Once upon a time, while Brahmadatta ruled over Benares, the Bodhisatta was born into a poor man’s family. When he grew up, his father died. He earned wages, and supported his mother. His mother, much against his will, brought a wife home for him, and soon after died. Now his wife conceived. Not knowing that she had conceived, he said to her, “Wife, you must earn your living; I will renounce the world.” Then she said, “No! for I am with a child.

Wait until the birth of a child and then go and become a hermit.” To this he agreed. So when she delivered, he said, “Now, wife! you are safely delivered, and I must turn hermit.” She said, “Wait till the time when the child is weaned.” And after that she conceived again. the Bodhisatta thought, “If I agree to her request, I shall never get away at all. I will run away without saying a word to her, and become a hermit.” So he told her nothing, but rose up in the night, and went.

The city guards seized him. He said, “I have a mother to support and let me go!” They let him go free. After staying in a place, he went out by the main gate and went to Himalayas, where he lived as a recluse. He made the Supernatural Faculties and the Attainments to spring up within him, as he lived in the rapture of meditation. Then he said, “The bond of wife and child, the bond of passion, so hard to break, is broken!” and he uttered these lines:-

“Not iron fetters so the wise have told

Not ropes, or bars of wood, so fast can hold

As passion, and the love of child or wife,

Of precious gems and earrings of fine gold.

“These heavy fetters who is there can find

Release from such? These are the ties that bind

These if the wise can burst, then they are free,

Leaving all love and all desire behind!”

And the Bodhisatta, after uttering this aspiration, without breaking the charm of his ecstasy attained to Brahma’s world.