
156:1 There is a play here upon the word takka, which cannot well be rendered in
English. The word takka-paṇḍito, which I have rendered 'Date Sage,' would--by
itself--mean 'Logic Sage,' whilst his living was got takkaṁ vikkinitvā 'by
selling dates.' There is the further difficulty that the latter phrase may
equally well mean by selling buttermilk.'
Next: No. 64. Durājāna-Jātaka
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