Ja 60: Samkhadhamana Jātaka
Translated by Robert Chalmers
Edited by E. B. Cowell
Original edition: Cambridge University Press, volume 1, 1895
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Scope: Complete numbered source article from the traditional Jātaka commentary; canonical verses appear in story context. This is not a verse-only edition.
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“Go not too far.”—This story was told by the Master while at Jetavana, about another self-willed person.

Once on a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta came to life as a conch-blower, and went up to Benares with his father to a public festival. There he earned a great deal of money by his conch-blowing, and started for home again. On his way through a forest which was infested by robbers, he warned his father not to keep on blowing his conch; but the old man thought he knew better how to keep the robbers off, and blew away hard without a moment’s pause. Accordingly, just as in the preceding story, the robbers returned and plundered the pair. And, as above, the Bodhisatta repeated this stanza:

Go not too far, but learn excess to shun;

For over-blowing lost what blowing won.

His lesson ended, the Master shewed the connexion and identified the Birth by saying, “This self-willed Brother was the father of those days, and I myself his son.”

The Jātaka, or Stories of the Buddha’s Former Births, edited by E.B. Cowell, published by The Cambridge University Press.

Vol. 1, translated by Robert Chalmers, 1895.

Vol. 2, translated by W.H.D. Rouse, 1895.

Vol. 3, translated by H.T. Francis and R.A. Neil, 1897.

Vol. 4, translated by W.H.D. Rouse, 1901.

Vol. 5, translated by H.T. Francis, 1905.

Vol. 6, translated by E.B. Cowell and W.H.D. Rouse, 1907.

These translations are in the public domain. You are free to do whatever you like with them.

Scanned, proofed and formatted at sacred-texts.com, January 2006–February 2010, by John Bruno Hare and others. Thanks to the Sacred Texts Archive for making these texts available in digital form.

Prepared for SuttaCentral by Bhikkhu Sujato.