0169. The Hermit and the Caravan

From The Jataka Volume 1 translated by Robert Chalmers, online at: Sacred Texts Archive.

Notes. This is the Asamkiya Jataka.

Summary: Thanks to his ascetic lifestyle, the hermit is able to save the caravan from being robbed.

Read the story below:

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THE HERMIT AND THE CARAVAN

(ascetic Buddha)

Once on a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta came to life as a brahmin. Arriving at years of discretion, he became aware of the evils that spring from Lusts, and so forsook the world to live as a recluse in the country round the Himalayas.

Need of salt and vinegar having led him to make a pilgrimage for alms through the countryside, he travelled in the course of his wanderings with a merchant's caravan. When the caravan halted at a certain spot in the forest, he paced to and fro at the foot of a tree, hard by the caravan, enjoying the bliss of Insight.

Now after supper five hundred robbers surrounded the caravan to plunder it; but, noticing the ascetic, they halted, saying, "If he sees us, he'll give the alarm; wait till he drops off to sleep, and then we'll plunder them."

But all through the livelong night the ascetic continued to pace up and down; and never a chance did the robbers get!

So they flung away their sticks and stones and shouted to the caravan-folk; "Hi, there! You of the caravan! If it hadn't been for that ascetic walking about under the tree, we'd have plundered the lot of you. Mind and fēte him tomorrow!" And so saying, they made off.

When the night gave place to light, the people saw the clubs and stones which the robbers had cast away, and came in fear and trembling to ask the Bodhisatta with respectful salutation whether he had seen the robbers.

"Oh, yes, I did, sirs," he replied.

"And were you not alarmed or afraid at the sight of so many robbers?"

"No," said the Bodhisatta; "the sight of robbers causes what is known as fear only to the rich. As for me, I am penniless; why should I be afraid? Whether I dwell in village or in forest, I never have any fear or dread."

And therewithal, to teach them the Truth, he repeated this stanza:
The village breeds no fear in me;
  No forests me dismay.
I've won by love and charity
  Salvation's perfect way.

When the Bodhisatta had thus taught the Truth in this stanza to the people of the caravan, peace filled their hearts, and they shewed him honour and veneration. All his life long he developed the Four Excellences, and then was re-born into the Brahma Realm.