Once on a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta was born into a rich Brahmin family in the Kasi country. When he was grown up and had finished his education, he renounced all Lusts, and, forsaking the world for the hermit’s life, went to live in the solitudes of the Himalayas. There by due fulfillment of all preparatory forms of meditation, he won by abstract thought the Higher Knowledge and the ecstatic Attainments; and so lived his life in the bliss of mystic insight.

Lack of salt and vinegar brought him one day to Benares, where he took up his quarters in the king’s pleasaunce. Next day, he went to meet the King. There ascetic was seated on a couch of great splendour and fed with abundance of the daintiest food. And when he thanked the king, he was invited to take up his dwelling in the pleasaunce. The ascetic accepted the offer, and for sixteen years he lived there.

Now there came a day when the king must go to the borders to put down a rising. But, before he started, he asked the queen, whose name was Gentle heart, to look after the sage well. So, after the king’s departure, the Bodhisatta continued to go wherever he pleased in the palace.

One day Queen Gentle heart got ready a meal for the Bodhisatta; but he was late. The queen lay in the bed and took rest. Hearing the rustling of his bark robe, the queen started up hurriedly to receive him. In her hurry to rise, her tunic slipped down, so that her beauty was revealed to the ascetic. Lust was kindled within him. At once all insight deserted him, and he became as a crow with its wings clipped. He went to his hut in the pleasaunce. He lay for seven whole days a prey to hunger and thirst, enslaved by the queen’s loveliness, his heart aflame with lust.

On the seventh day, the king came back from pacifying the border. After passing in solemn procession round the city, he entered his palace. Then, wishing to see the ascetic, he took his way to the pleasaunce, and there in the cell found the Bodhisatta lying on his couch. Thinking the holy man had been taken ill, the king, after first having the cell cleaned out, asked, as he stroked the sufferer’s feet, what ailed him. “Sir, my heart is fettered by lust; that is my sole ailment.” “Lust for whom?” “For Gentle heart, sir.” “Then she is yours; I give her to you,” said the king. Then he passed with the ascetic to the palace, and bidding the queen array herself in all her away, the king privily charged the queen to put forth her utmost endeavour to save the holy man.

“Fear not, sir,” said the queen; “I will save him.” So with the queen the ascetic went out from the palace. But when he had passed through the great gate, the queen cried out that they must have a house to live in; and back he must go to the king to ask for one. So back he went to ask the king for a house to live in, and the king gave them a tumble down dwelling which passers by used as a jakes. To this dwelling the ascetic took the queen; but she flatly refused to enter it, because of its filthy state.

“What am I to do?” he cried. “Why, clean it out,” she said. And she sent him to the king for a spade and a basket, and made him remove all the filth and dirt, and plaster the walls with cowdung, which he had to fetch. This done, she made him get a bed, and a stool, and a rug, and a water pot, and a cup, sending him for only one thing at a time. Next, she sent him packing to fetch water and a thousand other things. So off he started for the water, and filled up the water pot, and set out the water for the bath, and made the bed. And as he sat with her upon the bed, she took him by the whiskers and drew him towards her till they were face to face, saying, “Have you forgotten that you are a holy man and a Brahmin?”

Hereon he came to himself.

(And her should be repeated the text beginning, “Thus the hindrances of Lust and Longing are called Evils because they spring from ignorance, Brethren; that which springs from ignorance creates Darkness.”)

So when he had come to himself, he thought how, waxing stronger and stronger, this fatal craving would condemn him hereafter to the Four States of Punishment. He cried, “will I restore this woman to the king and fly to the mountains!” So he stood with the queen before the king and said, “Sir, I want your queen no longer; and it was only for her that cravings were awakened within me.”

Forth with his lost power of insight came back to him. Rising from the earth and seating himself in the air, he preached the Truth to the king; and without touching earth he passed through the air to the Himalayas. He never came back to the paths of men; but grew in love and charity till, with insight unbroken, he passed to a new birth in the Realm of Brahma.