No. 8. Gāmani-Jātaka

The Jataka, Volume I, tr. by Robert Chalmers, [1895], at sacred-texts.com

No. 8.

GĀMANI-JĀTAKA.

"Their heart's desire."--This story was told by the Master while at Jetavana about a Brother who gave up persevering. In this Jātaka both the Introductory Story and the Story of the Past will be given in the Eleventh Book in connexion with the Saṃvara-jātaka ¹;--the incidents are the same both for that Jātaka and for this, but the stanzas are different.

Abiding stedfast in the counsels of the Bodhisatta, Prince Gāmani, finding himself--though the youngest of a hundred brothers--surrounded by those hundred brothers as a retinue and seated beneath the white canopy of kingship,

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contemplated his glory and thought--"All this glory I owe to my teacher." And, in his joy, he burst into this heartfelt utterance:--

[137] Seven or eight days after he had become king, all his brothers departed to their own homes. King Gāmani, after ruling his kingdom in righteousness, passed away to fare according to his deserts. The Bodhisatta also passed away to fare according to his deserts.

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His lesson ended, the Master preached the Truths, at the close whereof the faint-hearted Brother won Arahatship. Having told the two stories, the Master shewed the connexion linking them both together and identified the Birth.

Footnotes

29:1 No. 462.

30:1 As to the alternative of the gloss ("phalāsā ti āsāphalam," i.e. "'the desire of the fruit' means 'the fruit of the desire'") Professor Künte (Ceylon R. A. S. J. 1884) says--"the inversion requires a knowledge of metaphysical grammar such as was not cultivated in India before the 6th century A.D. ..Ṭhe gloss was written about the Brahminical and Jain revival."