| J.401 |
Dasa.n.naka Jaataka |
Once the bodhisatva was born as Senaka, a brahmin counsellor to King Maddava of Benares.
Maddava, seeing that his chaplainís son was yearning for his chief queen, gave her
to him for a week. But at the end of the week, the queen ran away with the youth
and the king became ill with longing for her. Senaka thereupon arranged for a festival,
in the course of which the king was shown a man swallowing a sword. The king asked
his counsellors if anything could be harder than such a trick. They replied, in turn
that to promise a gift, to make a gift, to make it and not to regret it, these acts
were, in increasing degrees, far harder than swallowing a sword (a Dasannaka sword).
The king, grasping the purport of their answers, regained his self-composure. The
story was told to a monk tempted by his former wife. The king was identified with
the monk and the other counsellors with Moggallana and Sariputta. |
59/253 |
Jaataka |
Khuddhaka |
J.iii.336ff. |
regret at giving |