經律異相 32.19

32.19

There was a prince who wished to know his past lives, so he asked the Buddha about it. The Buddha said, "There is no need to know it; it will only make you grieve." The prince still wished to know it, asking as many as three times. The Buddha then conferred the precepts upon him and enabled him to know his past lives. Thereupon the prince looked at his own destiny: he was fated to die at age fifteen, and his grief was unspeakable. When he reached the age of fifteen, he indeed died. The royal house buried him and planted a cypress [over his grave], which grew large. Its lower roots penetrated the ground directly into his heart. His conscious spirit remained in his corpse and saw the cypress roots growing, piercing directly into his heart, piercing his heart as they grew. Then, emerging from the roots to the cypress leaves, he saw a sheep coming. He thought to himself, "If this sheep eats the cypress, it will harm me again." Then the sheep came and ate them. He entered the sheep's belly, and passed out with the sheep's dung, adhering to the sheep's dung. A gardener collected it and used it to fertilize leeks, and he resided between the leek leaves. Just then, the queen had a craving for leeks and ordered those outside to send some. The gardener held a knife and was about to cut and harvest the leeks; he feared being harmed by the knife. In every circumstance, his distress and grief were utterly unspeakable. The gardener cut the leeks, bundled them, and sent them to the royal palace, with him inside the leek bundle. When the royal house received the leeks, the queen ate them. Following the leeks into her womb, he became her child. When the full term was reached, he was born. As he grew up, he again remembered his past lives. He then went to the Buddha's presence and said, "I no longer have any use for knowing my past lives; it only causes me grief. Now I return the knowledge of past lives to the Buddha." The Buddha said to the prince, "At that time I did not wish to give it to you, but you insisted on having it. Only now do you regret it; you may be released from it." (Extracted from the eighth fascicle of the Samyuktāvadāna Sūtra.)