Buddhist shelf · Pali Canon · Jātaka 60 · Ekakanipāta · Āsīsavagga
SaṅkhadhamajātakaJātaka 60 · Volume 1, translated by Robert Chalmers (1895)
Public domain. Robert Chalmers’s translation was published in 1895. The Pali is the Mahāsaṅgīti edition published by SuttaCentral under CC0. The canonical Pali Jātaka consists of the verses only (4 verses here); the prose story around them comes from the later commentary, which the English translates in full. So the verses are shown beside the whole English story, not verse by verse.
Pali verses
“Dhame dhame nātidhame,
atidhantañhi pāpakaṁ;
Dhantenādhigatā bhogā,
te tāto vidhamī dhaman”ti.
Saṅkhadhamajātakaṁ dasamaṁ.
Āsīsavaggo chaṭṭho.
Tassuddānaṁ
Yathā icchiṁ tathāhudakā thalā,
Sura sāduphalo ca alīnamano;
Sampahaṭṭhamano caturo ca tayo,
Sataladdhaka bhogadhanena dasāti.
English Chalmers 1895
"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."