No. 523.

ALAMBUSA-JATAKA.

[152] "Then mighty Indra," etc. This story the Master, while residing at Jetavana, told about the temptation of a Brother by the wife of his unregenerate days. The subject-matter of the tale is related in full in the Indriya Birth . Now the Master asked the Brother, "Is it true, Brother, that you were rendered discontented?" "It is true, Reverend Sir." "By whom?" "By my wife of former days." "Brother," he said, "this woman wrought mischief for you: it was owing to her that you fell away from mystic meditation, and lay for three years in a lost and distracted condition, and on the recovery of your senses you uttered a great lamentation," and so saying he told him a story of the past.

Once upon a time in the reign of Brahmadatta in Benares, the Bodhisatta was born of a brahmin family in the kingdom of Kasi, and when of age he became proficient in all liberal arts, and adopting the ascetic life he lived on wild berries and roots in a forest home. Now a certain doe in the brahmin's mingeing-place ate grass and drank water mingled with his semen, and was so much enamoured of him that she became pregnant and henceforth ever resorted to the spot near the hermitage. The Great Being examining into the matter learned the facts of the case. By and bye the doe gave birth to a man child, and the Great

[paragraph continues] Being watched over it with a father's affection. And his name was Isisinga . And when the lad reached years of discretion, he admitted him to holy orders, and when he himself grew an old man, he repaired with him to the Nari grove and thus admonished him, "My dear boy, in this Himalaya country are women as fair as these flowers: they bring utter destruction on all that fall into their power: you must not come under their sway." And shortly afterwards he became destined to birth in the Brahma world. But Isisinga, indulging in mystic meditation, made his dwelling in the Himalaya region, a grim ascetic, with all his senses mortified. So by the power of his virtue the abode of Sakka was shaken. Sakka, on reflection, discovered the cause and thinking, "This fellow will bring me down from my position as Sakka, I will send a heavenly nymph to make a breach in his virtue," and after examining the whole angel world, amongst twenty-five millions of handmaids, save and except the nymph Alambusa, he found no other that was equal to the task. So summoning her, he bade her bring about the destruction of the saint's virtue.

[153] The Master, in explanation of this matter, uttered this stanza:

Then mighty Indra, lord of lords, the god that Vatra slew,
Unto his hall the nymph did call, for well her wiles he knew.
And "Fair Alambusa," he cried, "the angel host above
To Isisinga bid thee go, to tempt him with thy love."