Jataka Online

Very long long time ago, there was a city named Amorn. This city is very beautiful and abundant so that we could call it a city of angels.

In this city, there was a young brahmin named Sumedha. He was in a rich family, so he didn’t need to work, he had only to study brahman.

After his parent had passed away, a family accountant brought out the family account and opened a treasury room, which is full of gold, silver, jewels and other precious things.

The accountant reported him about assets and told him “These all assets are yours.”

Sumedha thought “My grandfather had collected much assets; but when he passed away, he can’t bring any piece of gold with him.” He decided to donated all his possessions to the orphant and the poor, and then left the city by himself.

He built a hermitage on a mountain in Himmapan forest, and lived there primitively as a hermit. He did a practice and finally attained some success. He enjoyed the highest happiness so much that he couldn’t hear the quake of all world elements caused by the enlightment eons of Dipankara Buddha, the Buddha prior to our most recent Buddha.

One day, Dipankara Buddha was stay in the Ramma city. Heard that Dipankara Buddha was stay there, a large number of citizens brought foods, clothes, incenses, flowers, and others gratuities to offer to Dipankara Buddha. Some citizens decorated roads with beautiful sand, some sprinkled popped rice and corolla.

At that time, Sumedha was flying over the city and noticed the joyfulness of the citizens. With curiosity, he came down and asked one of the citizen “Noble man, could you tell me whom you decorate road for?”

The citizen replied “Don’t you know that our Dipankara Buddha, who have attained enlightenment and announced precious Dharma, is stay here. We have invited him so we decorated roads for greeting him.”

With gladness, Sumedha asked “Could I help decorating roads too ?”

“Sure,” the citizen replied.

Knew that Sumedha had magical power, the citizen assigned Sumedha to bring some soil to fill a big muddy hole. Sumedha thought that if he use his magical power, he couldn’t be proud. So he carried soil by his hand.

Unfortunately, Dipankara Buddha arrived when Sumedha hadn’t finished his job. Saw that, Sumedha lay down over the muddy hole, allowing Dipankara Buddha to step over him. While Sumedha was laying on the ground, he thought that it would be useless if he, a strong gentleman, attained nirvana alone, he want to, like Dipankara Buddha, help other people. He had made an intention to be a Buddha, who brings humans and gods cross the river of passions.

Dipankara Buddha noticed Sumedha, sensed Sumedha’s strong intention, so Dipankara Buddha use his insight to see if Sumedha will succeed. After a while, Dipankara Buddha knew that, after four eons and one hundred thousand millions years, Sumedh would be a Buddha named Gautama.

Dipankara Buddha announced his prophecy to the citizens. The citizens are glad that they still have a seed of the Buddha, so if they missed chances to leave the cycles of suffering and rebirth in this life, they still had a chance in next lives. After Dipankara Buddha had gone, citizens offered Sumedha with incenses and flowers.

When citizens was gone, Sumedha sat on his haunches and deliberately thought how he could be a Buddha. At last, he found that he must collect ten virtues: height of generosity, height of precepts, height of devotion, height of wisdom, height of persistence, height of toleration, height of truthfulness, height of faithfulness, height of mercy and height of detachment. While he was finding the way, all world elements was heavily shaking.

With panic, citizens went to see Dipankara Buddha to asked why it happened. Dipankara Buddha said “Don’t be panic, the man who I foretold that he will be the next Buddha, just introspected the required virtues to be a Buddha in the future. With the power of Dharma, all world elements was shaking.”

Heard that, the citizens was cheerful and then brought incenses and flowers, and offered them to Sumedha. When he stood up, all gods blessed him to successfully be the Buddha in one of his next lives.