Puranic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature c4.2461.1

c4.2461.1

BODHISATTVA. A good-natured husband generally quoted in Sanskrit works. The following is the story given about him in Kathāsaritsāgara, Taraṅga 9. Once there lived a wealthy Vaiśya, who had a son named Bodhisattva. When the childhood of the boy was at an end his mother died. The Vaiśya married again and got his son also married. Because of the ear-buzzing of his wife, the Vaiśya drove his son out of the house. Bodhisattva left the house of his father, with his wife. By and by they reached a desert. Not a drop of water was to be had. There was not even the shoot of a grass. It was a sandy place with nothing else in sight. He walked for seven days carrying his wife on his shoulders. His wife grew weary and worn with hunger and thirst. Seeing that she was about to die he gave her his flesh and blood. The wicked woman took them and saved herself from death. On the eighth day they reached the jungles of a hilly place full of fruit-trees and with a river with grassy banks, flowing down to the valley. With fruits and cool water he appeased the hunger and thirst of his wife. Then he got down to the river to take a bath. He saw a man with his limbs cut off, coming afloat. Now and then he was producing pitiable sounds. The kind son of the Vaiśya, without minding his weakness due to fast for the last seven days, swam to the man and brought him to the bank of the river. He did all services possible for him. Then he asked him who had cut off his limbs.