Cullakaseṭṭhi Jātaka

The Buddha told this story, No. 4 of the Ekanipāta of the Khuddaka Nikāya, while staying at Jīvaka's Mango Grove near Rājagaha, concerning the elder known as Cūḻapanthaka, or Little Wayman. His own brother, Great Wayman, had expelled him from the monastery after four months in which he could not memorize even a single stanza. Yet the Buddha himself took the discouraged monk in hand, taught him a simple meditation, and Little Wayman swiftly attained full enlightenment. When the other monks praised the Buddha for raising up a pupil everyone else had given up on, the Buddha told them that he had done the very same thing once before, in a former life.

Long ago in Benares, under King Brahmadatta, the Bodhisatta was born into a wealthy family and rose to become the royal treasurer, known far and wide as Cullakaseṭṭhi, the Wise Treasurer. He had mastered the reading of omens and the movements of the stars so thoroughly that he could judge the shape of a fortune from the smallest sign.

One morning, walking toward the palace, Cullakaseṭṭhi saw a dead mouse lying in the road. Reading the omen, he remarked aloud to those near him that any decent young fellow with his wits about him had only to pick up that dead mouse to start a business and build himself a fortune.

A penniless young man of good family, left without a coin after his father's death, overheard the treasurer's words and trusted them completely. He picked up the mouse by its tail and sold it to a tavern-keeper for a single small coin to feed a hungry cat.

With that one coin, the youth bought a little molasses, drew cool water from the river, and sat at the city gate offering refreshment to flower-gatherers returning tired from the forest. Grateful for his kindness, each gave him a handful of blossoms, which he sold in the market that evening for a tidy profit. He repeated this simple trade day after day until he had saved eight pieces of silver.

When a great storm tore down branches and deadwood across the king's pleasure garden, the royal gardener despaired of clearing it. The youth offered to clear the whole garden in exchange for the fallen wood, then paid local children in sweets to gather it into a single heap by the gate. The king's own potter, needing fuel for his kiln, bought the entire pile along with his gratitude.

With his growing funds, the youth set up a resting place offering water to five hundred grass-cutters entering the city, asking nothing in return but their goodwill. When he later learned that a horse-dealer was approaching with five hundred horses and no fodder arranged, he asked each grass-cutter for a single bundle and sold the horse-dealer the entire supply at a commanding price, earning a thousand coins in a single transaction.

Hearing that a merchant ship had docked at the harbor, the youth dressed as a man of standing, rode down with hired attendants, and secured the entire cargo with his signet ring as a deposit before any other buyer arrived. When a hundred merchants of Benares came to purchase goods from the ship, they found it already claimed, and each paid him handsomely for a share, until in that single day he had gathered two hundred thousand pieces of gold.

Remembering that his entire fortune had sprung from one offhand remark of the royal treasurer, the young man loaded a hundred thousand gold pieces onto a golden tray and carried it to Cullakaseṭṭhi's house as an offering of thanks. When the astonished treasurer asked how he had gained such wealth, the youth told the whole story, from the dead mouse to the ship's cargo. Moved by his wit and his loyalty, Cullakaseṭṭhi gave him his own daughter in marriage and made him heir to his entire estate, and upon the treasurer's death the youth succeeded him as the royal treasurer of Benares.

When the tale was finished, the Buddha identified the participants for the assembled monks: the enterprising youth of that birth was Little Wayman himself, already then a pupil capable of extraordinary growth when given the right start; and the wise treasurer Cullakaseṭṭhi, who saw the youth's potential in a single remark and later rewarded his gratitude, was the Bodhisatta.

The Cullakaseṭṭhi Jātaka is remembered as one of the clearest canonical teachings on how a small beginning, approached with patience, honesty, and attentive observation of opportunity, can grow into great wealth without any single dishonest step. It is retold specifically to show that the same pattern of transformation holds for spiritual growth: just as the penniless youth needed only a single word of guidance to begin building a fortune, the discouraged Little Wayman needed only the Buddha's patient instruction to move from being judged incapable to attaining full liberation in that very life.