No. 222.

CULA-NANDIYA-JATAKA .

"I call to mind," etc.--This story the Master told whilst dwelling in the Bamboo Grove, about Devadatta.

One day the brethren fell a-talking in the Hall of Truth: "Friend, that man Devadatta is harsh, cruel, and tyrannical, full of baneful devices against the Supreme Buddha. He flung a stone , he even used the aid of Nalagiri ; pity and compassion there is none in him for the Tathagata."

The Master came in, and asked what they were talking about as they sat there. They told him. Then he said, "This is not the first time, Brethren, that Devadatta has been harsh, cruel, merciless. He was so before." And he told them an old-world tale.

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Once upon a time, when Brahmadatta was king of Benares, the Bodhisatta became a Monkey named Nandiya, or Jolly; and dwelt in the Himalaya region; and his youngest brother bore the name of Jollikin. They two headed a band of eighty thousand monkeys, and they had a blind mother in their home to care for.

They left their mother in her lair in the bushes, and went amongst the trees to find sweet wild fruit of all kinds, which they sent back home to her. The messengers did not deliver it; and, tormented with hunger, she became nothing but skin and bone. Said the Bodhisatta to her,

"Mother, we send you plenty of sweet fruits: then what makes you so thin?"

"My son, I never get it!" [200]

The Bodhisatta pondered. "While I look after my herd, my mother will perish! I will leave the herd, and look after my mother alone." So calling his brother, "Brother," said he, "do you tend the herd, and I will care for our mother."

"Nay, brother," replied he, "what care I for ruling a herd? I too will care for only our mother!" So the two of them were of one mind, and leaving the herd, they brought their mother down out of Himalaya, and took up their abode in a banyan tree of the border-land, where they took care of her.

Now a certain Brahmin, who lived at Takkasila, had received his education from a famous teacher, and afterward he took leave of him, saying that he would depart. This teacher had the power of divining from the signs on a man's body; and thus he perceived that his pupil was harsh, cruel, and violent. "My son," said he, "you are harsh, and cruel, and violent. Such persons do not prosper at all seasons alike; they come to dire woe and dire destruction. Be not harsh, nor do what you will afterwards repent." With this counsel, he let him go.