Ja 220 Dhammaddhajajātaka Here we have the “Hero’s Tasks” in a new form.
The Birth Story about (the Family Priest) Dhammaddhaja (2s)
Alternative Title: Dhammadhajajātaka (Cst)
In the present Devadatta is going around trying to kill the Buddha. The latter tells a story about how how in the past a corrupt official had tried to get him killed using various strategems, but with the help of Sakka he was always defeated. Eventually he was tasked with finding a man with four good qualities to look after a palace – and again he managed to find one.
The Bodhisatta = (the family priest) Dhammaddhaja,
Sāriputta = (the ornament maker) Chattapāṇi,
Devadatta = (the general) Kāḷaka.
Keywords: Corruption, Envy, Devas.
“You look as though.”
In the past a king named Yasapāṇi [Fame Bearer], reigned at Benares. His chief captain was named Kāḷaka [Blackie]. At that time the Bodhisatta was his family priest, and had the name of Dhammaddhaja [Banner of the Dhamma]. There was also a man Chattapāṇi [Parasol Bearer], a maker of ornaments to the king. The king was a good king. But his chief captain swallowed bribes in the judging of causes; he was a backbiter; he took bribes, and defrauded the rightful owners.
On a day, one who had lost his suit was departing from the court, weeping and stretching out his arms,
The Bodhisatta pitied him. “Come, my good fellow,” said he, “I will judge your cause for you!” and he proceeded to the court-house. A great company gathered together. The Bodhisatta reversed the sentence, and gave judgement for him who was in the right. The spectators applauded. The sound was great. The king heard it, and asked, “What sound is this I hear?”
“My lord king,” they answered, “it is a cause wrongly judged that has been judged aright by the wise Dhammaddhaja; that is why there is this shout of applause.”
The king was pleased and sent for the Bodhisatta. “They tell me,” he began, “that you have judged a cause?” “Yes, great king, I have judged that which Kāḷaka did not judge aright.”
“Be you judge from this day,” said the king, “it will be a joy for my ears, and prosperity for the world!” He was unwilling, but the king begged him, “In mercy to all creatures, sit in judgement!” and so the king won his consent.
From that time Kāḷaka received no presents; and losing his gains he spoke calumny of the Bodhisatta before the king, saying: “O mighty king, the wise Dhammaddhaja covets your kingdom!” But the king would not believe; and bade him say not so.
“If you do not believe me,” said Kāḷaka, “look out of the window at the time of his coming. Then you will see that he has got the whole city into his own hands.”
The king saw the crowd of those that were about him in his judgement hall. “There is his retinue,” thought he. He gave way. “What are we to do, captain?” he asked. “My lord, he must be put to death.”
“There is a way,” said the other. “What way?” “Tell him to do what is impossible, and if he cannot, put him to death for that.” “But what is impossible to him?”
“My lord king,” replied he, “it takes two years or twice two for a garden with good soil to bear fruit, being planted and tended. Send you for him, and say – ‘We want a garden to disport ourselves in tomorrow. Make us a garden!’ This he will not be able to do; and we will slay him for that fault.”
The king addressed himself to the Bodhisatta. “Wise sir, we have sported long enough in our old garden; now we crave to sport in a new. Make us a garden! If you cannot make it, you must die.”
The Bodhisatta reasoned, it must be that Kāḷaka has set the king against me, because he gets no presents. “If I can,” he said to the king, “O mighty king, I will see to it.” And he went home. After a good meal he lay upon his bed, thinking. Sakka’s throne grew hot. This was supposed to happen when a good man was in straits. Some modern superstitions, turning upon the pity of a god for creatures in pain, may be seen in North Ind. N. and Q. iii. 285. As this: “Hot oil is poured into a dog’s ear and the pain makes him yell. It is believed that his yells are heard by Raja Indra, who in pity stops the rain.” Sakka reflecting perceived the Bodhisatta’s difficulty. He made haste to him, entered his chamber, and asked him, “Wise sir, what think you on?” poised the while in mid-air.
“Who are you?” asked the Bodhisatta.
“In such and such a place,” he told him. Sakka made it, and returned to the city of the gods.
Next day, the Bodhisatta beheld the garden there in very truth, and sought the king’s presence. “O king, the garden is ready: go to your sport!”
The king came to the place, and beheld a garden girt with a fence of eighteen cubits, vermilion tinted, having gates and ponds,
“O mighty king!” replied he, “if he can make a garden in one night, can he not seize upon your kingdom?”
“Well, what are we to do?” “We will make him perform another impossible thing.” “What is that?” asked the king. “We will bid him make a lake possessed of the seven precious jewels!”
The king agreed, and thus addressed the Bodhisatta: “Teacher, you have made a park. Make now a lake to match it, with the seven precious jewels. If, you cannot make it, you shall not live!”
“Very good, great king,” answered the Bodhisatta, “I will make it if I can.”
Then Sakka made a lake of great splendour, having a hundred landing-places, a thousand inlets, covered over with lotus plants of five different colours, like the lake in Nandana.
Next day, the Bodhisatta beheld this also, and told the king, “See, the lake is made!” And the king saw it, and asked of Kāḷaka what was to be done.
“Bid him, my lord, make a house to suit it,” said he.
“Make a house, Teacher,” said the king to the Bodhisatta, “all of ivory, to suit with the park and the lake: if you do not make it, you must die!”
Then Sakka made him a house likewise. The Bodhisatta beheld it next day, and told the king. When the king had seen it, he asked Kāḷaka again, what was to do. Kāḷaka told him to bid the Bodhisatta make a jewel to suit the house. The king said to him, “Wise sir, make a jewel to suit with this ivory house; I will go about looking at it by the light of the jewel: if you cannot make one, you must die! “Then Sakka
“Mighty king!” answered he, “I think there is some Devatā who does each thing that the brahmin Dhammaddhaja wishes. Now bid him make something which even a divinity cannot make. Not even a deity can make a man with all four virtues; Caturaṅga-samannāgataṁ; it is an odd coincidence that the Pythagoreans called the perfect man τετράγωνος, ‘four-square’ (see the poem of Simonides, in Plat. Prot. 339 B). therefore bid him make a keeper with these four.” So the king said: “Teacher, you have made a park, a lake, and a palace, and a jewel to give light. Now make me a keeper with four virtues, to watch the park; if you cannot, you must die.”
“So be it,” answered he, “if it is possible, I will see to it.” He went home, had a good meal, and lay down. When he awoke in the morning, he sat upon his bed, and thought thus. “What the great king Sakka can make by his power, that he has made. He cannot make a park-keeper with four virtues. This being so, it is better to die forlorn in the woods, than to die at the hand of other men.” So saying no word to any man, he went down from his dwelling and passed out of the city by the chief gate, and entered the woods, where he sat him down beneath a tree and reflected upon the dispensation of the good. Sakka perceived it; and in the fashion of a forester he approached the Bodhisatta, saying,
“Brahmin, you are young and tender: why sit you here in this wood, as though you had never seen pain before?” As he asked it, he repeated the first verse:
1. Sukhaṁ jīvitarūposi, raṭṭhā vivanam-āgato,
So ekako rukkhamūle, kapaṇo viya jhāyasī ti?
Your life looks happy, leaving the kingdom you go to the desert, alone at the root of a tree, do you meditate like a wretch?
In this connection, your life looks happy, your life is comparatively happy, like one grown up in happiness, maintaining happiness.
The kingdom means a place where people are spread out.
You go to the desert, having entered the wilderness, a place with no water.
At the root of a tree means in the vicinity of a tree.
Do you meditate like a wretch? Just like a wretch sitting alone, do you meditate, contemplate, what do you think? he asks.
To this the Bodhisatta made answer in the second verse:
2. Sukhaṁ jīvitarūposmi, raṭṭhā vivanam-āgato,
So ekako rukkhamūle,
Kapaṇo viya jhāyāmi, sataṁ Dhammaṁ anussaran-ti.
My life looks happy, leaving the kingdom I go to the desert, alone at the root of a tree, just like a wretch I meditate, recollecting the good Dhamma.
In this connection, recollecting the good Dhamma, friend, this is the truth, I am one whose life looks happy, but leaving the kingdom I came to the desert, alone, having sat at the root of this tree, just like a wretch I meditate. But what do you say: “What do you think?” I reply to you: “The good Dhamma.” Surely I sit here recollecting the good Dhamma.
Good Dhamma, the good Dhamma of the Buddhas, Independent Buddhas, Buddhas’ disciples, of the good people, the wise ones. Gain and loss, fame and infamy, blame and praise, happiness and suffering, surely these are the eight kinds of worldly conditions. But while being assailed by these he does not shake, he does not stir, this here is what is reckoned as the unshakeable good Dhamma, I sit recollecting this, this is the explanation.
Then Sakka said: “If so, then why, brahmin, are you sitting here?”
“The king,” he made answer, “requires a park-keeper with four good qualities; such a one cannot be found; so I thought: “Why perish by the hand of man? I will off to the woods, and die a lonely death. So here I came, and here I sit.”
Then the other replied, “Brahmin, I am Sakka, King of the Devas. By
The Bodhisatta went home, and having broken his fast, he repaired to the palace gates, and there in that spot he saw Chattapāṇi. He took him by the hand, and asked him, “Is it true, as I hear, Chattapāṇi, that you are endowed with the four virtues?”
“Who told you so?” asked the other. “Sakka, King of the Devas.” “Why did he tell you?” He recounted all, and told the reason. The other said,
“Yes, I am endowed with the four virtues.” The Bodhisatta taking him by the hand led him into the king’s presence. “Here, mighty monarch, is Chattapāṇi, endowed with four virtues. If there is need of a keeper for the park, make him keeper.”
“Is it true, as I hear,” the king asked him, “that you have four virtues?” “Yes, mighty king.” “What are they?” he asked.
“I am not envious, O king, I am not one who drinks strong drink, I am not one with attachments, I am resolved on non-anger,”
said he.
“Why, Chattapāṇi,” cried the king, “did you say you have no envy?” “Yes, O king, I have no envy.” “What are the things you do not envy?”
“Listen, my lord!” said he; and then he told how he felt no envy in the following lines:
“Because of a woman, king, I had the family priest fettered, he taught me what was beneficial, so I am not envious.”
This is the meaning: King, previously in this city of Benares, having become such a king, because of a woman I had the family priest fettered.
They bind the unbound right there, where fools speak, they free the bound right there, where the wise speak.
In the Bandhana Jātaka as in the tradition, at one time I became king Chattapāṇi. The queen, having corrupted sixty-four foot-servants, and not fulfilling her heart’s desire for the Bodhisatta, desiring to ruin him, set him at variance and had him fettered. Then having fettered him, the Bodhisatta was brought back, and having explained the real nature of the queen’s fault, he was freed from bondage by the king, and he had all the foot-servants set free, and further he advised the king, saying: “Great king, forgive the offence of these foot-servants and the queen.” And everything should be understood in detail according to what was said in the Jātaka above. Referring to this he said:
Because of a woman, king, I had the family priest fettered, he taught me what was beneficial, so I am not envious.
But then I thought: “I have abandoned sixteen thousand women, and because of the defilements, although treating her well, I was not able to please this one, thus when angry it is hard to fulfil the desire of women. When clothed in soiled clothes, it is like someone getting angry, saying: ‘Why are they soiled?’ After the the food is eaten it becomes excrement and it is like someone getting angry, saying: ‘Why does it have such a nature?’ So I determined: ‘Beginning from now for as long as I have not attained Arahatta, envy depending on a defilement will not arise in me.’ Beginning from there I became unenvious. Referring to this: “Therefore I am not envious,” was said.
When drunk, great king, I ate my own child’s flesh, being touched by grief, I eschewed strong drink.
Previously, great king, I became such a king of Benares, I was unable to continue without strong drink, I was unable to eat food without meat.
In the city, on the feast-days when killing is not allowed, On the feast-days, then as now, there were orders not to kill, so as not to offend the gods. the cook, having taken meat on the thirteenth of the month, I.e. on the last day before the prohibition started. set it aside, and, being poorly stored, the dogs ate it.
The cook, not receiving meat on the feast-day, having cooked various other foods of the best tastes for the king, and ascended the palace, being unable to serve meat, having approached the queen, he said: “Queen, today I have not received meat, and I am certainly not able to serve food without meat, what should I do?”
“Dear, my son is held dear, is agreeable to the king, having seen my son, the king, kissing and embracing him, does not think Lit: does not know. even of his own existence, having dressed up my son, and made him sit on the king’s lap, while he is playing with his son, you can serve the food to the king.”
Having said this and dressed up her son and decorated him with finery, she sat him on the king’s lap. While the king was playing with his son the food was served by the cook. The king, not seeing meat on the dish, being intoxicated with liquor, asked: “Where is the meat?”
He said: “Today, king, is a feast-day when killing is not allowed, no meat is available.”
Having said: “Is meat so hard to find for me?” having wrung the neck of his dear son sitting on his lap, bringing his life to destruction, and throwing the corpse in front of the cook, he said: “Quickly prepare and bring the meat.”
The cook did so, and the king ate the food with his own son’s flesh. Out of fear of the king there was no one able to wail, or cry, or speak out. The king, having eaten, went to sleep on top of the bed, and when he woke up before dawn being no longer drunk, he said: “Bring me my son.”
At that time the queen fell at his feet wailing. Having said: “Why do you cry madam?” She said: “King, yesterday, after killing your son, you ate food with his flesh.”
The king having cried and wailed with grief for his son, said: “This suffering has arisen for me because of liquor.”
After seeing the fault in liquor, he said: “Beginning from now until I attain Arahatta, I will not drink liquor which causes such ruination,” and having taken dirt and wiped his mouth, he made this determination.
Beginning from then he did not drink any intoxicants. Referring to this fact, this verse: “When drunk, great king,” was spoken.
Then the king said: “Dear Chattapāṇi, why do you abstain from strong drink?” And the other answered in the following verse:
“When drunk, great king, I ate my own child’s flesh, being touched by grief, I eschewed strong drink.”
Previously, great king, I became such a king of Benares, I was unable to continue without strong drink, I was unable to eat food without meat.
In the city, on the feast-days when killing is not allowed, On the feast-days, then as now, there were orders not to kill, so as not to offend the gods. the cook, having taken meat on the thirteenth of the month, I.e. on the last day before the prohibition started. set it aside, and, being poorly stored, the dogs ate it.
The cook, not receiving meat on the feast-day, having cooked various other foods of the best tastes for the king, and ascended the palace, being unable to serve meat, having approached the queen, he said: “Queen, today I have not received meat, and I am certainly not able to serve food without meat, what should I do?”
“Dear, my son is held dear, is agreeable to the king, having seen my son, the king, kissing and embracing him, does not think Lit: does not know. even of his own existence, having dressed up my son, and made him sit on the king’s lap, while he is playing with his son, you can serve the food to the king.”
Having said this and dressed up her son and decorated him with finery, she sat him on the king’s lap. While the king was playing with his son the food was served by the cook. The king, not seeing meat on the dish, being intoxicated with liquor, asked: “Where is the meat?”
He said: “Today, king, is a feast-day when killing is not allowed, no meat is available.”
Having said: “Is meat so hard to find for me?” having wrung the neck of his dear son sitting on his lap, bringing his life to destruction, and throwing the corpse in front of the cook, he said: “Quickly prepare and bring the meat.”
The cook did so, and the king ate the food with his own son’s flesh. Out of fear of the king there was no one able to wail, or cry, or speak out. The king, having eaten, went to sleep on top of the bed, and when he woke up before dawn being no longer drunk, he said: “Bring me my son.”
At that time the queen fell at his feet wailing. Having said: “Why do you cry madam?” She said: “King, yesterday, after killing your son, you ate food with his flesh.”
The king having cried and wailed with grief for his son, said: “This suffering has arisen for me because of liquor.”
After seeing the fault in liquor, he said: “Beginning from now until I attain Arahatta, I will not drink liquor which causes such ruination,” and having taken dirt and wiped his mouth, he made this determination.
Beginning from then he did not drink any intoxicants. Referring to this fact, this verse: “When drunk, great king,” was spoken.
Then the king said: “But what, dear sir, makes you indifferent, without love?” The man explained it in these words: The commentator tells this story: “The meaning is, Once upon a time I was a king named Kitavāsa, and a son was born to me. The fortune-tellers said that the boy would perish of lack of water. So he was named Duṭṭhakumāra. When he grew up, he was viceroy. The king kept his son close to him, before or behind; and to break the prophecy had tanks made at the four city gates and here and there inside the city; he made halls in the squares and crossways, and set water jars in them. One day the young man, dressed finely, went to the park by himself. On his way he saw a Pacceka-Buddha in the road, and many people spoke to him, praised him, did obeisance before him.
“King, I was called Kitavāsa, my son broke an Independent Buddha’s bowl, and passed away; through that cause I became unattached.”
Great king, formerly I was a king of Benares called Kitavāsa. To me a son was born. Having seen him those who could read signs, said: “Great king, this boy will die through not receiving water,” so he gave the name Duṭṭhakumāra to him. When he had grown up he was given the viceroyalty.
The king walked round putting his son to the front or behind. Fearing the death of his son through not receiving water, he built lakes at the four gates and here and there inside the city, and made pavillions at the crossroads and so on and set up water pots.
One day in the morning, being decorated with ornaments, while going to the garden he saw an Independent Buddha on the highway. Having seen the Independent Buddha the many-folk worshipped and praised him, and held up their hands in reverential salutation to him.
The prince thought: “While going along with one such as I, they worship and praise this shaveling, and hold up their hands in reverential salutation to him.”
Angrily he dismounted from the elephant’s back, and approached the Independent Buddha, saying: “Ascetic, have you received your food?” “Yes, prince,” he said. Taking the bowl from his hand he threw it on the floor, and trampled it together with the food, and crushed it to bits with a blow of his foot.
The Independent Buddha said: “This person is truly lost,” and stared into his face.
The prince said: “Ascetic, I am king Kitavāsa’s son, called Duṭṭhakumāra by name. Being angry at me, opening your eyes, and looking round, what will you do?”
The Independent Buddha, having his food cut off, ascending into the sky, went to Mount Nandamūla in the northern Himālaya.
At that very moment the prince’s wicked deed matured. Saying: “I am burning, burning,” fire emerged from his body and he fell down right there.
Right there and then whatever water there was, all of that water was cut off, the water-courses dried up, and reaching the destruction of his life he was reborn in the ceaseless hell.
The king heard what had happened and overcome with grief for his son, thought: “This grief has arisen based on affection for my son, if there were no attachment, Sneho normally means love, affection, but here it means the kind of love that is attached to its object and therefore causes grief, so that here the translation attachment seems more appropriate. grief will not arise, beginning from here on, whether with consciousness or without consciousness, I will not let attachment arise based on anything,” he made this determination. Beginning from then he had no attachment.
Referring to this the verse: “I was called Kitavāsa,” was spoken.
In this connection, my son broke an Independent Buddha’s bowl, and passed away, my son having broken the Independent Buddha’s bowl, passed away, this is the meaning.
Through him I became unattached, then from the basis of the arisen attachment, I became unattached, this is the meaning.
Said the king then, “What was it, good friend, that made you to be without anger?” And the other made the matter clear in these lines:
“As Araka I developed loving-kindness for seven years, I spent seven aeons in the Brahmā Realm, so am I without anger.”
This is the meaning: Great king, I became an ascetic named Araka, and cultivated a heart of loving kindness for seven years, for seven aeons of evolution and devolution I lived in the Brahmā Realm, so through developing loving-kindness for a long time by the performance of practice I became one without anger.
When Chattapāṇi had thus explained his four attributes, the king made a sign to his attendants. And in an instant all the court,
Thenceforward the king ruled in righteousness, until he passed away and traveled on according to his deeds.
This discourse ended, the Teacher identified the Jātaka, “Devadatta was the Commander Kāḷaka, Sāriputta was the artisan Chattapāṇi, and I was Dhammaddhaja.”