No. 70.

KUDDALA-JATAKA.

"The conquest."--This story was told by the Master while at Jetavana, about the Elder named Cittahattha-Sariputta. He is said to have been a youth of a good family in Savatthi; and one day, on his way home from ploughing, he turned in to the monastery. Here he received from the bowl of a certain Elder some dainty fare, rich and sweet, which made him think to himself,--"Day and night I am toiling away with my hands at divers tasks, yet never do I taste food

so sweet. I must turn Brother myself!" So he joined the Brotherhood, but after six weeks' zealous application to high thinking, fell under the dominion of Lusts and off he went. His belly again proving too much for him, [312] back he came to join the Brotherhood once more, and studied the Abhidhamma . In this way, six times he left and came back again; but when for the seventh time he became a Brother, he mastered the whole seven books of the Abhidhamma, and by much chanting of the Doctrine of the Brothers won Discernment and attained to Arahatship. Now his friends among the Brethren scoffed at him, saying--"Can it be, sir, that Lusts have ceased to spring up within your heart?"

"Sirs," was the reply, "I have now got beyond mundane life henceforth."

He having thus won Arahatship, talk thereof arose in the Hall of Truth, as follows:--"Sirs, though all the while he was destined to. all the glories of Arahatship, yet six times did Cittahattha-Sariputta renounce the Brotherhood; truly, very wrong is the unconverted state."

Returning to the Hall, the Master asked what they were talking about. Being told, he said, "Brethren, the worldling's heart is light and hard to curb; material things attract and hold it fast; when once it is so held fast, it cannot be released in a trice. Excellent is the mastery of such a heart; once mastered, it brings joy and happiness:

'Tis good to tame a headstrong heart and frail,
By passion swayed. Once tamed, the heart brings bliss.

It was by reason of this headstrong quality of the heart, however, that, for the sake of a pretty spade which they could not bring themselves to throw away, the wise and good of bygone days six times reverted to the world out of sheer cupidity; but on the seventh occasion they won Insight and subdued their cupidity." And so saying, he told this story of the past.

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