Ja 134Jhanasodhana Jātaka
Pāli / Sanskrit:Jhānasodhanajātaka
“With conscious.”—This story was told by the Master while at Jetavana, about the interpretation by Sariputta, Captain of the Faith, at the gate of Samkassa town, of a problem tersely propounded by the Master. And the following was the story of the past he then told.
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– Stories of the Buddha’s Former Births
– Book 1 Ekanipāta
134. Jhanasodhana Jātaka
PTS vp Pali 473 “With conscious.”—This story was told by the Master while at Jetavana, about the interpretation by Sariputta, Captain of the Faith, at the gate of Samkassa town, of a problem tersely propounded by the Master. And the following was the story of the past he then told.
Once on a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares,…etc…. the Bodhisatta, as he expired in his forest-home, exclaimed, “Neither conscious nor unconscious.” And the recluses did not believe the interpretation which the Bodhisatta’s chief disciple gave of the Master’s words. Back came the Bodhisatta from the Radiant Realm, and from mid-air recited this stanza—
With conscious, with unconscious, too,
Dwells sorrow. Either ill eschew.
Pure bliss, from all corruption free,
Springs but from Insight’s ecstasy.
His lesson ended, the Bodhisatta praised his disciple and went back to the Brahma Realm. Then the rest of the recluses believed the chief disciple.
His lesson taught, the Master identified the Birth by saying, “In those days Sariputta was the chief disciple, and I Maha-Brahma.”
The Jātaka, or Stories of the Buddha’s Former Births , edited by E.B. Cowell , published by The Cambridge University Press.
– Vol. 1, translated by Robert Chalmers , 1895 .
– Vol. 2, translated by W.H.D. Rouse , 1895.
– Vol. 3, translated by H.T. Francis and R.A. Neil , 1897.
– Vol. 4, translated by W.H.D. Rouse , 1901.
– Vol. 5, translated by H.T. Francis , 1905.
– Vol. 6, translated by E.B. Cowell and W.H.D. Rouse , 1907.
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Scanned, proofed and formatted at sacred-texts.com, January 2006–February 2010, by John Bruno Hare and others. Thanks to the Sacred Texts Archive for making these texts available in digital form.
Prepared for SuttaCentral by Bhikkhu Sujato .
The “…” is an abbreviation carried over from the Pāli original itself, called peyyāla. The early canon was memorized and recited, so passages repeated verbatim from a preceding discourse were commonly contracted to an elision mark rather than written out in full. Venerable Thích Minh Châu's translation preserves this convention. Some texts therefore look short — but that is the canonical form, not missing content or a truncated translation. The elided passages can be read in full in the preceding discourses of the same chapter.
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