Darīmukha Jātaka

The Buddha told Jātaka No. 378, as the Jātaka Atthakatha records it, at Jetavana. The commentary says the tale concerns the Great Renunciation, and that the incident that led to the telling has been given before. This was the Buddha's own departure from household life, recalled through a story of a king who was urged to do the same.

Once the king of Magadha reigned at Rājagaha. The Bodhisatta was born of his chief queen, and he was named prince Brahmadatta. On the same day the royal chaplain had a son with a very beautiful face. They named him Darīmukha.

The two grew up as dear friends in the king's court. At sixteen they went to Takkasilā and learned all the arts. Then, wishing to know practical usages and the customs of the countryside, they wandered through towns and villages across the land.

The friends reached Benares and stayed in a temple. Next day they went into the city to beg. In one house the family had cooked rice-porridge and prepared seats for feeding brahmins. Seeing the two youths, they thought brahmins had come, and invited them in.

They laid a white cloth on the Bodhisatta's seat and a red rug on Darīmukha's. Darīmukha noted the omen. He understood that his friend would be king in Benares and that he himself would be commander of the army. They ate, took their portions, and left with a blessing for the king's garden.

The Bodhisatta lay down on the royal stone seat. Darīmukha sat stroking his feet. The king of Benares had died seven days before and had no heir. The family priest had held the funeral rites and sent the festal car round for seven days to find a successor.

The car left the city and reached the gate of the garden, followed by an army of four divisions and music from hundreds of instruments. Darīmukha heard the music and understood what it meant. The car was coming for his friend, who would be king and give him the commander's post.

He thought that he saw no reason to remain a layman. He would go away and become an ascetic. Without a word to the Bodhisatta, he stepped aside and stood hidden.

The priest stopped the car at the gate and entered the garden. He saw the Bodhisatta lying on the royal seat and noticed the auspicious marks on his feet. He thought the youth had the merit to be king even of the four continents, but wondered about his courage. So he had all the instruments sound at full volume.

The Bodhisatta woke and took the cloth from his face. He saw the multitude, covered his face again and lay quietly for a while. Then he rose and sat cross-legged on the seat. The priest knelt and said that the kingdom had come to him. The Bodhisatta asked whether there was no heir, and was told there was none. He accepted, and they anointed him there in the garden.

He rode the car in solemn procession round the city and set the places of the courtiers. In the glory of his new office, he forgot Darīmukha.

Meanwhile Darīmukha saw that the garden was empty. He came and sat on the royal seat. A withered leaf fell before him. In it he saw the nature of decay and death and grasped the three marks of all things. He entered the state of a paccekabuddha, a solitary awakened one, and the earth echoed with joy.

At that moment the marks of a householder fell from him. A bowl and robe came from the sky and clung to his body. He had the eight requisites and the bearing of a monk of a hundred years. By his own power he rose into the air and went to the cave Nandamūla in the Himalayas.

The Bodhisatta ruled righteously. Yet the greatness of his glory infatuated him, and for forty years he forgot Darīmukha. In the fortieth year he remembered and said that he had a friend named Darīmukha and wished to know where he was.

Thereafter, in the palace and in assembly, he would ask where his friend was. He promised great honour to anyone who could tell him. Another ten years passed in this way.

After fifty years, Darīmukha reflected and knew that his friend remembered him. He thought the king was now old and rich in children, and that he would go and teach him the Dhamma and ordain him. He travelled through the air and alighted in the garden, where he sat on the stone seat like a golden image.

The gardener saw him and asked where he came from. He answered that he came from the cave Nandamūlaka and was Darīmukha the paccekabuddha, a friend of the king from his lay days. The gardener told the king, who was delighted. The king rode out in his car with a great retinue and saluted him.

Darīmukha asked whether the king ruled righteously, never followed evil courses or oppressed the people for money, and did good through charity. He then said that the king was old and it was time to give up pleasures and be ordained. He spoke a stanza calling sense pleasures a morass and a threefold terror, and urged him to become a monk and abandon them.

The king answered honestly. He said that he was bound and deeply stained by pleasures. They might be fearful, but he loved life and could not give them up. He would keep doing good works.

Darīmukha did not reject him. He said that anyone who rejects the counsel of a friend who pities him and wishes to turn aside his doom finds no end to rebirths. He spoke of the misery of conception and of birth, and said he spoke of what he had seen and not what he had heard from others.

When he finished, he told the king that whether or not he was ordained, he had shown the wretchedness of desires and the blessings of ordination. He asked the king to be zealous. Then he rose into the air like a golden royal goose and went back to the Nandamūlaka cave.

The Bodhisatta put his joined hands to his head in salutation and stood until his friend was out of sight. Then he sent for his eldest son and gave him the kingdom. While a great crowd wept and lamented, he left desires behind and went to the Himalayas. He built a hut of leaves and was ordained as an ascetic.

In no long time he gained the faculties and attainments. At the end of his life he went to the Brahma heaven.

After the lesson the Buddha declared the Truths, and many attained the first path and the rest. He identified the birth by saying that at that time the king was himself.

Jātaka No. 378 shows two quite different responses to the same moment. When the festal car rolled toward the garden, one friend saw a throne and the other saw a reason to leave. The story does not judge the king for ruling. It says he ruled righteously. But it shows how glory can cause forty years of forgetting.

Darīmukha's return is a picture of true friendship. He came back after fifty years, without reproach, to offer the thing he had found. The king could not accept at first, and Darīmukha did not press. He said what he had to say and left. The king remembered, and in time he chose the same road.