Biḷāri-Kosiya Jātaka

The Buddha told this story, No. 450 of the Jataka collection within the Khuddaka Nikāya, while dwelling at Jetavana, concerning a monk who had become a devoted and joyful giver of alms. The monks remarked on how thoroughly this brother had changed from his earlier faithless and miserly ways, and the Buddha explained that his transformation echoed a far older one from a past life, when an entire family line of generous givers had nearly ended in a single ungrateful descendant.

Long ago in Benares there lived a merchant of great wealth who delighted in almsgiving and built a splendid almshouse for travelers and the poor. When he died, his merit carried him to rebirth as Sakka, King of the Gods. His son continued the family's generosity so faithfully that he was in turn reborn as Canda, the Moon deity. The next generation gave birth to Suriya, the Sun deity, and the one after that became Mātali, Sakka's own charioteer; a further descendant became Pañcasikha, a celestial musician. Five generations in a row had kept the family's tradition of generosity alive even beyond death. But the sixth heir, a merchant named Biḷārikosiya, broke the pattern entirely: he hoarded his fortune, despised beggars, and would not part with so much as a grain of rice.

One day, returning from an audience with the king, Biḷārikosiya paused beneath the seventh gate-tower of his mansion. There Sakka appeared before him disguised as a wandering brahmin and asked for food. Biḷārikosiya refused at first, but when Sakka recited verses on the lasting fruit of generosity, the miser grudgingly let him pass through the gate.

No sooner had Sakka entered than a second brahmin appeared: Canda, who warned in verse that misers are reborn to hunger and thirst. Biḷārikosiya let him in as well. A third visitor, Suriya, spoke of how the wicked descend to the realms below while the virtuous rise to heaven; he too was admitted. A fourth, Mātali, taught that even a small gift given with a willing heart outweighs abundant wealth given without love; Biḷārikosiya yielded again. Finally Pañcasikha arrived, teaching that a gift offered righteously surpasses any gift offered merely for show. Reluctantly, all five guests were now standing together inside the innermost courtyard.

Determined to rid himself of his unwelcome guests as cheaply as possible, Biḷārikosiya first offered unhusked rice, then husked but plain rice, and at last ordinary fodder meant for animals. The five celestial visitors pretended to choke on this miserable fare and collapsed as though gravely ill in full view of the household.

Terrified that such a scandal before witnesses would ruin his reputation, Biḷārikosiya hastily ordered fine rice to be cooked and summoned neighbors to see him make amends. But when the five "brahmins" revived, they rose before the gathered crowd and openly exposed how shabbily he had first tried to feed them, leaving his hypocrisy plain for all to see.

Sakka then cast off his disguise and declared his true identity: he was the very ancestor whose almsgiving had first raised the family to such fortune, now reborn as King of the Gods. He reminded Biḷārikosiya that each of the other four visitors was likewise a forebear of their line, elevated through the same power of generosity that Biḷārikosiya alone had abandoned. As Sakka spoke, all five rose blazing into the air, their radiance so great that the city below seemed to catch fire, and he warned that continued miserliness would lead only to rebirth in hell.

Shaken to his core, Biḷārikosiya vowed before Sakka and his household never again to eat or drink anything, down to a single cup of water, without first sharing it with another. He kept this vow faithfully for the rest of his life, restoring his family's long tradition of generosity, and upon death he was reborn in the Heaven of the Thirty-Three, the heavenly realm ruled by Sakka.

When the tale was finished, the Buddha identified the participants for the assembled monks: the reformed Biḷārikosiya of that birth was the very monk now praised for his devotion to alms-giving; Sāriputta had been Canda; Moggallāna had been Suriya; Kassapa had been Mātali; Ānanda had been Pañcasikha; and the Buddha himself had been Sakka, King of the Gods, who returned to save his own wayward descendant from the ruin of stinginess.

The Biḷārikosiya Jātaka stands as a vivid canonical teaching on the perfection of generosity (dāna-pāramitā) and on how a family's accumulated merit can be squandered by a single heir's stinginess, yet still be recovered through patient instruction rather than punishment. Sakka's five-fold approach, moving gently from a simple request to a full revelation, shows a teacher's compassion working in careful stages rather than through sudden rebuke, while the miser's public shame becomes the very turning point that restores him. The story was retold to the Jetavana community because it illustrated the same arc in miniature: a single faithless monk, instructed patiently, could still become as devoted a giver as the five celestial visitors themselves.