from “The Jātakas, Birth Stories of the Bodhisattva” as translated by Sarah Shaw.
“The Story of More Than a Thousand”
Parosahassa Jätaka (99)
Vol. I, 405-7
A Jātaka is a story about a birth, and this collection of tales is about the repeated births — and deaths— of the Bodhisatta, the being destined to become the present Buddha in his final life. Written in Pali, the language of the Theravada Buddhist canon, the tales comprise one of the largest and oldest collections of stories in the world. The earliest sections, the verses, are considered amongst the very earliest part of the Pali tradition and date from the fifth century CE.
In Jātaka stories the aspect of wisdon (pañna) is often explored in a pragmatic way that presents it as a highly developed canniness or common sense. When the Bodhisatta is applying what is called wisdom, he is often making what we would regard as a careful assessment of the situation when others are not. In this case it is Sariputta who is exhibiting this important quality.
In his last life Sariputta is the Buddha’s chief disciple and is foremost amongst his followers in the excellence of his wisdom (mahapañña). In the Pali canon his name at the beginning of a talk is usually a key that there will be some precise analysis of the subject in question, explained in great detail. In art he is often shown on the right of the Buddha while the other chief disciple, Moggallana, whose expertise is in calm meditation (samatha), is on the left. In this story his wisdom lies in simply paying attention to what the Bodhisatta actually said. The joke is in the use of the word nothing. The Sphere of Nothingness is, in the Buddhist tradition, one of the highest formless meditations, the seventh jhana.
Story from the present
‘Over a thousand meeting fools together’
While staying at the Jetavana Grove the Teacher told a story about a question asked by fools. The incident is told in the Sarabhanga Jataka. Now, one time the monks met together in the dhamma hall. They sat down and discussed the excellence of Sariputta.
‘Friend! Sariputta, the general of the teaching, explains the meaning of a pithy remark by the Buddha,’ one said to another.
The Teacher came in and asked them what they had been discussing while they had been together and they told him.
‘It is not just now, bhikkhus, that Sariputta explains in detail something I have said. He used to do it before too.’
And he narrated this story of long ago.
Story from the past
Once upon a time in Varanasi, in the reign of Brahmadatta, the Bodhisatta was born into a Brahmin family in the north-west. He learned all kinds of craft at Taxila and, abandoning sense pleasures, went forth as a holy man and lived in the Himalayan regions practising the five knowledges and the eight attainments. He had a following of five hundred ascetics. His elder pupil took a half of the group of holy men at the time of the rains and went to the places where men lived to obtain salt and pickles.
Then the time for death came for the Bodhisatta and his pupils asked him about his level of attainment: ‘What excellence have you obtained?’
‘It was nothing,’ he said and was reborn in the realm of the Gods of Streaming Radiance. For, Bodhisattas, even though they may have attained to the highest state, are never reborn in a formless sphere heaven because they do not go beyond the realm of form.
The pupils thought that their teacher had not achieved any attainment and did not pay their respects at his cremation.
The elder disciple returned and asked, ‘Where is our teacher?’
He was told he was dead.
‘Did you ask him about his attainment?’
‘We certainly did,’ they replied.
‘And what did he say?’
‘He said he had obtained nothing! So we did not pay any respects to him,’ they answered.
‘You do not understand what he meant by this’, the elder pupil said. ‘Our teacher had attained to the Sphere of Nothingness.’
Although he explained this to them repeatedly they still did not have confidence in him.
The Bodhisatta, knowing what had happened, said, ‘Blind fools! They do not have confidence in my chief disciple. I’ll make this matter clear to them. So he came down from the Brahma realm and, through his great powers, positioned himself in the sky, with his feet over the top of the monastery and, explaining the power of his wisdom, he recited this verse:
‘Over a thousand fools might, meeting together, grieve for a century;
It is better to have just one man with wisdom, who understands the meaning of what has been said.’
So the Great Being, standing in the sky, taught the dhamma and having woken the gathering of ascetics up he returned to the Brahma sphere. And the ascetics, at the end of their lives, were reborn in heaven realms too.
The Teacher gave this talk about the teaching and made the connection with the story:
“At that time Sariputta was the elder disciple, and I was the great Mahabrahma.”