Gagga Jataka

Jataka No. 155 of the Pali Canon explains the origin of a custom that is still alive among people today. One day, while the Buddha was teaching near Jetavana, he sneezed, and the monks around him called out together, "Long life!", making such a commotion that his talk was interrupted. The Buddha asked whether a man lives or dies any the more because of those words, and he forbade the monks to say them. Laypeople, however, kept wishing the monks long life when they sneezed, and the monks, out of scruple, gave no reply, which displeased the people. The Buddha said that common folk are given to such beliefs and permitted the monks to answer, "The same to you." Then he told the following story of how the exchange began.

In the days of King Brahmadatta of Benares, the Bodhisatta was born in the kingdom of Kasi as the son of a lawyer. When the boy was about sixteen, he travelled to Benares with his father, who was carrying a fine jewel. They arrived too late in the day to find lodging in the city, and they were told of a building outside the walls. The townspeople warned them that it was haunted by a yaksha, but the father chose to stay there anyway, and the son went with him.

The yaksha living there, a powerful nature-spirit capable of great malevolence, had served Vessavana, lord of the yakshas, for twelve long years and in return had won the right to devour whoever entered the building. The one exception was a person who, on sneezing, was wished long life and answered the blessing in kind. Anyone who failed that courtesy was his to eat.

The father lay down on a bench while his son massaged his feet. In the stillness, the yaksha raised a cloud of dust that drifted into the old man's nostrils, and Gagga sneezed. The son, absorbed in his task, said nothing.

At once the yaksha began to come down toward the father, certain that his long-awaited condition had been met. Before the creature could close the distance, the Bodhisatta's mind cleared, and he understood what his silence was about to cost his father and why the sneeze had come.

The Bodhisatta spoke a verse of blessing over his father, wishing him a long life and freedom from any ogre who would devour him. The yaksha reasoned that he could not eat a son who had blessed his father, and so he turned toward the father. Gagga, seeing the danger, understood at once what his son had seen, and he answered with a verse returning the blessing to his son. The yaksha stopped where he stood. His one condition had been answered in both directions, and he had no claim left on either traveler.

Rather than fleeing, the Bodhisatta questioned the yaksha, who explained the privilege he had earned. The Bodhisatta spoke to him of the suffering that awaited any being who lived by devouring others, and he warned him that hell lay ahead. The yaksha accepted the five precepts of a harmless life and became the Bodhisatta's obedient servant. When the king heard of it the next day, he made the youth commander of his army and honored the father, and he appointed the yaksha a collector of dues. The yaksha kept the precepts, gave alms, and in time went to heaven.

What makes the story linger is how little separated rescue from disaster. A single sneeze, a single unguarded moment of silence, and a few words spoken just in time closed the very gap the yaksha had been waiting twelve years to see opened. The travelers had been warned about the building, yet they stayed, and it was only the Bodhisatta's own alertness and quick answer that let him recognize the danger and meet it before it was too late.

At the story's end, the Buddha identified the king as Ananda and the father, Gagga, as his disciple Maha Kassapa, and declared that he himself had been the quick-witted son. In some versions the yaksha is named as Angulimala. The tale shows where the exchange of blessings over a sneeze began, which is why the Buddha, though he forbade monks to bless a sneeze, allowed them to reply "The same to you."