{"collection":"Sacred Texts: Buddhism","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_bud_bits_bits007_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_bud_bits_bits007_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_bud_bits_bits007_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/bits007.htm","summary":"This is a narrative excerpt from the Introduction to the J\u0101taka, a foundational Pali Buddhist text, translated into English. It recounts episodes from the early renunciant life of Siddhartha Gautama \u2014 referred to throughout as \"the Future Buddha\" \u2014 beginning with his arrival in the city of R\u0101jagaha as a wandering beggar, where his radiant appearance causes a royal stir and prompts King Bimbis\u0101ra to offer him his kingdom, which he refuses in pursuit of \"supreme and absolute enlightenment.\" The narrative then follows his study of the eight stages of meditation under two teachers, \u0100\u1e37\u0101ra K\u0101l\u0101ma and Uddaka, which he ultimately rejects as insufficient for enlightenment, before describing the six-year \"Great Struggle\" of extreme asceticism at Uruvel\u0101 \u2014 fasting to near-death, suppressing breath, and rebuffing gods who try to sustain him. A distinctive claim the text makes is that these years of mortification were ultimately futile (\"like time spent endeavoring to tie the air into knots\"), and the Future Buddha's turn back to ordinary food \u2014 which causes his five companions to abandon him in disgust \u2014 is presented not as failure but as wisdom. The passage is notable for its layered perspective: human, divine, and royal observers all misread the hero's condition at key moments, while the narrative insists his path is legible only from the vantage of his destined Buddhahood.","tags":["Henry Clarke Warren","Pali Canon Translations","Theravada Buddhism"],"text":null,"title":"Buddhism in Translations - \u00a7 7. The Great Struggle.","tradition":"Sacred Texts: Buddhism","translated_text":null,"word_count":1367}