No. 408.

KUMBHAKARA-JATAKA.

"A mango in a forest," etc. The Master told this when dwelling in Jetavana, concerning rebuke of sin. The occasion will appear in the Paniya Birth . At that time in Savatthi five hundred friends, who had become ascetics, dwelling in the House of the Golden Pavement, had lustful thoughts at midnight. The Master regards his disciples three times a night and three times a day, six times every night and day, as a jay guards her egg, or a yak-cow her tail, or a mother her beloved son, or a one-eyed man his eye; so in the very instant he rebukes a sin which is beginning. He was observing Jetavana on that midnight and knowing the Brethren's conduct of their thoughts, he considered, "This sin among these brethren if it grows will destroy the cause of Sainthood. I will this moment rebuke their sin and show them Sainthood": so leaving the perfumed chamber he called: Ananda [376], and bidding him collect all the brethren dwelling in the place, he got them together and sat down on the seat prepared for Buddha. He said, "Brethren, it is not right to live in the power of sinful thoughts; a sin if it grows brings great ruin like an enemy: a Brother ought to rebuke even a little sin: wise men of old seeing even a very slight cause, rebuked a sinful thought that had begun and so brought about paccekabuddha-hood": and so he told an old tale.

Once upon a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta was born in a potter's family in a suburb of Benares: when he grew up he became a householder, had a son and daughter, and supported his wife and children by his potter's handicraft. At that time in the Kalinga kingdom, in the city of Dantapura, the king named Karandu, going to his garden with a great retinue, saw at the garden-gate a mango tree laden with sweet fruit: he stretched out his hand from his seat on the elephant and seized a bunch of mangoes: then entering the garden he sat on the royal seat and ate a mango, giving some to those worthy of favours. From the time when the king took one, ministers, brahmins, and householders, thinking that others should also do so, took down and ate mangoes from that tree. Coming again and again they climbed the tree, and beating it with clubs and breaking the branches down and off, they ate the fruit, not leaving even the unripe. The king amused himself in the garden for the day, and at evening as he came by on the royal elephant he dismounted on seeing the tree, and going to its root he looked up and thought, "In the morning this tree stood beautiful with its burden of fruit and the gazers could not be satisfied: now it stands not beautiful with its fruit broken down and off." Again looking from another place