Kāma-Vilāpa-Jātaka

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Source: Adapted from Archaic Translation by W.H.D. Rouse
JATAKA No. 297

KAMA-VILAPA-JATAKA

"O bird, that flies," etc.--This story the Master told at Jetavana monastery, about a man who longed for his former wife. The circumstances which called it on are (*1) explained in the Puppharatta Birth-tale (*2), and the tale of the past in the Indriya Birth-tale (*3).

So the man was impaled alive. As he hung there, he looked up and saw a crow flying through the air; and, nothing thinking of the bitter pain, he hailed the crow, to send a message to his dear wife, repeating these verses following:

"O bird, that flies in the sky! O winged bird, that flies high! Tell my wife, with thighs so fair: Long will seem the time to her.

"She knows not sword and spear are set: Full with pain and angry she will fret. That is my torment and my fear, And not that I am hanging here.

"My lotus-armour I have put by, And jewels in my pillow lie, And soft Benares cloth beside. With wealth let her be satisfied."

With these cryings, he died.

When the Mister had ended this discourse, he explained the truths, and identified the Birth (now at the conclusion of the Truths, the lovesick brother(Monk) attained the fruition of the First Path(Trance)): "The wife then was the wife now; but the spirit who saw this, was I myself."

Footnotes:

(1)Reading kathitam.

(2)No. 147

(3)No. 423.