Amba Jataka

The Master told this story in reference to Devadatta, who had repudiated the Buddha as his own teacher and, as a result of that denial, was reborn in the Avici hell, the lowest and most tormenting of the Buddhist hells. Jataka No. 474 of the Pali Canon preserves the ancient tale that shows this was not the first time Devadatta had denied the very teacher who had given him everything.

In the kingdom of Benares, the Bodhisatta was born into the lowest social caste, a Chandala, an outcaste by birth. Despite the stigma attached to his birth, he was pure in virtue and possessed a wondrous spiritual charm. By murmuring certain syllables and sprinkling water on the bare trunk of a barren mango tree, he could make it burst instantly into fragrant blossom and yield heaps of succulent mangoes even in the dead of winter.

A young, high-born Brahmin youth in Benares learned of this marvel and, driven by hunger for fame, sought out the outcaste sage. He prostrated at his feet and performed menial chores for months, sweeping the courtyard, washing his feet, and fetching firewood, pleading the whole time to be taught the secret charm.

The Bodhisatta, moved by the youth's persistence, agreed to teach him, but warned him solemnly first. Knowledge honors no caste, the sage said, but it demands absolute truthfulness. If anyone, even the king himself, should ask who had taught him this charm, the youth must speak the truth and name his teacher plainly, since denying his guru out of false pride would make the charm flee his memory forever. The youth swore a solemn oath by the gods and learned the incantation.

Returning to the city, the Brahmin demonstrated his new skill, producing out-of-season mangoes for King Brahmadatta and receiving in return bags of gold, royal garments, and the title of royal supplier. One morning, as the king savored a fruit, he asked affectionately in open court which renowned Vedic teacher in Takkasila had taught the youth this divine power.

A surge of arrogant shame swept over the youth at the question. Rather than name the Chandala who had given him everything, he told himself that the court would spit on him and strip his honors if he confessed his teacher's low birth. He declared instead that he had learned the charm from a world-famous, purest-blooded Brahmin sage in Takkasila.

At that exact moment, the charm vanished from his heart as completely as water poured onto red-hot iron. An hour later, the king led him into the royal orchard and asked him to recite the charm once more so the queens could witness the miracle. But when the youth sprinkled the tree and tried to chant, his mind was a pitch-black void, and not a single syllable came to him. Trembling, he confessed the lie before the entire court.

Disgraced and powerless, the youth returned to the Chandala sage and begged to be taught the charm a second time, but the sage would have nothing more to do with him. The youth wandered away into the forest with nothing left to show for his months of service or his brief season of royal favor, and he did not find his way back.

What gives this story its lasting sting is that the youth lost nothing he had been tricked out of; he lost only what he himself had sworn to protect and then abandoned at the first moment of real pressure. The charm was never a secret that could be stolen or inherited by birth. It was only a gift that could be kept solely by the truthfulness its keeper had promised, and the Buddha's choice to tell this story of Devadatta's past shows how far back that same pattern of denial reached, long before he denied his teacher a second time in this very life.