Ja 263 The Short Birth Story about Enticement (3s)

Alternative Title: Cūḷapalobhanajātaka (Cst)

In the present one monk is discontent owing to his love of women. The Buddha tells a story about how in a previous life he had fallen in love through a woman’s voice, had run away with her, but when she tempted an ascetic, spurned her, and took up the ascetic life himself.

The Bodhisatta = the prince (who didn’t like women) Anitthigandha.

Present Source: Ja 263 Cullapalobhana,
Quoted at: Ja 507 Mahāpalobhana.

Keywords: Dislike, Purity, Women.

In the past Brahmadatta, the king of Benares, was childless. He said to his queen, “Let us offer prayer for a son.” They offered prayer. After a long time, the Bodhisatta came down from the Brahma Realm, and was conceived by his queen. So soon as he was born, he was bathed, and given to a serving woman to nurse. As he took the breast, he cried. He was given to another; but while a woman held him, he would not be quiet. So he was given to a man servant; and as soon as the man took him, he was quiet. After that men used to carry him about. When they suckled him, they would milk the breast for him, or they gave him the breast from behind a screen. Even when he grew older, they could not show him a woman. The king caused to be made for him a separate place for sitting and so on, and a separate room for meditation, all by himself.

When the lad was sixteen years old, the king thought thus within himself. “Other son have I none, and this one enjoys no pleasures. He will not even wish for the kingdom. What’s the good of such a son?”

And there was a certain dancing girl, clever at dance and song and music, young, able to gain ascendancy over any man she came across. She approached the king, and asked what he was thinking about; the king told her what it was. {2.329}

“Let be, my lord,” said she, “I will allure him, I will make him love me.”

“Well, if you can allure my son, who has never had any dealings whatsoever with women, he shall be king, and you shall be his chief queen!” “Leave that to me, my lord,” said she, “and don’t be anxious.”

So she came to the people of the guard, and said: “At dawn of day I will go to the sleeping place of the prince, and outside the room where he meditates apart I will sing. If he is angry, you must tell me, and I will go away; but if he listens, speak my praises.” This they agreed to do. [2.228]

So in the morning time she took her stand in that place, and sang with a voice of honey, so that the music was as sweet as the song, and the song as sweet as the music. The prince lay listening. Next day, he commanded that she should stand near and sing. The next day, he commanded her to stand in the private chamber, and the next, in his own presence; and so by and by desire arose in him; he went the way of the world, and knew the joy of love. “I will not let another have this woman,” he resolved; and taking his sword, he ran amuck through the street, chasing the people. The king had him captured, and banished him from the city along with the girl.

Together they journeyed to the jungle, away down the Ganges. There, with the river on one side and the sea on the other, they made a hut, and there they lived. She sat indoors, and cooked the roots and bulbs; the Bodhisatta brought wild fruits from the forest.

One day, when he was away in search of fruits, an ascetic from an island in the sea, who was going his rounds to get food, saw smoke as he passed through the air, and alighted beside this hut.

“Sit down until it is cooked,” said the woman; then her woman’s charms seduced his soul, and brought it down from his Absorption, making a breach in his purity. And he, like a crow with broken wing, {2.330} unable to leave her, sat there the whole day till he saw the Bodhisatta coming, and then ran off quickly in the direction of the sea. “This must be an enemy,” he thought, and drawing his sword set off in chase.

But the ascetic, making as though he would rise in the air, fell down into the sea. Then thought the Bodhisatta,

“That man is doubtless an ascetic who came here through the air; and now that his Absorption is broken, he has fallen into the sea. I must go help him.” And standing on the shore he uttered these verses:

In this connection, not breaking through the waters, not stirring, not shaking in the water, not touching the water, having come by his own super power through the sky. Again we see the absolutive used as a finite verb here.

Going and mixing with a woman means mixing together with a woman because of worldly things.

Temptress, great deceiver, certainly those women, through tempting with sensuality, from temptation, are temptresses, being endowed with women’s endless deceit, they are called great deceivers.

Therefore this is said: Ja 534 vs. 30.

They are deceivers, mirages, grief, disease and calamity, they are the harshest of bonds, the snare of death, hidden in the heart, the man who puts trust in those women, is the lowest among men.

Upsetter of the spiritual life, they are upsetters of the highest life, the spiritual life bereft of sexual intercourse.

They sink, through these women upsetting the spiritual life the sages sink into the various downfalls.

The rest should be applied according to the former method. I include the relevant explanations from the previous Jātaka Ja 262.

Knowing means knowing thus.

He should avoid from afar, knowing: “These women surely with sexual intercourse and so on, not being satisfied, after death, sink into the hells, these women, sinking themselves in this way, what else will they be happy with?” Knowing this the wise man avoids them from afar, this is the explanation.

Through desire or through wealth, through his own desire, liking, loving, or because of wealth received through wages, these women keep company, associate with that person.

Fire means fire. Even a new born experiences fire, it is understood, it is clearly seen, so Jātaveda is said. As in his place, when there is a cause, an opportunity, it burns, so those women keep company with someone, that person, though endowed with wealth, fame, virtue and wisdom, all of these, from the destruction of wealth and so on, from that abundance, making it not liable to arise again, quickly burn him up, set fire to it.

This is also said:

“Those who are strong become weak, and those who are firm dwindle away, those with eyes become blind, when under the control of women.

Those with virtue lose their virtue, those with wisdom dwindle away, the heedless lie in bondage, when under the control of women.

Study, asceticism, virtue, truth, sharing, mindfulness, wisdom, they cut these off from the heedless, like treacherous thieves on the road.

Fame, glory, resolution, heroism, much learning, and knowing, they waste away the heedless, like an inferno a bunch of sticks.”

When the ascetic heard these words which the Bodhisatta spake, he stood up in the midst of the sea, and resuming his interrupted trance, he rose through the air, and went away to his dwelling place. Thought the Bodhisatta, “That ascetic, with so great a burden, goes through the air like a fleck of cotton. {2.331} Why should not I, like him, cultivate Absorption, and pass through the air!” So he returned to his hut, and led the woman among mankind again; then he told her to be gone, and himself went into the jungle, where he built him a hut in a pleasant spot, and became an ascetic; by focusing on the Meditation Object, he cultivated the Super Knowledges and Attainments, and became destined for the Brahma Realm.