Khuddaka Nikaya - Jataka - Tika-Nipata - Kama-Vilapa Jataka

Jataka Vol. II: Book III. Tika-Nipāta: No. 297. Kama-Vilapa Jataka



No. 297.
KĀMA-VILĀPA-JĀTAKA.
"O bird, that fliest," etc.--This story the Master told at Jetavana, about a man
who pined for his former wife. The circumstances which called it forth are 2
explained in the Puppharatta Birth-tale 3, and the tale of the past in the
Indriya Birth-tale 4.
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p. 303
So the man was impaled alive. As he hung there, he looked up and saw a crow
flying through the air; and, nought reeking of the hitter pain, he hailed the
crow, to send a message to his dear wife, repeating these verses following:
"O bird, that fliest in the sky!
O winged bird, that fliest high!
Tell my wife, with thighs so fair:
Long will seem the time to her.
"She knows not sword and spear are set:
Full wroth and angry she will fret.
That is my torment and my fear,
And not that I am hanging here.
"My lotus-mail I have put by,
And jewels in my pillow lie,
And soft Benares cloth beside.
With wealth let her be satisfied."
[444] With these lamentations, he died.
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When the Mister had ended this discourse, he declared the Truths, and identified
the Birth (now at the conclusion of the Truths, the lovesick brother attained
the fruition of the First Path): "The wife then was the wife now; but the spirit
who saw this, was I myself."



Footnotes
302:2 Reading kathitaṁ.
302:3 No. 147 above, vol. i. page 312.
302:4 No. 423.



Next: No. 298. Udumbara-Jātaka