Sāketa Jātaka

Once, while wandering through the kingdom of Kosala with a large assembly of monks, the Blessed One approached the ancient city of Sāketa and entered its gate at Añjanavana with supreme poise, his body radiant with a golden light that fell across the roadway before him. Sāketa was then a flourishing town of Kosala. The Buddha often visited it during his long teaching journeys between Sāvatthi and the towns of the middle country, so its householders were no strangers to the sight of the Sangha, the community of monks, passing through their gates.

As the Buddha passed through the gateway, an aged Brahmin of the city, who happened to be going out at that very moment, met him face to face. The instant his gaze fell upon the Buddha's serene countenance, an overwhelming tide of parental affection flooded the old man's heart, as though decades of separation had suddenly ended.

Weeping with uncontainable joy, the Brahmin fell at the Master's feet, clasped his ankles, and cried out before the astonished crowd: 'My son! My dear child! Where have you wandered for so long, neglecting your aging parents in your youth?' Passers-by on the road halted in confusion, uncertain whether to intervene. Nothing in the Buddha's calm bearing suggested distress, only a serene acceptance of the old man's grief.

Taking hold of the hem of the Buddha's robe with the familiarity of a father, the old Brahmin led him respectfully to his modest home. There his elderly wife rushed forward with tears streaming down her face, embracing the Buddha's shoulders and murmuring endearments as only a mother would. Overflowing with joy, the couple served a meal to the Buddha and his monks with their own hands.

Watching this extraordinary scene, the accompanying monks marveled privately among themselves. How could this humble householder address the Supreme Buddha, born of King Suddhodana and Queen Māyā of the Sakyan clan, as though he were his own flesh-and-blood child? And why had the Blessed One permitted such an unusual, familiar embrace without correction?

Perceiving their unspoken question, the Buddha turned to the gathered monks and explained with boundless compassion: 'Monks, let your minds be at peace. Do not be astonished by what you have witnessed here today.'

'For five hundred continuous births,' the Buddha said, 'this pious Brahmin was my father, and this devoted woman was my mother. They raised me, fed me, and watched over my helpless infancy in birth after birth, long before this present life began.'

'For another five hundred lifetimes, they were my beloved uncle and aunt, caring for me as a nephew is cared for in a loving household. And for yet another five hundred births beyond that, they nurtured me as my own grandfather and grandmother, extending their affection across three full cycles of five hundred lives each.'

'Across these fifteen hundred past existences,' the Buddha continued, 'their hearts poured out upon me a love that asked for nothing in return. In the vast, unfathomable ocean of Saṃsāra, monks, there is hardly a being who has not, at some point across countless lifetimes, been our mother, our father, or our kin.'

Hearing this profound truth of interbeing laid bare by the Buddha himself, the elderly Brahmin couple were moved beyond mere sentiment. Reflecting on the teaching of impermanence and the vast web of karmic kinship binding all beings, they attained the Fruit of Non-Returning (Anāgāmī) on the spot. The assembled monks, likewise humbled, resolved to cultivate boundless loving-kindness (mettā) toward every being they might meet, since any stranger might once have been their own parent. This same principle echoes a teaching recorded elsewhere in the Pali canon's Saṃyutta Nikāya. There the Buddha declares that in the beginningless round of rebirth, it is not easy to find a being who has not, at some time, been one's mother, father, brother, sister, son, or daughter.