Vessantara-Jataka in Pali and English - MyWebSpace

Translation 569 Vessantara-Jåtaka
[Fausbøll, Jåtaka, vol. VI, p. 569]
"O holy man, I trust that you are prosperous and well,
With grain to glean, and roots and fruit abundant where you dwell. 1
Have you been much by flies and gnats and creeping things annoyed,
Or from wild beasts of prey have you immunity enjoyed?"
The Great Being replied:
"Thank you, brahmin—yes, I am both prosperous and well,
With grain to glean, and fruits and roots abundant where I dwell.
From flies and gnats and creeping things I suffer no annoy,
And from wild beasts of prey I here immunity enjoy.
I've lived here seven sad months, and you the second brahmin found,
Holding a goat-staff in his hand, to reach this forest-ground.
Welcome, O brahmin! blest the chance directed you this way; 2
Come enter with a blessing, come, and wash your feet, I pray.
The tindook and the piyal leaves, and kāsumārī sweet,
And fruits like honey, brahmin, take the best I have, and eat.
And this cool water from a cave high hidden on a hill,
O noble brahmin! take of it, drink if it be your will." 3
As thus they talked pleasantly together he asked of his coming:
"And now what reason or what cause directed you this way?
Why have you sought the mighty woods? resolve me this, I pray."
Then Sakka replied: "O king, I am old, but I have come here to beg your wife Maddī;
pray give her to me," and he repeated this stanza:
"As a great water-flood is full and fails not any day,
So you, from whom I come to beg—give me your wife, I pray."
To this the Great Being did not reply—"Yesterday I gave away my children to a brahmin,
how can I give Maddī to you and be left alone in the forest!" No, he was as though
putting a purse of a thousand pieces in his hand: indifferent, unattached, with no clinging
of mind, he made the mountain re-echo with this stanza:
1 See p. 532 above.
2
See pp. 532 and 542 above; and Jataka No. 540 (Cowell, vol. VI, p. 48).
3 See p. 542 above; and Jataka No. 540 (Cowell, vol. VI, p. 48).