“Why are hearts cold,” etc.—This story the Master told during a stay near Saketa, about a brahmin named Saketa. Both the circumstances that suggested the story and the story itself have already been given in the First Book.
PTS vp En 163 PTS vp Pali 235 …And when the Tathagata had gone to the monastery, the Brother asked, “How, Sir, did the love begin? “and repeated the first stanza—
Why are hearts cold to one—O Buddha, tell!—
And love another so exceeding well?”
The Master explained the nature of love by the second stanza:
“Those love they who in other lives were dear,
As sure as grows the lotus in the mere.”
After this discourse was ended, the Master identified the Birth—“These two people were the brahmin and his wife in the story; and I was their son.”