Khandha-Vatta-Jātaka

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Source: Adapted from Archaic Translation by W.H.D. Rouse
JATAKA No. 203

KHANDHA-VATTA-JATAKA

"Virupakkha snakes I love," etc.--This story the Master told while living at Jetavana monastery, about a certain brother(Monk).

As he sat, we are told, at the door of his living room, chopping sticks, a snake crept out of a rotten log, and bit his toe; he died on the spot. All the monastery learnt how he had come by his sudden death. In the Hall of Truth they began talking about it; saying how Brother So-and-so was sitting at his door, chopping wood, when a snake bit him, and he died immediately of the bite.

The Master came in, and wanted to know what they were discussing as they sat there together. They told him. Said he, "Brethren(Monks), if our brother had practised kindness towards the four royal races of serpents, that snake would not have bitten him: wise hermits in by-gone days, before the Buddha was born, by using kindness to these four royal races, were released from the fear that sprang from these serpents." Then he told them an old-world tale.

Once upon a time, during the reign of Brahmadatta king of Benares, the Bodhisattva came into the world as a young brahmin of Kasi. When he came of age, he subdued his passions and took upon him the life of an ascetic; he developed the Supernatural Faculties and the Attainments; he built an hermitage by the bend of the Ganges near the foot of Himalaya, and there he lived, surrounded by a band of ascetics, lost in the rapture of meditation.

At that time there were many kinds of snakes upon the Ganges bank, which did mischief to the hermits, and many of them perished by snake-bite. The ascetics told the matter to the Bodhisattva. He summoned all the ascetics to meet him, and thus addressed them: "If you showed goodwill to the four royal races of snakes, no serpents would bite you. Therefore from this time forward do you show goodwill to the four royal races." Then he added this verse:-

"Virupakkha snakes I love,  Erapatha snakes I love,   Chabbyaputta snakes I love,   Kanhagotamas I love."

After thus naming the four royal families of the snakes, he added: "If you can cultivate goodwill towards these, no snake creature will bite you or do you harm." Then he repeated the second verse:-

"Creatures all beneath the sun,  Two feet, four feet, more, or none--   How I love you, every one!"

Having stated the nature of the love within him, he uttered another verse by way of prayer:

"Creatures all, two feet or four,  You with none, and you with more,   Do not hurt me, I implore!"

Then again, in general terms, he repeated one verse more:-

"All you creatures that have birth,  Breathe, and move upon the earth,   Happy be you, one and all,   Never into mischief fall ."

Thus did he set on how one must show love and goodwill to all creatures without distinction; he reminded his hearers of the virtues of the Three Treasures, saying--"Infinite is the Buddha, infinite the Righteous Path, and the Order infinite." He said, "Remember the quality of the Three Treasures;" and thus having shown them the infinity of the Three Treasures, and wishing to show them that all beings are finite, he added, "Finite and measurable are creeping things, snakes, scorpions, centipedes, spiders, lizards, mice." Then again, "As the passions and lusts in these creatures are the qualities which make them finite and limited, let us be protected night and day against these finite things by the power of the Three Treasures, which are infinite: for which reason remember the worth of the Three Treasures." Then he recited this stanza:-

"Now I am guarded safe, and fenced around;  Now let all creatures leave me to my ground.   All honour to the Lord Buddha I pay,   And the seven Buddhas who have passed away."

And asking them also remember the seven Buddhas while they did honour, the Bodhisattva composed this guardian charm and delivered it to his band of sages. From then the sages had in mind the Bodhisattva's advice, and cherished love and goodwill, and remembered the Buddha's virtues. As they did this, all the snake kind departed from them. And the Bodhisattva cultivated the Excellencies, and attained to Brahma's upper heaven(of ArchAngels).

When the Master had ended this discourse, he identified the Birth:-"The Buddha's followers were then the followers of the sage; and their Teacher was I myself."