Homage to the Bhagavan, the enlightened one, the fully awakened Buddha.
For many hundreds of thousands of births,
immeasurable benefit to the world has been brought
about by the leader of the world: the great sage.
At his feet I pay homage, cupping my hands in
reverence to the teaching, and bowing down to
the Sangha, the vessel of all honour!
I have cut through obstacles by the great power
resulting from the
merit of this homage to the three jewels:
For the birth stories, starting with “The True Story Jataka,”
taught long ago by the brilliant sage, act by act,
births in which, for a long time, the Teacher, the guide
dedicated to the salvation of the
world, brought the ingredients for awakening to ripeness –
for acquiring all these birth stories, long recited
together under the name of “Jataka” by the chanters
and compilers of the Buddha’s teaching,
the Elder Atthadassina approached me and inquired,
hoping to preserve this lineage story of the Buddha.
Atthadassina lives apart from the world, always in the
company of other monks; I was also asked in the same
way by the wise and calm Buddhamitta,
who was born in the lineage of mahimsasaka, and
is knowledgable in method; and in the same way by
Buddhadeva, also a wise monk.
So, this commentary on the birth stories, which
illustrates the splendour of the inconceivable actions of
a great man, I will recite, in the way those who live in the Great
Monastery explain it. May good people grasp fully
what I am saying!
And this commentary on the birth stories will be comprehensible to listeners when I have explained the far origin, the near origin, and the recent origin – so long as they have understood it from its beginning. So, I will recount it, after explaining and making clear the three origins.
The division into these three origins from the beginning should be understood as follows: The course of the story of the Great Being’s existence, from the time that he made a resolution to become a Buddha at the feet of Dipankara to his appearance in the Tusita heaven after falling away from his life as Vessantara, is called the far origin.
The course of the story from his falling away from the Tusita to his attainment of awakening on the ground by the Bodhi Tree is called the near origin.
And the recent origin is found in all the various places at which he stayed on his travels, in this place and that.
Now follows the far origin.
The story of Sumedha
They say that a hundred thousand eons and four incalculable epochs ago, there was a city called Amaravati. In that city lived a Brahman called Sumedha. He was respected, being of irreproachable birth, completely pure descent on both mother’s and father’s side for seven generations: a man of a noble line, of handsome appearance, good-looking, friendly, and endowed with an excellent, lotus-like complexion. He applied himself only to his Brahmanic studies, not taking on anything else. While he was still young, his parents died. Then, a minister who was in charge of his wealth brought the accounts book and opened the rooms filled with gold, silver, jewels, pearls, and other valuables. He said: “Young man, so much belonged to your mother, so much to your father, so much to your grandparents and great-grandparents.” Pointing out to him the wealth inherited from seven generations, he said: “Guard this well.”
The wise Sumedha reflected, “When my parents and all the rest of my ancestors passed on to another world, they could not take even one little coin with them. Is it right for me to try to take it with me?” So, after telling the king, he had a drum beaten around the city, gave his wealth to the people at large, and went out into homelessness as an ascetic.
To make this matter clear, the story of Sumedha needs to be told. Although it is given in full in the Buddhavamsa, it is not so clearly explained because it is in verse. I will tell it here, with sentences at intervals explaining the verses. Four incalculable epochs and a hundred thousand eons ago, there was a city, resounding with ten sounds, called Amaravati or Amara, about which this is said in the Buddhavamsa:
A hundred thousand eons and four incalculable
epochs ago, there was a city called Amara –
Deathless – beautiful and delightful. It was filled with
the ten sounds and was abundant in food and drink
combined:
The trumpeting of elephants, the neighing of horses,
drums, conches, carriages, and the shouting of offers
of food and drink: “Eat! Drink!”
Excerpted with permission from The Buddha’s Path to Awakening, edited and translated from the Pali by Sarah Shaw, The Murty Classics series, Harvard University Press.
