Pādañjali-Jātaka

Tipitaka >> Sutta Pitaka >> Khuddaka Nikaya >> Jataka >>Pādañjali-Jātaka

Source: Adapted from Archaic Translation by W.H.D. Rouse
JATAKA No. 247

PADANJALI-JATAKA

"Surely this boy," etc.--This story the Master told while living in Jetavana monastery, about the Elder Monk Laludayi.

One day, it is said, the two chief disciples were discussing a question. The Brethren(Monks) who heard the discussion praised the Elders. Elder Monk Laludayi, who sat amongst the company, curled his lip with the thought--"What is their knowledge compared with mine?" When the Brethren noticed this, they left him. The company broke up.

The Brethren were talking about it in the Hall of Truth. "Friend, did you see how Laludayi curled his lip in contempt of the two chief disciples?" On hearing which the Master said, "Brethren, in olden days, as now, Laludayi had no other answer but a curl of the lip." Then he told them an old-world tale.

Once upon a time, when king Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisattva was his adviser in things spiritual and worldly. Now the king had a sun, Padanjali by name, an idle lazy loafer. In due course the king died. His funeral rites over, the courtiers talked of appointing his son Padanjali to be king. But the Bodhisattva said,

"It is a lazy fellow, an idle loafer, shall we take and appoint him king?"

The courtiers held a trial. They sat the youth down before them, and made a wrong decision. They adjudged something to the wrong owner, and asked him, "Young sir, do we decide rightly?"

The boy curled his lip.

"He is a wise boy, I think," thought the Bodhisattva; "he must know that we have decided wrongly:" and he recited the first verse:-

"Surely the boy is wise beyond all men. He curls his lip--he must see through us, then!"

Next day, as before, they arranged a trial, but this time judged it properly. Again they asked him what he thought of it.

Again he curled his lip. Then the Bodhisattva perceived that he was blind fool, and repeated the second verse:-

"Not right from wrong, nor bad from good he knows: He curls his lip--but no more sense he shows."

The courtiers became aware that the young man Padanjali was a fool, and they made the Bodhisattva king.

When the Master had ended this discourse, he identified the Birth: "Laludayi was Padanjali, and I was the wise courtier."