No. 515.

SAMBHAVA-JATAKA.

"This rule," etc.--This story the Master when residing at Jetavana told concerning the Perfection of Wisdom. The circumstances leading to the introductory story will be set forth in the Mahaummagga Birth .

Once upon a time a king called Dhananjaya Korabya reigned in the city of Indapatta in the Kuru kingdom. A brahmin named Sucirata was his priest and adviser in things temporal and spiritual. The king ruled his kingdom righteously, in the exercise of almsgiving and other good works. Now one day he prepared a question about the service of Truth, and having seated the brahmin Sucirata and paid him due honour, he put his question to him in the form of four stanzas:

This rule and lordship I disdain,
Sucirata, for I would fain
Be great, and o'er the wide world reign.

By right alone--wrong I eschew--
For whatsoe'er is good and true
Kings above all men should pursue.

By this for ever free from blame,
Here and hereafter, we may claim
Midst gods and men a glorious name.

Know, brahmin, that I fain would do
Whate'er is deemed both good and true,
So pray, when asked, declare to me
The Good and True, what they may be.

[58] Now this was a profound question, falling within the range of a Buddha. This is a question one should put to an Omniscient Buddha, and, failing him, to a Bodhisatta who is seeking the Gift of Omniscience. But Sucirata, by reason of his not being a Bodhisatta, could not solve the question, and, so far from assuming an air of wisdom, he confessed his incompetency in the following stanza:

No one but Vidhura , O king,
Hath power to tell this wondrous thing,
What is, my lord, the Good and True,
That thou art ever fain to do.

The king on hearing his words said, "Go then, brahmin, at once," and he gave him a present to take with him, and in his eagerness to get him off, he repeated this stanza:

Lo! straight this weight of gold, my friend,
By thee to Vidhura I send;
Meet gift for sage who best can show
The Good and True that I would know.

[59] And with these words he gave him a tablet of gold, worth a hundred thousand pieces of money, on which to write the answer to the question, a chariot to travel in, an army to escort him, and a present to offer, and straightway despatched him. Issuing from the city of Indapatta, not going straight to Benares, he first visited all places wheresoever sages dwell, and, not finding any one in all India to solve the question, he gradually approached Benares. Taking up his abode there, he went with a few followers to the house of Vidhura, at the time of the early meal, and having announced his arrival, he was invited in and found Vidhura at breakfast in his own house.

The Master, to make the matter clear, repeated the seventh stanza: