The Jātaka:
or
Stories of the Buddha's Former Births
Volume II
Book 2: Dukanipāta
No. 237
Sāketa-Jātaka
Translated from the Pāli by
W.H.D Rouse, M.A., Sometime Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge
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."
" ... ," etc. — This story the Master told during a stay near Sāketa, about a brahmin named Sāketa. Both the circumstances that suggested the story and the story itself have already been given in the First Book.[1]
[163][235]...And when the Tathāgata had gone to the monastery, the Brother asked, "How, Sir, did the love begin? "and repeated the first stanza:—
Why are hearts cold to one — O Buddha, tell! —
And love another so exceeding well?"
The Master explained the nature of love by the second stanza:
"Those love they who in other lives were dear,
As sure as grows the lotus in the mere."
After this discourse was ended, the Master identified the Birth: — "These two people were the brahmin and his wife in the story; and I was their son."
