The Hero's Tasks

Once upon a time reigned at Benares a king named
Yasapani, the Glorious. His chief captain was named
Kalaka, or Blackie. At that time the Bodhisatta was his
family priest, and had the name of Dhammaddhaja, the
Banner of the Faith. There was also a man Chattapani,
maker of ornaments to the king. The king was a good
king. But his chief captain swallowed bribes in the
judging of causes; he was a backbiter; he took bribes,
and defrauded the rightful owners.

On a day, one who had lost his suit was departing from
the court, weeping and stretching out his arms, w r hen he
fell in with the Bodhisatta as he was going to pay his
service to the king. Falling at his feet, the man cried out,
telling how he had been worsted in his cause : " Although
such as you, my lord, instruct the king in the things of this
world and the next, the Commander-in-Chief takes bribes,
and defrauds rightful owners ! "

The Bodhisatta pitied him. " Come, my good fellow,''
said he, " I will judge your cause for you ! " and he pro-
ceeded to the court-house. A great company gathered
together. The Bodhisatta reversed the sentence, and
gave judgment for him that had the right. The spectators
applauded. The sound was great. The king heard it,
and asked "What sound is this I hear?"

" My lord king," they answered, " it is a cause wrongly
judged that has been judged aright by the wise Dham-
maddhaja ; that is why there is this shout of applause."

The king was pleased and sent for the Bodhisatta.
" They tell me," he began, " that you have judged a
cause ? "

"Yes, great king, I have judged that which Kalaka
did not judge aright."

"Be you judge from this day," said the king; "it will
be a joy for my ears, and prosperity for the world ! "
He was unwilling, but the king begged him " In mercy
to all creatures, sit you in judgment ! " and so the king-
won his consent.

From that time Kalaka received no presents; and
losing his gains he spoke calumny of the Bodhisatta before
the king, saying, " O mighty king, the Avise Dhammaddhaja
covets your kingdom ! " But the king would not believe ;
and bade him sav not so.

" If you do not believe me," said Kalaka, " look out
of the window at the time of his coming. Then you
will see that he has got the whole city into his own
hands."

The king saw the crowd of those that were about him
in his judgment hall. " There is his retinue," thought he.
He gave way. " What are we to do, Captain ? " he asked.

" My lord, he must be put to death."

" How can we put him to death without having found
him out in some great wickedness ? "

" There is a way," said the other.

" What way ? "

" Tell him to do what is impossible, and if he cannot,
put him to death for that."

" But what is impossible to him ? "

" My lord king," replied he, " it takes two years or twice
two for a garden with good soil to bear fruit, being
planted and tended. Send for him, and say ' We want
a garden to disport ourselves in to-morrow. Make us a
garden ! ' This he will not be able to do ; and we will slay
him for that fault."

The king addressed himself to the Bodhisatta. " Wise
Sir, we have sported long enough in our old garden ; now
we crave to sport in a new. We shall sport to-morrow.
Make us a garden ! If you cannot make it, you must die."

The Bodhisatta reasoned, " It must be that Kalaka has
set the king against me, because he gets no presents.-
If I can," he said to the king, " O mighty king, I will see
to it." And he went home. After a good meal he lay
upon his bed, thinking. Sakka's palace grew hot 1 . Sakka
reflecting perceived the Bodhisatta's difficulty. He made
haste to him, entered his chamber, and asked him "Wise
Sir, what think you on ? ' -poised the while in mid-air.

" Who are you ? " asked the Bodhisatta.

" I am Sakka."

1 This was supposed to happen when a good man was in straits. Some modern
superstitions, turning upon the pity of a god for creatures in pain, may be seen in
North Ind. N. and Q. iii. 285. As this : " Hot oil is poured into a dog's ear and the
pain makes him yell. It is believed that his yells are heard by Raja Indra, who in
pity stops the rain." (Dr Rouse.)

In brahmin works Indra (Sakka) is represented as becoming disturbed, when he
sees mortals practising severe penance, or performing great sacrifices, because he
fears that the person may acquire merit enough to take his place. In such cases
he comes down and tempts the ascetic with sensual pleasures or hinders the
sacrifice. This idea is retained by the Buddhists, but the more characteristic motive
in buddhism is that the god comes down to help the person who is in difficulty, as
here, or to test him by giving him an opportunity of performing an act of merit, as
in Jat. 316, 499. In the jatakas the person's merit causes Sakka's throne to become
hot, or his palace to be shaken (Jat. 292). In Burmese tales his throne becomes
stiff. See L. Allan Goss in We-than-da-ya, a Buddhist Legend, p. 93, Rangoon,
1895. There is a curious parallel in the story of St Martin of Tours, given by
Sulpicius Severus in his Dialogues n. 5, where St Martin visits the emperor Valen-
tinian, who does not wish to see him. The seat of the emperor bursts into flames,
and he is compelled to get up and listen to the saint. " Nequaquam adsurgere est
dignatus adstanti, donee regiam sellam ignis operiret, ipsumque regem ea parte
corporis qua sedebat, adflaret incendium. Ita e solio suo superbus excutitur et
Martino invitus adsurgit." The Dialogues contain tales of Egyptian monks which
have a buddhistic colouring. In Jat. 527 the incident of St Martin dividing his
cloak is paralleled, where a girl, having worked for three years to earn a scarlet
robe, divides it, and gives half to an ascetic, who had been robbed of his clothes.

" The king bids me make a garden : that is what I am
thinking upon."

" Wise Sir, do not trouble : I will make you a garden
like the groves of Nandana and Cittalata ! In what place
shall I make it?"

" In such and such a place," he told him. Sakka made
it, and returned to the city of the gods.

Next day, the Bodhisatta beheld the garden there in
very truth, and sought the king's presence. " O king, the
garden is ready : go to your sport ! ''

The king came to the place, and beheld a garden girt
with a fence of eighteen cubits, vermilion tinted, having
gates and ponds, beautiful with all manner of trees, laden
heavy with flowers and fruit! "The sage has done my
bidding," said he to Kalaka : " now what are we to do ? "

" O mighty king ! " replied he, " if he can make a
garden in one night, can he not seize upon your king-
dom ? '

"Well, what are we to do?"

" We will make him perform another impossible thing."

"What is that?" asked the king.

" We will bid him make a lake possessed of the seven
precious jewels ! "

The king agreed, and thus addressed the Bodhisatta :

" Teacher, you have made a park. Make now a lake to
match it, with the seven precious jewels. If you cannot
make it, you shall not live ! "

"Very good, great king," answered the Bodhisatta,
" I will make it if I can."

Then Sakka made a lake of great splendour, having
an hundred landing-places, a thousand inlets, covered over
with lotus plants of five different colours, like the lake in
Nandana.

Next day, the Bodhisatta beheld this also, and told the
king : " See, the lake is made ! " And the king saw it, and
asked of Kalaka what was to be done.

" Bid him, my lord, make a house to suit it," said he.

" Make a house, Teacher," said the king to the Bodhi-
satta, " all of ivory, to suit with the park and the lake : it
you do not make it, you must die ! "

Then Sakka made him a house likewise. The Bodhi-
satta beheld it next day, and told the king. When the
king had seen it, he asked Kalaka again, what was to do.
Kalaka told him to bid the Bodhisatta make a jewel
to suit the house. The king said to him, "Wise Sir,
make a jewel to suit with this ivory house ; I will
go about looking at it by the light of the jewel : if you
cannot make one, you must die ! " Then Sakka made him
a jewel too. Next day the Bodhisatta beheld it, and told the
king. When the king had seen it, he again asked Kalaka
what was to be done.

" Mighty king ! " answered he, " I think there is some
divinity who does each thing that the Brahmin Dham-
maddhaja wishes. Now bid him make something which
even a divinity cannot make. Not even a deity can make
a man with all four virtues ; therefore bid him make a
keeper with these four." So the king said, "Teacher, you
have made a park, a lake, and a palace, and a jewel
to give light. Now make me a keeper with four virtues,
to watch the park ; if you cannot, you must die."

"So be it," answered he, "if it is possible, I will see
to it." He went home, had a good meal, and lay down.
When he awoke in the morning, he sat upon his bed, and
thought thus. " What the great king Sakka can make by
his power, that he has made. He cannot make a park-
keeper with four virtues. This being so, it is better to
die forlorn in the woods, than to die at the hand of other
men." So saying no word to any man, he went down from
his dwelling and passed out of the city by the chief gate,
and entered the woods, where he sat him down beneath a
tree and reflected upon the religion of the good. Sakka
perceived it ; and in the fashion of a forester he approached
the Bodhisatta, saying,

"Brahmin, you are young and tender: why sit you
here in this wood, as though you had never seen pain
before?" As he asked it, he repeated the first stanza:

You look as though your life must happy be;
Yet to the wild woods you would homeless go,
Like some poor wretch whose life was misery,
And pine beneath this tree in lonely woe.

To this the Bodhisatta made answer in the second
stanza :

I look as though my life must happy be;
Yet to the wild woods I would homeless go,
Like some poor wTetch whose life was misery,
And pine beneath this tree in lonely woe,
Pondering the truth that all the saints do know.

Then Sakka said, " If so, then why, Brahmin, are you
sitting here ? "

" The king," he made answer, " requires a park-keeper
with four good qualities ; such an one cannot be found ;
so I thought Why perish by the hand of man ? I will off
to the woods, and die a lonely death. So here I came, and
here I sit."

Then the other replied, " Brahmin, I am Sakka, king of
the gods. By me was your park made, and those other
things. A park-keeper possessed of four virtues cannot
be made ; but in your country there is one Chattapani,
who makes ornaments for the head, and he is such a
man. If a park-keeper is wanted, go and make this
workman the keeper." With these words Sakka de-
parted to his city divine, after consoling him and bidding
him fear no more.

The Bodhisatta went home, and having broken his fast,
he repaired to the palace gates, and there in that spot he
saw Chattapani. He took him by the hand, and asked
him " Is it true, as I hear, Chattapani, that you are en-
dowed with the four virtues ? "

" Who told you so ? " asked the other.

" Sakka, king of the gods."

" Why did he tell you ? " He recounted all, and told
the reason. The other said,

" Yes, I am endowed with the four virtues." The Bod-
hisatta taking him by the hand led him into the king's
presence. " Here, mighty monarch, is Chattapani, endowed
with four virtues. If there is need of a keeper for the
park, make him keeper."

" Is it true, as I hear," the king asked him, " that you
have four virtues ? "

" Yes, mighty king."

"What are they?" he asked.

I envy not, and drink no wine;
No strong 1 desire, no wrath is mine,
said he.

"Chattapani," cried the king, "did you say you have
no envy?"

"Yes, O king, I have no envy."

" What experience was it that made you to be without
envy ? "

" Listen, my lord ! " said he ; and then he told him why
he felt no envy in the following lines

A chaplain once in bonds I threw
Which thing a woman made me do;
He built me up in holy lore;
Since when I never envied more.

Then the king said, " Dear Chattapani, what has made
you to abstain from strong drink ? And the other answered
in the following verse l :

Once I was drunken, and I ate
My own son's flesh upon my plate;
Then, touched with sorrow and with pain,
Swore never to touch drink again.

Then the king said, " But what has made you to be
indifferent, without love ? " The man explained it in these
w r ords 2 :

King Kitavasa was my name;

A mighty king was I;
My boy a Buddha's basin broke

And so he had to die.

Said the king then, "What was it, good friend, that
made you to be without anger ? " And the other made the
matter clear in these lines :

As Araka, for seven years

I practised charity;
And then for seven ages dwelt

In Brahma's heaven on high.

When Chattapani had thus explained his four attri-
butes, the king made a sign to his attendants. And in an
instant all the court, priests and laymen and all, rose up,
and cried out upon Kalaka " Fie, bribe-swallowing thief
and scoundrel ! You couldn't get your bribes, and so
you would murder the wise man by speaking ill of him ! "
They seized him by hand and foot, and bundled him out
of the palace ; and catching up whatever they could get
hold of, this a stone, and this a staff', they broke his head
and did him to death : and dragging him by the feet they
cast him upon a dunghill.

Thenceforward the king ruled in righteousness, until
he passed away according to his deserts.