{"collection":"Buddhism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/bud/j2/j2026.htm","path":"bud/j2/j2026.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/bud/j2/j2026.htm","text":"The Jataka, Vol. II, tr. by W.H.D. Rouse, [1895]\n[68] \"Father, see! a poor old fellow,\" etc.--This story the Master told whilst staying in Jetavana, about a rogue.--The circumstances will be explained in the Udd\u0101la Birth 1, Book xiv. Here too the Master said, \"Brethren, not this once only has the fellow turned out a rogue; in days of yore, when he was a monkey, he played tricks for the sake of a fire.\" And he told a tale of days long gone by.\n_____________________________\nOnce upon a time, when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta was born in a brahmin family in a village of K\u0101si.. When he came of years, he received his education at Takkasil\u0101, and settled down in life.\nHis lady in time bore him a son; and when the child could just run to and fro, she died. The husband performed her obsequies, and then, said he, \"What is home to me now? I and my son will live the life of hermits.\" Leaving his friends and kindred in tears, he took the lad to the Himalaya, became a religious anchorite, and lived on the fruits and roots which the forest yielded.\nOn a day during the rainy season, when there had been a downpour, he kindled some sticks, and lay down on a pallet, warming himself at the fire. And his son sat beside him chafing his feet.\nNow a wild Monkey, miserable with cold, spied the fire in the leaf-hut of our hermit. \"Now,\" thought he, \"suppose I go in: they'll cry out Monkey! Monkey! and beat me back: I shan't get a chance of warming myself.--I have it!\" he cried. \"I'll get an ascetic's dress, and get inside by a trick!\" So he put on the bark dress of a dead ascetic, lifted his basket and crooked stick, and took his stand by the hut door, where he crouched down beside a palm tree. The lad saw him, and cried to his father (not knowing he was a monkey) \"Here's an old hermit, sure enough, miserably cold, come to warm himself at the fire.\" [69] Then he addressed his father in the words of the first stanza, begging him to let the poor fellow in to warm himself:\nWhen the Bodhisatta heard this, up he got and went to the door But when he saw the creature was only a monkey, he said, \"My son, men have no such face as that; \u2019tis a monkey, and he must not be asked in here.\" Then he repeated the second stanza:\nThe Bodhisatta seized a brand, crying--\"What do you want there?\"--threw it at him, and drove him away. Mr Monkey dropt his bark garments, sprang up a tree, and buried himself in the forest.\nThen the Bodhisatta cultivated the Four Excellences until he came unto Brahma's heaven.\nWhen the Master had ended this discourse, he identified the Birth: \"This tricky Brother was the Monkey of those days; R\u0101hula 1 was the hermit's son, and I myself was the hermit.\" '\n47:1 No. 487.","title":"The Jataka, Vol. II: Book II. Dukanip\u0101ta: No. 173. Makka\u1e6da-J\u0101taka","type":"page"}