Ja 244 The Birth Story about the Desireless One (2s)

Alternative Title: Vigaticchajātaka (Cst)

In the present Devadatta learned all he knew from the Buddha, but repudiated him. The Buddha tells a story of a musician who taught his pupil, only for the pupil to challenge him in public. When Sakka found out, he helped the master win the contest and took him to heaven.

The Bodhisatta = the ascetic (tāpasa),
the wanderer = the same in the past (paribbājaka).

Keywords: Vanity, Wisdom.

“What he sees.” This story the Teacher told at Jetavana, about a turntail vagrant who wandered about the country.

It is said that this man could not find any one to argue with him in all Jambudīpa; till he came to Sāvatthi, and asked whether any one could dispute with him. “Yes,” he was told, “the Supreme Buddha;” hearing which, he and a multitude with him repaired to Jetavana, and put a question to the Teacher, [2.179] while he was discoursing in the midst of the four kinds of disciples. The Teacher answered his question, and then put one to him in return. This the man failed to answer, got up, and turned tail. The crowd sitting round exclaimed, “One word, sir, vanquished the itinerant!” Said the Teacher, “Yes, monks, and just as I have vanquished him now with one word, so I did before.” Then he told a story of olden days..

In the past, when Brahmadatta was king of Benares, the Bodhisatta was born a brahmin in the kingdom of Kāsi. He grew up, and mastered his passions; and embracing the ascetic life, {2.258} he dwelt a long time in the Himālayas.

He came down from the highlands, and took up his abode near a considerable town, in a hut of leaves built beside a bend of the river Ganges. A certain pilgrim, who found no one that could answer him throughout all Jambudīpa, came to that town. “Is there anyone,” asked he, “who can argue with me?”

“Yes,” they said, and told him the power of the Bodhisatta. So, followed by a great multitude, he made his way to the place where the Bodhisatta dwelt, and after greeting him, took a seat.

“Will you drink,” he asked, “of the Ganges water, infused with wild wood odours?”

The pilgrim tried to catch him in his words. “What is Ganges? Ganges may be sand, Ganges may be water, Ganges may be the near bank, Ganges may be the far bank!”

Said the Bodhisatta to the pilgrim, “Besides the sand, the water, the here and the further bank, what other Ganges can you have?” The pilgrim had no answer for this; he rose up, and went away. When he had gone the Bodhisatta spake these verses by way of discourse to the assembled multitude:

In this connection, what he sees, what water and so on he sees, that Ganges he does not desire.

That which he does not see, what is free from water and so on, the Ganges he does not see, that, it seems, he desires.

I think he will wander for a long time, I think like this: this wanderer seeking out such a Ganges will wander for a long time. Just as the Ganges that is free from water and so on, so seeking for himself free from form and so on he will wander in transmigration for a long time.

But he will not find that, though wandering for a long time that which he desires, such as the Ganges or himself, he will not find.

What he has, what he has, water, or form and so on, he is not satisfied by that.

What he wishes for, received, he condemns, so not being satisfied with what is received, this and that excellence which he wished for, after receiving it, he condemns, belittles, saying: “What is this?”

For his desires know no bounded limits, after condemning what he received, from desiring one object after another, what is known as these desires, cravings, know no bounded limits.

I must revere the one without desire, therefore those Buddhas and so on, who are free from desires, to them we make our reverence.