Kāma Jātaka

The Buddha told Jātaka No. 467, as the Jātaka Atthakatha (the commentary on the Jataka collection) records it, while staying at Jetavana. It concerns a brahmin of Sāvatthi who was felling trees on the bank of the river Aciravatī in order to farm the land. The Buddha knew the man's destiny and went out of his way, on his alms rounds, to speak kindly with him.

He asked the brahmin what he was doing. The brahmin said he was clearing a space to cultivate. The Buddha told him to go on with his work. The Buddha visited again when the felled trunks were removed, when the brahmin was clearing the acre, at ploughing time and when he made the small embanked squares for water.

On the day of sowing the brahmin said it was his ploughing festival. When the corn ripened, he told the Buddha, he would give alms in plenty to the Order with the Buddha at its head. The Buddha accepted and went away.

On another day he came and found the brahmin watching the corn. The brahmin thought that the ascetic Gotama came by very often and must want food. He resolved to give him food. On the day he decided this, he found the Buddha at his home. A great confidence arose in him.

When the corn was ripe, the brahmin resolved to reap it the next day. During the night, rain poured down in the upper reaches of the Aciravatī. A flood came and carried the whole crop out to sea. Not one stalk was left.

When the water subsided, the brahmin saw the ruin of his crop. He had no strength to stand. Pressing his hand to his heart, he went home weeping and lay down lamenting.

The next morning the Buddha saw the brahmin overcome by sorrow. After his alms round he sent the monks back to the monastery and went with one young attendant to the man's house. The brahmin took heart, thinking that his friend had come for a friendly talk. He offered a seat, and the Buddha asked why he was downcast.

The brahmin told him what had happened. He had been working since he cut the trees, and had promised gifts to the Buddha when the crop ripened. Now the flood had carried off a hundred wagon-loads of grain, and he was in deep grief.

The Buddha asked whether the lost grain would return by grieving. The brahmin said no. The Buddha said that if that was so, there was no reason to grieve. Wealth and corn, while possessed, are possessed, and when gone, they are gone. Nothing composite is free of destruction, and so there is no need to brood.

Comforting him in this way, he recited the Kāma verses (verses on the nature of desire) to suit the brahmin's case. At the end of the Kāma verses, the grieving brahmin was established in the fruit of the first path (stream-entry, the first stage of awakening). The Buddha eased his pain, rose from his seat and returned to the monastery.

The whole town heard how the Buddha had found the brahmin pierced by grief, consoled him and led him to the first path. The monks marvelled about it in the Hall of Truth (the monastery's assembly hall). The Buddha came in and asked what they were discussing. When they told him, he said that this was not the first time he had cured this man's grief. Then he told a story of the past.

Once Brahmadatta, king of Benares, had two sons. He made the elder viceroy and the younger commander-in-chief. After the king's death, the courtiers wished to anoint the elder son. He said he cared nothing for a kingdom and wanted his younger brother to have it. They begged him, but he would not accept.

He did not want the viceroyalty either and left Benares. At the frontier he lived with a rich merchant's family, working with his own hands. When the family learned he was a king's son, they would not let him work and waited on him as a prince.

When the king's officers came to survey the fields, the merchant asked the prince to write to his brother and ask for a tax remission. The prince wrote, and the king granted it. All the villagers then came to him with the same request, promising to pay taxes to him instead. He asked for them, and the people paid their taxes to him.

His income and honour grew, and with them his covetousness. Step by step he asked for the whole district, then the viceroyalty, and was given both. Not content, he decided to seize the kingdom. He went with a host to a place outside the city and sent his brother a letter: give me the kingdom or fight for it.

The younger brother considered. He thought that if he killed his brother in battle, it would be his shame, and that he did not care about being king. So he sent word that he had no wish to fight and that the elder could have the kingdom. The elder accepted and made his brother viceroy.

The new king was so greedy that one kingdom could not satisfy him. He wanted two, then three, and saw no end to his desire.

Sakka, king of the gods, looked over the world and saw that this man was ruled by greed. He thought that this fool was not satisfied with being king of Benares and decided to teach him. In the guise of a young brahmin he stood at the palace door and sent in word that a clever young man was there.

Admitted, he told the king in private that he knew three prosperous cities, strong in troops and horses. By his own power he would win them for the king, if the king would make no delay and go at once. The king agreed, and by Sakka's power did not think to ask who the young man was or what he would receive. Sakka returned to the heaven of the Thirty-three.

The king called his courtiers and told them to find the young man, beat the drum and gather the army, since he was about to take three kingdoms. They asked whether he had offered the youth hospitality or asked where he lived. He had done neither. They searched the whole city and could not find him.

The king became gloomy. He felt he had lost the lordship of three cities and been shorn of great glory. Burning in his body from greed, he fell into a bloody flux. The physicians could not cure him, and the king grew weak.

The Bodhisatta had just returned from Takkasilā, where he had mastered all branches of learning. Hearing the news, he went to the palace door with a message that a young man was ready to cure the king. The king doubted that a young man could succeed where renowned physicians had failed.

The young man said he wanted no fee, only the price of his remedy. The king admitted him. The young man asked the origin of the illness, as physicians do. The king told him about the promise of three cities. The young man asked whether the king could capture those cities by grieving. The king said no.

The Bodhisatta told the king that everything, animate or inanimate, passes away and leaves its owner behind, even his body. Even if the king ruled four cities, he could not eat four plates of food at once, lie on four couches or wear four sets of robes. He should not be a slave of desire, for desire when it grows allows no escape from the four states of woe.

In a series of verses, he said that one who gets what he wants is glad, but desires throng in more and more, as thirst does in the heat. As horns grow larger with the animal, so craving grows in a fool as the man grows. Even all the rice and corn on earth would not satisfy one person. A king who conquered the whole world up to the ocean would still crave what lay beyond the sea.

The verses go on. Brooding on desires within the heart brings no contentment. Wisdom brings it. One who is full of wisdom is never a slave of desire. Crush your desires and want little, and be like the sea, which desire does not burn. As a cobbler cuts a shoe to fit the skin, so cut your wants to fit your need. For each desire let go, a happiness is won.

While the Bodhisatta spoke, his mind was fixed on the king's white sunshade, and a meditative rapture arose in him through white light. The king grew whole and well, rose in joy and praised the young man.

The king said that the youth's eight verses were worth a thousand pieces each, and bade him take the sum. The Bodhisatta answered that he cared nothing for thousands or hundreds of thousands. As he spoke his last verse, desire had died in his heart.

The king, delighted, said in verse that the youth was wise and knew the lore of all worlds, and that by his showing desire is the mother of misery. The Bodhisatta told him to be circumspect and walk in righteousness. Then he rose through the air to the Himalayas, lived as a recluse and cultivated the Excellences. He was destined for the world of Brahma.

When the discourse was ended, the Buddha said that in the past, as now, he had made the brahmin whole. Then he identified the birth. The brahmin of the present was the king of that story, and the Buddha was the wise young man.

Jātaka No. 467 pairs a farmer's loss with a king's greed, and the two are the same sickness in different sizes. The brahmin's grief came from losing a harvest. The king's illness came from being refused a harvest he had never sown. In both, the Buddha gave the same medicine: look at what grieving can actually bring back, and what desire can actually satisfy.

The story is hopeful because the cure is shown to work. The farmer was comforted and reached the first path. The king was healed and heard that wisdom satisfies. The Bodhisatta wanted no pay, and that is the final proof of his lesson. He had let go of desire, and he could say so with a quiet mind.