Ayakuta Jataka

Jataka No. 347 of the Pali Canon was told at Jetavana. The monks were sitting in the Dhamma Hall praising the Buddha's tireless work for the good of others, and the Buddha, entering, told them that he had acted for the world's welfare in the past as well. The tale is linked with the Mahakanha Jataka, and the Buddha's words reminded the monks that his compassion for beings was no new thing, but a habit of many lifetimes.

In Benares, the Bodhisatta was born as the son of King Brahmadatta's chief queen. He was trained in the arts, and after his father's death he ruled righteously, with loving-kindness and justice. Noticing that many of his subjects slaughtered goats, rams, and other animals in rites meant to honour the spirits, he had it proclaimed by drum that no living creature was to be killed.

The yakkhas, angry at losing their offerings, gathered in the Himalayas and sent a savage yakkha to kill the king who had cut off their feast. The yakkha came carrying a huge blazing mass of iron, as large as the dome of a house, and after midnight he stood at the head of the king's bed, ready to strike.

At that moment, in the Tavatimsa heaven, the throne of Sakka, king of the gods, grew hot. Sakka looked to see the cause, saw the danger to the righteous king, took up his thunderbolt, and stood over the yakkha.

The king, waking, saw the yakkha hovering in mid-air with his iron bolt and asked in verse whether he had come to guard him or to destroy him. The yakkha answered that he was a messenger of the Rakkhasas, sent to kill the king, but that the fiery bolt was useless against a head that Sakka himself shielded, so he dared not strike. The king replied that if Sakka, lord of the gods, championed his cause, no howling Pisacas or Rakkhasas could frighten him. Even if the goblins gibbered and shrieked, he added, they were no match for so stern a contest, for the king stood on the side of harmlessness, and the lord of the gods stood beside him. These four verses, the whole of the exchange, are what give the Jataka its place among the fours of the canon, and they show the king answering a deadly threat with calm clarity rather than fear.

Sakka put the yakkha to flight and told the king not to fear. He promised to protect him from then on, and returned to his own abode. The king, who had just been the target of a plot by the angry spirits, was left unharmed, and his proclamation that no living creature should be killed stood firm. The hungry spirits had lost their offerings, but the realm gained a ruler whose compassion even a blazing iron bolt could not shake.

The king's ban on blood sacrifice had been meant to spare animals from needless slaughter. Yet the story shows it drawing a guardian from the Tavatimsa heaven to the king's bedside at the moment one was needed. The decree itself asked for no protection; the protection came as a consequence of the same virtue the decree expressed.

The king's calm in the face of a blazing iron bolt is the heart of the tale. He had banned the sacrifices because the killing was wrong, not for any reward, and when the danger came he answered the yakkha without terror, trusting in the guardian who stood for righteousness. Even a king with every resource of a palace could not have stilled that weapon himself; safety came from the quiet consistency of a life already lived well.

At the close the Buddha identified the characters: Sakka of that time was Anuruddha, and the righteous king of Benares was the Buddha himself. A life kept faithfully within truth and harmlessness builds its own defence long before danger appears.