Gāmani-Jātaka

Translated from the Pāli by
Robert Chalmers, B.A., of Oriel College, Oxford
Under the Editorship of Professor E. B. Cowell
Published 1969 For the Pāli Text Society.
First Published by The Cambridge University Press in 1895

This work is in the Public Domain. The Pali Text Society owns the copyright."

"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 Saɱvara-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, [30] contemplated his glory and thought — "All this glory I owe to my teacher." And, in his joy, he burst into this heartfelt utterance: —

Their heart's desire^[2] they reap, who hurry not;
Know, Gāmani, ripe excellence is thine.

[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.

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.

^[1] No. 462.

^[2] 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 AD ... The gloss was written about the Brahminical and Jain revival."