Palāyi-Jātaka

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Source: Adapted from Archaic Translation by W.H.D. Rouse
JATAKA No. 229

PALAYI-JATAKA

"Lo, my elephants," etc.--This story the Master told at Jetavana monastery, about a Monk, with wandering pleasure seeking tastes.

He moved across the whole of India for the purpose of arguing, and found no one to contradict him. At last he got as far as Shravasti city, and asked was there any one there who could argue with him. The people said, "There is One who could argue with a thousand such--all-wise, chief of men, the mighty Gautam(Buddha), lord of the faith, who bears down all opposition, there is no adversary in all India who can debate with Him. As the waves break upon the shore, so all arguments break against his feet, and are dashed to pieces." Thus they described the qualities of the Buddha.

"Where is he now?" asked the Monk. He was at Jetavana monastery, they replied. Now I'll get up a debate with him!" said the Monk. So attended by a large crowd he made his way to Jetavana monastery. On seeing the gate towers of Jetavana monastery, which Prince Jeta had built at a cost of ninety millions of money, he asked whether that was the palace where the Elder Monk Gautam(Buddha) lived. The gateway of it, they said. "If this be the gateway, what will the living be like!" he cried. "There's no end to the perfumed chambers!" the people said. "Who could argue with such a Elder Monk as this?" he asked; and hurried off at once.

The crowd shouted for joy, and crowded into the park. "What brings you here before your time?" asked the Master. They told him what had happened. Said he, "This is not the first time, laymen, that he hurried away at the mere sight of the gateway of my living. He did the same before." And at their request, he told an old-world tale.

Once upon a time, it happened that the Bodhisattva reigned king in Taxila, of the realm of Gandhara(near Afghanistan & Pakistan including Kandahar), and Brahmadatta in Benares. Brahmadatta resolved to capture Taxila; for which reason with a great army he set on, and took up a position not far from the city, and set his army in order: "Here be the elephants, here the horses, the chariots here, and here the footmen: thus do you charge and hurl with your weapons; as the clouds pour on rain, so pour you on a rain of arrows!" and he uttered this pair of stanzas:-

"Lo, my elephants and horses, like the storm-cloud in the sky! Lo, my surging sea of chariots shooting arrow-spray on high!  Lo, my army of warriors, striking sword in hand, with blow and thrust,  Closing in upon the city, till their rivals shall bite the dust!

"Rush against them--fall upon them! shout the war-cry--loudly sing! While the elephants in concert raise a clamorous trumpeting!  As the thunder and the lightning flash and rumble in the sky,  So be now your voice uplifted in the loud long battle-cry!"

So cried the king. And he made his army march, and came before the gate of the city; and when he saw the towers on the city gate, he asked whether was that the king's living. "That," said they, "is the gate tower." "If the gate tower be such as this, of what sort will the king's palace be?" he asked. And they replied, "Like to Vejayanta, the palace of Sakka(Indra)!" On hearing it, the king said, "With so glorious a king we shall never be able to fight!" And having seen no more than the tower set upon the city gate, he turned and fled away, and came again to Benares.

This discourse ended, the Master identified the Birth:-"Our Monk pleasure-seeker was then the king of Benares, and I was the king of Taxila myself."