Ja 88: Sarambha Jātaka
Translated by Robert Chalmers
Edited by E. B. Cowell
Original edition: Cambridge University Press, volume 1, 1895
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“Speak kindly.”—This story was told by the Master while at Savatthi, about the precept touching abusive language. The introductory story and the story of the past are the same as in the Nandivisala-jataka above.

But in this case there is the difference that the Bodhisatta was an ox named Sarambha, and belonged to a brahmin of Takkasila in the kingdom of Gandhara. After telling the story of the past, the Master, as Buddha, uttered this stanza—

Speak kindly, revile not your fellow;

Love kindness; reviling breeds sorrow.

When the Master had ended his lesson he identified the Birth by saying, “Ananda was the brahmin of those days, Uppalavanna his wife, and I Sarambha.”

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.