Dutiya-Palāyi-Jātaka

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Source: Adapted from Archaic Translation by W.H.D. Rouse
JATAKA No. 230

DUTIYA-PALAYI-JATAKA

"Countless are my banners," etc.-- This story the Master told while living at Jetavana monastery, about this same pleasure-seeker Monk.

At that time, the Master, with a large company round him, sitting on the beautifully decorated throne of the truth, upon a red dais, was giving discourse like a young lion roaring with a lion's roar. The Monk, seeing the Buddha's form like the form of Brahma, his face like the glory of the full moon, and his forehead like a plate of gold, turned round where he had come, in the midst of the crowd, and ran off, saying, "Who could overcome a man like this?"

The crowd went in chase, then came back and told the Master. He said, "Not only now has this Monk fled at the mere sight of my golden face; he did the same before." And he told an old-world tale.

Once upon a time, the Bodhisattva was king in Benares, and in Taxila reigned a certain king of Gandhara(near Afghanistan & Pakistan including Kandahar). This king, desiring to capture Benares, went and compassed the city about with a complete army of four divisions. And taking his stand at the city gate, he looked upon his army, and said he, "Who shall be able to conquer so great an army as this?" and describing his army, he uttered the first stanza:-

"Countless are my banners: rival none they own: Flocks of crows can never stem the rolling sea--  Never can the storm-blast beat a mountain down:-  So, of all the living none can conquer me!"

Then the Bodhisattva disclosed his own glorious composure, in fashion as the full moon; and threatening him, thus spoke: "Fool, speak not in futility! Now will I destroy your army, as a maddened elephant crushes a thick vegetation of reeds!" and he repeated the second stanza:

"Fool! and have you never yet a rival found? You are hot with fever, if you seekst to wound  Solitary savage elephants like me!  As they crush a reed-stalk so will I crush you!"

When the king of Gandhara(near Afghanistan & Pakistan including Kandahar) heard him threaten thus, he looked up, and seeing his wide forehead like a plate of gold, for fear of being captured himself he turned and ran away, and came again even unto his own city.

This discourse ended, the Master identified the Birth:-"The wandering pleasure-seeker was at that time the king of Gandhara(near Afghanistan & Pakistan including Kandahar), and the king of Benares was I myself."