{"collection":"Sacred Texts: Buddhism","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_bud_bits_bits001_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_bud_bits_bits001_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_bud_bits_bits001_htm","license":"unknown_pending_legal_review","rights_basis":"sacred_texts_v1_preview_gate_primary_text_only; acquisition-method/ToS and compilation-copyright questions still open, not resolved by this gate","source":"sacred_texts_v1","source_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/bud/bits/bits001.htm","summary":"This is a verse narrative translated from the P\u0101li J\u0101taka, a canonical Buddhist text recounting the origin story of the future Buddha (Gotama/Shakyamuni) in a past life as Sumedha. The work belongs to the Therav\u0101da tradition and serves as the introductory frame-story to the J\u0101taka collection, which catalogs the Buddha's hundreds of previous existences. Sumedha is a wealthy, learned Brahmin who renounces wealth and worldly life, retreats to the Himalayas to practice austerities, and encounters the previous Buddha D\u012bpamkara \u2014 at which moment he vows, rather than achieve his own immediate liberation, to become a fully enlightened Buddha himself in order to ferry countless beings across the ocean of existence. The text is distinctive for its explicit articulation of the Bodhisatta ideal: Sumedha deliberately defers personal nirvana in favor of the longer, harder path to Buddhahood, framing compassion for all beings as a higher calling than individual escape. D\u012bpamkara then prophesies the details of Sumedha's eventual birth as Gotama \u2014 naming his parents, disciples, and the Bodhi tree \u2014 which functions as a narrative device anchoring the historical Buddha within an immense cosmic timeline of countless past Buddhas.","tags":["Henry Clarke Warren","Pali Canon Translations","Theravada Buddhism"],"text":null,"title":"Buddhism in Translations - \u00a7 1. The Story of Sumedha.","tradition":"Sacred Texts: Buddhism","translated_text":null,"word_count":7715}