No. 283.

VADDHAKI-SUKARA-JATAKA .

"The best, the best you always," etc.--This story the Master told in Jetavana about the Elder Dhanuggahatissa. Mahakosala, the father of king Pasenadi, when he married his daughter, the Lady Kosala, to king Bimbisara, gave a village of Kasi, producing a revenue of a hundred thousand, for bath and perfume money. When Ajatasattu murdered the king his father, the lady Kosala died of grief. Then thought king Pasenadi, "Ajatasattu has killed his father, my sister has died from sympathy with her husband's misfortune; I will not give the Kasi town to the parricide." So he refused to give it to Ajatasattu. About this village there was war betwixt these two from time to time. Ajatasattu was fierce and strong, and Pasenadi was a very old man, so he was beaten again and again, and the people of Mahakosala were generally conquered. Then the king asked his courtiers, "We are constantly being beaten; what is to be done?" "My lord," said they, "the reverend fathers are skilled in incantations. We must hear the word of the Brothers who dwell in the Jetavana monastery." Then the king despatched couriers, bidding them listen to the converse of the Brothers at a suitable time. Now at the time there were two old Elders living in a leaf-hut close to the monastery, whose names were Elder Utta and Elder Dhanuggahatissa. [404] Dhanuggahatissa had slept through the first and second watch of the night; and awaking in the last watch, he broke some sticks, lit a fire, and sitting down said, "Utta, my friend!" "What is it, friend Tissa?" "Are you not asleep?" "Now we are awake, what's to do?" "Get up, now, and sit by me." So he did, and began to talk to him. "That stupid, pot-bellied Kosala never has a jar full of boiled rice without letting it spoil; how to plan a war he knows not a bit. He is always being beaten and forced to pay." "But what should he do?" Now just then the couriers stood listening to their talk. The Elder Dhanuggahatissa discussed the nature of war. "War, Sir," said he, "consists of three kinds: the lotus army, the wheel army, and the waggon army . If those who wish to capture Ajatasattu will post garrisons in two hill-forts right away in the hills, and pretend that they are weak, and watch till they get him among the hills, and bar his passage, leap out from the two forts and take him in front and in the rear, and shout aloud, they will quickly have him like a landed fish, like a frog in the fist; and so they will be able to secure him." All this the couriers told their king. The king caused the drum to be beaten for the attack, arranged his army waggon-wise, took Ajatasattu alive; his daughter, Princess Vajira he gave in marriage to his sister's son, and dismissed her with the Kasi village for her bath-money.