Soṇaka Jātaka

Jataka No. 529 of the Pali Canon was told by the Buddha at Jetavana, when the monks were praising the Perfection of Renunciation. It tells of Arindama, the Bodhisatta in that life, born at Rajagaha as the son of the Magadha king's chief queen. On the same day the royal priest's son, Sonaka, was born, and the two boys grew into close companions, so alike in looks and bearing that they were hardly told apart. They studied together at Takkasila, a famed center of learning in that age, and then travelled to learn the customs and crafts of the land until they reached Benares and rested in the king's park.

In Benares a family offering a meal to brahmins set out seats for the two young men, a white cloth for Arindama and a red woollen rug for Sonaka. Sonaka read this as a sign that Arindama would become king of Benares and that he himself would serve as his commander. The Benares king had died without an heir, and the councillors had sent out a festal carriage to find a worthy successor. It halted at the park gate, where Arindama lay resting on a stone slab with Sonaka seated nearby. Sonaka resolved that once his friend was crowned he would renounce the world. The royal priest proclaimed the kingdom to Arindama, who accepted, was consecrated, and was led into the city in procession.

Lost in his new glory, Arindama went on without Sonaka. Left alone on the stone seat, Sonaka saw a withered sal leaf fall and reflected on the impermanence of all things. In that moment he awakened as a Pacceka Buddha, a being who awakens fully on his own but does not go on to teach a community, took on the marks of an ascetic, and departed for the Nandamula cave in the Himalayas.

After forty years King Arindama remembered his old friend and announced a reward: a hundred pieces for anyone who could tell him where Sonaka was, and a thousand for anyone who had seen him. The offer was taken up as a popular song throughout the realm.

After fifty years, Sonaka, aware of the king's longing, used his powers to appear in the royal park. There a boy of seven, his hair tied in five knots, was gathering sticks and singing the king's song. Sonaka taught him a refrain and sent him to the king.

The boy asked to perform before the assembled people. The king sang first, and the boy answered with the refrain, telling the king that Sonaka was living in a sal grove in the king's own park, a monk seated in meditation. The king went to the park and found him there.

Supposing the monk to be poor and wretched, the king spoke to him with pity. Sonaka corrected him and described the blessings of the homeless life: no goods to store, food freely given, freedom from attachment, and no loss to fire, plunder, or hardship. He could have named many more.

The king replied that he had no wish for the monk's blessings: he was devoted to pleasures, worldly and heavenly, and asked how he might have both. Sonaka answered that those who chase sensual pleasures court a woeful rebirth, while those who give up desire and attain concentration are not reborn into misery. He told of a crow that alighted on a carcass floating down the Ganges and gorged itself, paying no heed to the shore as the river bore it out to sea. When it tired and found no land, crocodiles and great fish devoured it. Those who pursue sensual pleasure greedily, Sonaka said, are like that crow, and a man's name, good or ill, follows his deeds.

Sonaka closed by saying that a warning spoken in compassion may be given once or twice but not again and again. Then he rose into the sky and vanished from sight.

Arindama watched until his friend was out of sight, and the words stayed with him. He resolved to renounce the throne and become an ascetic, and told his councillors to find a worthy king. They proposed his son, prince Dighavu. The king gave him sixty thousand villages, with elephants, horses, chariots, and cattle, reminding all that death may come at any time and that he did not wish to fall into desire like the crow. The young prince said he could not live without his father and asked to follow him as a servant, but the king refused, fearing the boy would hinder his renunciation. He established Dighavu in the palace, where the court welcomed him as their sovereign, and he ruled justly.

Arindama developed the higher knowledges and the meditative absorptions, and at the end of his life was reborn in the Brahma realm. At the story's close the Buddha identified the Pacceka Buddha who attained Nibbana at that time, the son as Rahula, and King Arindama as himself. The fortune that passed between the friends was renunciation itself, an inheritance no crown, no song of reward, and no years of searching could have bought.