Susīma Jātaka

The Buddha told this story at Jetavana. It is the Susīma Jātaka, No. 411 in the Pali Jātaka collection of the Khuddaka Nikāya, where its verses are preserved with the commentary that tells the tale. The monks had gathered in the Hall of Truth and were speaking in praise of the Great Renunciation, the day the Master left his palace and the life of a householder behind. When the Buddha came in and learned what they were discussing, he told them that his going forth was not a wonder of this one life alone. In a time long past he had also given up the rule of the broad kingdom of Kāsi, and he then related that birth.

Long ago, while Brahmadatta reigned in Benares, the Bodhisatta was born as the son of the king's chaplain, by his chief wife, and he was named Susīma. On that same day the king's own son was born. The two boys were raised together, and they were taught alike, going together to Takkasilā to study. Their friendship grew with their learning, so that each thought of the other as a brother.

When King Brahmadatta died, his son took the throne. Remembering the comrade of his boyhood, the new king honored Susīma with the office of chaplain, the highest priestly post at court, while he kept the royal power in his own hands. The two friends served the kingdom side by side, and the people held both in affection.

The old king's widow, the mother of the new king, saw Susīma one day as he rode in a grand procession on the royal elephant, and her heart was caught by his bearing. She told no one at first. She took to her bed and pretended illness, and when the young king came to ask what ailed her, she at last confessed what was in her heart. She would not recover, she said, unless Susīma were hers.

The king loved his mother and feared for her life. He went to his friend and made an extraordinary offer. Susīma should take the throne, take the queen-mother as his chief consort, and the king himself would step down and serve as viceroy. The Bodhisatta did not want this. His mind already inclined toward the quiet of the holy life. But to refuse seemed to cost a life, and his friend begged him, and so he reluctantly agreed and was anointed king of Benares.

The throne gave Susīma no joy. He wore the crown and sat in judgment, yet his thoughts kept turning away from the household life, and he remained apart from the queen-mother and the pleasures of the palace. The queen-mother saw this and was troubled. She had gained the husband she wanted, but she could not hold him, and she began to think of some way to turn his mind.

One day, while the Bodhisatta sat with her and she tended his hair, she cried out that she had found a grey hair on his head. She pulled it out and laid it in his palm. In truth she had put one of her own grey hairs there in place of his dark one. Seeing it, Susīma was shaken. This was the first sign that old age was coming for him too, and he understood how brief his youth had been. In that moment his mind was made up.

He spoke a verse saying that his hair, once black, had turned white, and that it was now time for the holy life. The queen-mother, alarmed that her plan had driven him away rather than closer, admitted the trick. The hair was her own, she said, and she begged him to stay in his youth, enjoy his kingdom, and not leave her. The Bodhisatta answered with a teaching on how a beautiful maiden is slowly changed by the years. After eighty or ninety years, the same body is bent, shaking, and worn out. Having seen how every form must decay, he said, the household life no longer pleased him, and the wise cut it off.

Susīma gave the kingdom back to his friend, the young king, who had given it up for his mother's sake. His family and the people of the court wept and begged him to stay, but he was resolved. He went to the Himalayas, put on the dress of an ascetic, and there he developed the meditative attainments. When his life ended he was reborn in the world of Brahma.

At the end of the teaching the Buddha identified the birth. The queen-mother of that time was Rāhula's mother, the mother of the Buddha's own son. The young king was Ānanda. And Susīma, the one who gave up the throne for the holy life, was the Buddha himself.

The story shows that the wish for liberation can arise from a very small thing, one grey hair, if the mind is ready to see what it means. It also shows renunciation as something freely chosen: the kingdom was offered, accepted for kindness' sake, and then returned whole to the friend who had given it. Susīma did not leave in anger or in bitterness toward the queen-mother. He left because he had understood, and the Buddha's own going forth centuries later, which the monks were praising in the Hall of Truth, was the same understanding carried to its completion.