The Vaṇṇupatha Jātaka

The Buddha told this story at Sāvatthi, and the Jātaka Aṭṭhakathā numbers it as Jātaka No. 2. A monk had taken a meditation subject from the Teacher and gone into the forest for the three months of the rains. He worked hard, but no insight came to him. He decided that he was a hopeless case and walked back to the monastery. His fellow monks were not pleased to see him return empty-handed, and they brought him before the Buddha.

The Buddha did not scold him. He asked instead whether it was not this very monk who, alone and by his own effort, once found water for a whole caravan in a sandy desert. The monks did not understand the remark, so they asked the Teacher to explain. He answered by telling them a story from the distant past.

In the days when Brahmadatta ruled at Benares, the Bodhisatta was born as a caravan leader. He travelled with five hundred loaded carts and crossed a desert that measured sixty leagues. The sand there was so fine that it ran through the fingers like a powder. After the sun rose the sand grew as hot as glowing charcoal, and no one could walk on it. For this reason the merchants carried their water and their firewood with them. They travelled through the night and rested in the shade of their carts by day.

At last the caravan was close to the far edge of the desert. The leader judged that one more night would bring them out, and he told his men to throw away the rest of the water and the wood to lighten the carts. The pilot sat at the front, reading the stars to steer the oxen. He had gone without sleep for many nights, and in the dark he dozed off. The oxen turned and walked slowly back along the road by which they had come.

When day broke, the pilot woke and saw that the carts stood in the very place where they had camped the day before. He cried out in dismay. The men had no water, no wood, and no way to cook. They lay down in the shade of their carts and gave themselves up to despair. They believed that they would all die there in the sand.

The Bodhisatta did not give up with the rest. He walked about in the early cool and noticed a clump of kusa grass. He knew that this grass grows only where there is water underground. He had the men fetch their spades and dig. They dug down sixty cubits (a cubit being roughly the length of a forearm) before the spades struck solid rock. At that point every man lost heart and wished to stop.

The Bodhisatta climbed down into the hole himself, laid his ear to the stone, and listened. Far below, he could hear water running. He climbed out and called a young servant. He told him that if he gave in, they would all perish, and so he must take heart and be brave. Then he handed him an iron hammer and sent him down to strike the rock. The servant did not despair, although the whole camp had done so. He climbed into the well and brought the hammer down with all his strength.

The rock split in two and fell away. Water rose from below, until it stood as high as a palm tree. The men drank and bathed and cooked their rice on the wood from the spare axles and yokes. They fed the oxen. At sunset they raised a flag beside the well for others to find, and moved on. They reached the town that was their goal, sold their goods at a great profit, and went home in safety.

The Buddha closed the story by naming the characters. The young servant who would not give up was the discouraged monk who sat before him. The followers of the Buddha were the people of the caravan, and the Bodhisatta who led them was the Buddha himself. Then the Teacher spoke the Four Noble Truths, his teaching on suffering and its end. At the end of the discourse the monk who had left his practice attained arahatship.

The verse attached to this tale says that the wise dig on, tireless, and find water in the sand, and so a sage should not tire or fall back until his heart finds peace. The Jātaka Aṭṭhakathā counts this as an example of viriya, or perseverance, one of the Bodhisatta's perfections. The story is not about luck. The water was there all the time, but it lay under sixty cubits of sand and one stubborn rock, and only one person was willing to strike the last blow. Many a devotee today meets a dry season in practice and thinks the work has failed. This Jātaka answers that the spring may lie just below the rock, and that one more steady blow is worth giving.