"Whose Daughter Are You?"
The prince asks whose daughter the girl is, and whether she already belongs to another — declaring that, if so, it would not be fitting for him to raise a mind of desire toward her. He then opens a verse of his own, warning that improper lust, raised toward one already committed, leads at the end of life to an evil rebirth.
A Question, and a Warning Against Improper Desire
「爾時，太子語彼女言：『汝是誰女？為誰守護？若先屬他，我則不宜起染愛心。』
「爾時，太子說偈問言：
「『清淨功德身， 見者無厭足，
誰為汝父母， 為誰所守護。
若先有所屬， 我不起欲想，
非分生婬心， 命終墮惡道。』」
At that time, the prince said to that girl: "Whose daughter are you? Under whose protection are you? If you already belong to another, then it would not be fitting for me to raise a mind of tainted love."
At that time, the prince spoke in verse, asking:
"Your pure, meritorious body — those who behold it never grow weary of it. Who are your father and mother? Under whose protection are you?
If you already belong to another, I shall not raise a thought of desire; raising a mind of lust improperly, at the end of one's life, leads to falling into an evil destiny."
The prince's own reversal here is immediate and complete: within a single exchange, the "mind of tainted love" that first drove him to propose marriage is now checked by an explicit ethical concern — that pursuing a girl already committed elsewhere would constitute improper lust, with a stated karmic consequence. What follows this opening question is not further courtship but an extended ethical discourse, spoken entirely in verse, that has little to do with the girl in front of him at all — a shift this collection's own readers will recognize as characteristic of exactly this kind of encounter narrative.
Part 159 In Progress
The prince has raised his concern. Part 160 continues his verse with a broader ethical teaching — warning against greed and confusion born of desire for wealth and eminence, and the wrong views such confusion gives rise to.
Continue to Part 160 →