Sārambha-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."

"Speak kindly." — This story was told by the Master while at Sāvatthi, about the precept touching abusive language. The introductory story and the story of the past are the same as in the Nandivisāla-jātaka above.^[1]

But in this case [375] there is the difference that the Bodhisatta was an ox named Sārambha, and belonged to a brahmin of Takkasilā in the kingdom [218] of Gandhāra. After telling the story of the past, the Master, as Buddha, uttered this stanza: —

Speak kindly, revile not your fellow;
Love kindness; reviling breeds sorrow.

When the Master had ended his lesson he identified the Birth by saying, "Ānanda was the brahmin of those days, Uppalavaṇṇā his wife, and I Sārambha."

^[1] No. 28.