Vessantara Jātaka Part 2

The Vessantara Jātaka is one of the most popular jātakas of Theravada Buddhism. The Vessantara Jātaka tells the story of one of Gautama Buddha’s past lives, about a very compassionate and generous prince, Vessantara, who gives away everything he owns, including his children, thereby displaying the virtue of perfect generosity. It is also known as the Great Birth Sermon. -------------------------........------------------------ Both these, after their life was past, came into being in the world of gods. The elder sister, passing from the world of gods to the world of men and back again, at the end of the ninety-first age became Queen Māyā mother of the Buddha. The younger sister passing to and fro in like manner, in the time of the Dasabala Kassapa became the daughter of King Kiki; and being born with the semblance of a necklet upon her neck and shoulders, beautiful as though drawn by a painter, she was named Uracchadā. When she was a girl of sixteen years, she heard a pious utterance of the Master, and attained to the fruit of the First Path, and so the very same day she attained sainthood, and then entered the Order, and entered Nirvana. Now King Kiki had seven other daughters, whose names were: “Samaṇī, Samaṇā, the holy Sister Guttā, Bhikkhudāsikā, and Dhammā and Sudhammā, And of the sisters the seventh Saṁghadāsī.“ In this manifestation of the Buddha, these sisters were— “Khemā, Uppalavaṇṇā, the third was Paṭācārā, Gotamā, Dhammadinnā, and sixthly Mahāmāyā, And of this band of sisters the seventh was Visākhā.“ Now of these Phusatī became Sudhammā; who did good deeds and gave alms, and by fruit of the offering of sandal wood done to Buddha Vipassī, had her body as it were sprinkled with choice sandal wood. Then passing to and fro between the worlds of men and of gods, eventually she became chief queen of Sakka king of the gods. After her days there were done 1 , and the five customary signs were to be seen, Sakka king of the gods, realizing that her time was exhausted, escorted her with great glory to the pleasaunce in Nandana grove; then as she reclined on a richly adorned seat, he, sitting beside it, said to her: “Dear Phusatī, ten boons I grant you: choose.“ With these words, he uttered the first stanza in this Great Vessantara Birth with its thousand stanzas: “Ten boons I give thee, Phusatī, O beauteous lady bright: Choose thou whatever on the earth is precious in thy sight.“ [482] Thus came she to be established in the world of gods by the preaching in the Great Vessantara. But she, not knowing the circumstances of her re-birth, felt faint, and said the second stanza: “Glory to thee, O king of gods! what sin is done by me, To send me from this lovely place as winds blow down a tree?“ And Sakka perceiving her despondency uttered two stanzas: “Dear art thou still as thou hast been, and sin thou hast not done: I speak because thy merit now is all used up and gone. Now thy departure is at hand, the hour of death draws nigh: Ten boons I offer thee to choose; then choose, before thou die.“ Hearing these words of Sakka, and convinced that she must die, she said, choosing the boons 1 : “King Sakka, lord of beings all, a boon hath granted me: I bless him: craving that my life in Sivi’s realm may be. Black eyes, black pupils like a fawn, black eyebrows may I have, And Phusatī my name: this boon, O bounteous one, I crave. A son be mine, revered by kings, famed, glorious, debonair, Bounteous, ungrudging, one to lend a ready ear to prayer. And while the babe is in my womb let not my figure go, Let it be slim and graceful like a finely fashioned bow. [483] Still, Sakka, may my breasts be firm, nor white-haired may I be 2 ; My body all unblemished, may I set the death-doomed free 3 . Mid herons’ cries, and peacocks’ calls, with waiting women fair, Poets and bards to sing our praise, shawls waving in the air 4 , When rattling on the painted door the menial calls aloud, “God bless King Sivi! come to meat!“ be I his queen avowed.“ Sakka said: “Know that these boons, my lady bright, which I have granted thee, In Sivi kingdom, beauteous one, all ten fulfilled shall be.“ “So spake the monarch of the gods, the great Sujampati, Called Vāsava, well pleased to grant a boon to Phusatī.“ When she had thus chosen her boons, she left that world, and was conceived in the womb of King Madda’s queen 5 ; and when she was born, because her body was as it were sprinkled with the perfume of sandal wood, on her name-day they called her by the name Phusatī. She grew up amidst a great company of attendants until in her sixteenth year she surpassed all other in beauty. At that time Prince Sañjaya, son of the King of Sivi, was to be invested with the White Umbrella; the princess was sent for to be his bride, and she was made Queen Consort at the head of sixteen thousand women; wherefore it is said— “Next born a princess, Phusatī was to the city led Jetuttara, and there anon to Sañjaya was wed.“