Sambhava Jataka

While staying at Jetavana, the Buddha told this story in praise of the Perfection of Wisdom. Jataka No. 515 of the Pali Canon records the tale, and this retelling follows that text. The frame points forward to the longer Mahaummagga story, where the same Bodhisatta shows the same piercing insight as a child. The Buddha taught that his skill in answering hard questions was not new, and he took his listeners back to an earlier life to show it.

Long ago, King Dhananjaya Korabya reigned at Indapatta in the Kuru country. A brahmin named Sucirata was his chaplain and adviser in worldly and spiritual matters. The king ruled righteously and gave alms freely. One day he seated Sucirata with honor and put to him a question about the service of Truth.

The king asked his question in four stanzas. He said that he did not prize rule and lordship for their own sake. He wished to act by right alone and to avoid wrong, doing what kings above all should do. By this, he hoped, he would be free from blame here and hereafter and would win a glorious name among gods and men. He begged the brahmin to tell him plainly what the Good and the True really are.

The text remarks that this was a deep question, fit for an omniscient Buddha or, failing that, for a Bodhisatta seeking omniscience. Sucirata was neither, and he did not pretend otherwise. He confessed that only Vidhura could answer it. The king sent him off at once with a golden tablet worth a hundred thousand pieces, on which to write the reply. He also gave him a chariot, an escort, and a present to offer. Sucirata visited every place where sages lived, found no one in all India able to solve it, and came at last to Benares.

Vidhura had been a friend of Sucirata's youth and had studied in the same teacher's family. The commentary says he was chaplain to the king of Benares. Sucirata found him at his morning meal, and after the meal he explained his errand. Vidhura said the matter overwhelmed him like the flooded Ganges, and sent him to his clever son Bhadrakara. Bhadrakara welcomed him but said his mind was taken up with worldly pursuits, so he could not answer. He sent Sucirata on to his younger brother Sanjaya. Sanjaya, too, said he was distracted and that he faced danger each time he crossed the river. He directed the brahmin to his own younger brother Sambhava, a boy of seven, whom he called a hundred thousand times wiser than himself.

Sucirata was dismayed. If a father and two sons could not answer, he asked, how could a mere boy know the Good and the True? Sanjaya replied that he should not scorn Sambhava's youth. In twelve stanzas he praised his brother with images. Sambhava outshone others as the clear moon outshines the stars, as April outshines the other months, and as the fragrant Gandhamadana mountain shelters the gods. An ox shows its breed by strength, a horse by speed, and a cow by her milk. A sage, said Sanjaya, is known by his wise words.

Sanjaya opened a window and pointed out a golden-complexioned boy playing with other children in the street before the door. Sucirata went down and found him with his garment loosely thrown over one shoulder, picking up dirt in both hands. Sambhava asked what had brought him there. The brahmin explained that he had wandered through all India without finding anyone able to answer the king. The boy felt that he was old in knowledge and a little ashamed of his play. He dropped the dirt, set his garment in order, and told the brahmin to ask. Sucirata repeated the king's question in a verse.

Sambhava began with a gentle caution. The king will come to know the Good and the True, he said, but who can know what the king will then do? Knowing, in other words, is not yet doing. Then he gave his answer. Tell the king that tomorrow and today are never quite the same, so he should be wise and seize each occasion as it comes. A king should shun wicked ways and not walk an evil road like a bewildered fool. He must never transgress to the loss of his own soul, never act unrighteously, and never lead a brother astray onto a wrong path. Whoever keeps these points grows in fame like the waxing moon, shines as a light to his friends, and is dear to his kin. When his body fails, the wise man goes to heaven.

As Sambhava taught in the street, his honey-sweet voice carried across Benares to a distance of twelve leagues. The king and his viceroys gathered to listen. The crowd roared, clapped, and waved their cloths, and they cast off their ornaments in delight. The value of what they threw down was about a crore (ten million, in old Indian reckoning). The king of Benares honored the boy. Sucirata offered him a thousand weight of gold, a measure of gold by weight, wrote the answer in vermilion on the golden tablet, and carried it back to Indapatta. There he told King Dhananjaya the answer, and the king, steadfast in righteousness, went on to heaven.

At the end of the lesson the Buddha said that, not only now but in the past too, the Tathagata, the Buddha himself, was great in answering questions. He identified the births. Ananda was King Dhananjaya, Anuruddha was Sucirata, Kassapa was Vidhura, Moggallana was Bhadrakara, and Sariputta was the youth Sanjaya. The Buddha himself was the wise Sambhava.

The story has a quiet humour. Three respected elders could not answer, yet a child with dirt on his hands could. The text does not praise the child for being young. It praises him for being ready to be asked and for honoring truth over pride. His reply is also practical. Knowing the right is not enough, and a ruler must act, must use the day in front of him, and must not mislead others. A king's duty, like any person's, is to walk the straight road and bring no one off it.