The Golden Goose

Once upon a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in
Benares, the Bodhisatta was born a brahmin, and growing
up was married to a bride of his own rank, who bore him
three daughters named Nanda, Nandavati and Sundari-
nanda. The Bodhisatta dying, they were taken in by
neighbours and friends, whilst he was born again into the
world as a golden goose endowed with consciousness of
its former existences. Growing up, the bird viewed his own
magnificent size and golden plumage, and remembered
that previously he had been a human being. Discovering
that his wife and daughters were living on the charity of
others, the goose bethought him of his plumage like
hammered and beaten gold and how by giving them a
golden feather at a time he could enable his wife and
daughters to live in comfort. So away he flew to where
they dwelt and alighted on the top of the central beam
of the roof. Seeing the Bodhisatta, the wife and girls
asked where he had come from ; and he told them that he
was their father who had died and been born a golden
goose, and that he had come to visit them and put an
end to their miserable necessity of working for hire.
"You shall have my feathers," said he, "one by one,
and they will sell for enough to keep you all in ease
and comfort." So saying, he gave them one of his
feathers and departed. And from time to time he
returned to give them another feather, and with the pro-
ceeds of their sale these brahmin-women grew prosperous
and quite well-to-do. But one day the mother said to her
daughters, " There's no trusting animals, my children.
Who's to say your father might not go away one of these
days and never come back again ? Let us use our time and
pluck him clean next time he comes, so as to make sure of
all his feathers." Thinking this would pain him, the
daughters refused. The mother in her greed called the
golden goose to her one day when he came, and then
took him with both hands and plucked him. Now the
Bodhisatta's feathers had this property that if they were
plucked out against his wish, they ceased to be golden
and became like a crane's feathers. And now the poor
bird, though he stretched his wings, could not fly, and the
woman flung him into a barrel and gave him food there.
As time went on his feathers grew again (though they
were plain white ones now), and he flew away to his own
abode and never came back again.