Overall Teaching

Jalavāhana and his sons find a dried up pool with dying fish. They save them by filling the pool again with water and feeding them. Jalavāhana recites the Buddha’s name for them and teaches them Dependent Origination. After the fish die they are consequently born as devas and return with signs for him and the king. The participants are now people present in the assembly in their present lives.

Summary                          

1.     The Buddha continues to relate to Bodhisattvasamuccayā:

a.     All beings honoured Jalavāhana, enjoyed themselves, and gave gifts.

b.     Jalavāhana had a wife named Jalāmbugarbhā, who had two sons, Jalāmbara and Jalagarbha.

c.     Jalavāhana visited neighbouring lands with his sons. They eventually came upon a wilderness with dogs, wolves, jackals, and crows were running in a certain direction. Being curious they went to where they ran, which was a pool called Aṭavīsaṃbhavā.

d.     There were 10,000 fish there deprived of water and Jalavāhana had a thought of compassion for them: then a goddess emerged from a tree and told him that since his name means Water Bringer, he should give the fish water. Jalavāhana again had a thought of compassion for them.

e.     Everywhere Jalavāhana went the fish looked desperately at him while darting about deprived of water. But he found trees and cutting off their branches he made cool shade for the fish around the pool.

f.      Looking for the source of the pool’s water, he found the stream Jalāgamā, whose water had been made to fall into a hole by an evil being. He reflected that not even a thousand men could bring the river back to its path, let alone him.

g.     He went to king Sureśvaraprabha and after paying homage informed the king that while he has allayed the illnesses in his realm, these fish were deprived of water. He asked for twenty elephants to bring water for the fish. The king ordered it be so.

h.     Then with twenty elephants and a hundred leather bags, Jalavāhana filled the bags with water and had the elephants bring them back to the pool and fill it; after he did this the fish hastened after him.

i.      After reflecting, he realised that the fish wanted food from him, so he asked his son Jalāmbara to get the swiftest elephant to bring whatever food was in the house from his grandfather.

j.      After Jalāmbara did this and brought food from his grandfather, Jalavāhana chopped it up and fed it to the fish. But then recalled being told by a Mahāyāna monk that anyone who heard the name of Buddha Ratnaśikhin would be born in heaven: so he reflected that he should tell the fish about dependent origination and the name of Buddha Ratnaśikhin.

                                               i.     Jalavāhana thus stood knee-high in the pool and recited a homage to Ratnaśikhin and declared that anyone who will hear his name at the time of death will be reborn in Trāyastriṃśa.

                                             ii.     Jalavāhana then recited the twelve links of dependent origination and its cessation. Then returned home.

k.     After a festival, at one time, Jalavāhana lay drunk on his bed and he saw a great sign because, after those fish had died, they had been born in Trāyastriṃśa. As devas, the 10,000 came to Jalavāhana’s house and stood before him.

l.      The devas placed thousands of pearl necklaces all around him and struck divine instruments. They then rained down a rain of māndārava flowers in different places, including the pool Aṭavīsaṃbhavā. They then disappeared and rejoiced in the heavens.

m.   In the morning, the king asked his astrologers why this happened. They reported that necklaces and flowers rained down in Jalavāhana’s house. So, the king invited him:

                                               i.     He said that it was surely the fish. After wondering whether it could be so, Jalavāhana said he can have his son check if the 10,000 fish were alive or dead.

                                             ii.     After Jalāmbara checked, he found that the ten thousand fish had died, and again saw a rain of māndārava flowers.

                                            iii.     After reporting this to the king and his father, the king was joyful and happy.

2.     Then the Buddha reveals that in fact:

                                               i.     The king Sureśvaraprabha was the Śākyan Daṇḍapāṇi (the brother of Māyā and Prajāpatī).

                                             ii.     The merchant/doctor Jaṭiṃdhara was King Śuddhodana.

                                            iii.     The merchant’s son Jalavāhana was the Buddha.

                                            iv.     His wife Jalāmbugarbhā was the Buddha’s wife Gopā (Yaśodhārā).

                                             v.     Their son Jalāmbara was Rāhula.

                                            vi.     Their second son Jalagarbha was Ānanda.

                                          vii.     The ten thousand fish are the devas headed by Jvalanāntaratejorāja who received predictions to buddhahood from the Buddha.

                                         viii.     The tree goddess was the goddess Bodhisattvasamuccayā.

b.     Thus, in this way the Buddha ripened beings to awakening in a past life, all of whom would eventually receive a prophecy to their attainment of buddhahood.