The Culla-Sutasoma Jātaka

The Buddha told this story at Jetavana, and the Jātaka Aṭṭhakathā, the canonical commentary on the Jātaka verses, numbers it as Jātaka No. 525. He told it about the perfect practice of renunciation, and the introductory story matches the one told with the Mahānāradakassapa Jātaka. At the close of the tale the Teacher said that not only now, but formerly too, he had made the Great Renunciation. This is a long tale of the Mahānipāta, and it is given here as an overview, without every verse.

Long ago the city that is now Benares was called Sudassana, and Brahmadatta was king there. His chief queen bore the Bodhisatta. The boy's face was as bright as the full moon, and so he was named Somakumāra. As he grew up, he was fond of soma juice and of pouring libations of it, and so people called him Sutasoma. He studied the arts at Takkasilā. When he returned home, his father gave him the white umbrella of kingship, and he ruled righteously over a great dominion.

The king had sixteen thousand wives, and Candā was his chief queen. He had a large family. But after some years he grew tired of household life and wished to go into the forest as an ascetic. He called his barber and told him to speak up on the day he saw a grey hair on the royal head. The barber agreed.

In time the barber saw a grey hair and told the king. The king asked him to pull it out and lay it in his hand. The barber took it out with golden tweezers. The Bodhisatta looked at it and said, 'My body is a prey to old age.' He was frightened. He took the hair down from the terrace, sat on a throne in the sight of the people, and called together eighty thousand counsellors and sixty thousand brahmins. He told them that a grey hair had appeared and that he would become an ascetic.

The counsellors were dejected and urged him to remember his seven hundred wives. He answered that others would console them. They went to his mother, who came in haste and asked whether it was true that he wished to leave. He held his peace. His father pleaded for the young children who could not live without him, and the Bodhisatta set out the Law for his father. His wives came down from the palace tower and embraced his feet in tears. The queen Candā came next, and she was heavy with child. She wept bitterly, and he tried to console her.

The king's elder son saw his mother weeping and learned the reason. He went to his father with his nurse and clasped his neck. He said he would not allow him to become an ascetic. The Bodhisatta saw that the child was a hindrance, and he gave the nurse a jewelled ornament and asked her to take the boy away. The commander-in-chief then stood and told the king that he had a great treasure. The rich merchant Kulavaddhana offered the king all his wealth. The Bodhisatta answered each in turn, and none could change his mind.

He said to his younger brother Somadatta that he was as discontented as a wild cock in a cage. He asked Somadatta to rule the kingdom and gave it into his hands. He told the people not to grieve. He said that he had lived long with them but must now part, since nothing that exists is permanent, and he taught them the Law.

He climbed to the seventh storey of the Palace of Flowers. With a sword he cut off his top-knot and told the people that he was nothing to them now and that they should choose their own king. He threw the top-knot, turban and all, into the crowd. Then he had the requisites of a hermit brought. He cut his fine robe into strips and put on the yellow patches. He fastened an earthen bowl on his left shoulder, took a mendicant's staff, and walked out into the street. No one knew him.

His wives went up to the tower and found only the bundle of his ornaments. They told the others that Sutasoma had become an ascetic, and the whole city was stirred. The people ran from place to place looking for the king, and sang laments for the palace and gardens that he had left. Then they left their household goods, took their children by the hand, and went after him. The city looked deserted. A company that stretched across twelve leagues went with the Bodhisatta towards the Himalayas.

Sakka, seeing the great renunciation, called Vissakamma, the craftsman-deity who builds for the gods. He told him that a great number would follow King Sutasoma, and that they needed a place to live. Vissakamma built a hermitage thirty leagues long and five broad on the banks of the Ganges. He laid in all the necessities for ascetic life and made a path straight to it. The Bodhisatta entered by that path, was ordained first, and ordained the rest. If a wish for sense pleasure or any wrong thought arose in anyone, the Great Being went to him through the air and, sitting cross-legged in space, warned him in verse. The company he gathered was destined for the world of Brahmā.

When the discourse was ended, the Buddha named the birth. The king's parents had been members of the Great King's court. Candā had been Rāhula's mother. The elder son had been Sāriputta and the younger son Rāhula. The nurse had been Khujjuttarā, the merchant Kulavaddhana had been Kassapa, and the commander-in-chief had been Moggallāna. The prince Somadatta had been Ānanda, and King Sutasoma had been the Buddha himself.

The Jātaka Aṭṭhakathā honours this long tale as a picture of complete renunciation. The grey hair is no more than a small sign, but the king reads it as a message he cannot ignore. Everyone he loves pleads with him, and each plea is met with kindness. He does not run from them. He settles the kingdom, teaches the Law, and then goes. The story does not treat the wish to leave as a rejection of the family's love. It shows that those who hear it well can follow, as the whole city did, and find peace in the same forest. A devotee can read the grey hair as a reminder to use the days that are still left.