法句譬喻經 32.p1

32.p1

In days of old when Buddha was residing in the Gridhrakūta mountain, near Rājagriha, preaching the inestimable doctrine for the sake of angels and men, there was a certain man who, having made up his mind to leave his family and become a recluse, came to the place where Buddha was, and desired permission to enter the community (church). On this Buddha required him (after he had permitted him to become a disciple) to go sit beneath a tree in the solitude, and give himself up to meditation. On this the Shaman departed into the mountain wild, more than a hundred lis from the Vihāra, and there gave himself up to a solitary life. After three years of self-denial, his heart being still unsubdued, he desired to give up his profession and to return to his home again, saying thus to himself, “This life of asceticism is troublesome and painful, and not to be compared with the happiness derived from domestic society. I will, therefore, return to my wife and family and enjoy myself.” On this he made as though he would leave the mountain and return home. Then Buddha, by his omniscience, seeing the condition of this disciple, and knowing that he had a capacity for salvation, transformed himself into the form of a Shaman, and went to meet him on the way. On encountering one another, the transformed Shaman addressed the other and asked whence he came and whether he was going. On this they agreed mutually to rest awhile and sit down together on a convenient spot (level ground). Seated thus, the disappointed Shaman explained to the other his condition, and confessed that he was going back home from a feeling of failure in his religious exercises. Now it happened while he was speaking, that an old monkey leaving the tree in which he lived, came down into the open and disported himself; then the assumed Shaman asked the other, why was this; to which the last replied: “I have often observed this same monkey come down and behave himself thus, and the reasons for his so doing are two,—1st, he is rejoiced to be free from the care of providing for his wife and his belongings; and 2dly, he is worn and hurt by constantly climbing the tree in which his family live, and so is glad to escape the labour of so doing: for these two reasons he leaves the tree and enjoys himself in the open ground. But meanwhile, as the two were conversing, the monkey retreated from the open space, and re-climbed the tree, on which the strange Shaman addressed the other, and asked if he perceived this, and how he explained it. On which the latter said that it was in consequence of fear and uncertainty that the monkey had gone back to his home; on which the other rejoined: “Such is the case with yourself; it was the anxieties caused by your wife and family that first induced you to find release in these mountain wilds, but now owing to doubt and uncertainty, you are going back to the world, and by so doing you expose yourself to all the evil consequences of renewed birth and consequent death. Whereupon he added these verses: