Kaṇhadīpāyana Jātaka

The Buddha told Jātaka No. 444, as the Jātaka Atthakatha records it, about a monk who had grown discontented and wished to leave the order. The Buddha said that wise ascetics of old, when their practice went poorly, did not announce their failure to the world. Then he told of a former birth.

In the land of Vaṁsa, two wealthy brahmins, who were friends, saw the dangers of sensual desire. They gave away their goods and went to the Himālaya as ascetics. For fifty years they practised, and in all that time they did not attain meditative absorption.

Later they came down to Kāsi, where they met Maṇḍavya, a householder and an old friend of theirs. He gave them shelter and their requisites for three or four seasons.

One of the two ascetics, the future Maṇḍavya the Peg, was staying in a hut when a thief dropped a bundle of stolen goods near it. The townspeople found it and wrongly took him for the thief. Without inquiry the king ordered him impaled. Stakes of acacia and nimb could not pierce him, and neither could one of iron. Only a stake of ebony went through.

Looking back over his past lives, he understood why. In an earlier birth, as a carpenter's son, he had once pierced a fly on a splinter of ebony. The deed had ripened. Because of the stake he is remembered as Maṇḍavya the Peg.

When Dīpāyana heard, he came and sat beside his impaled friend. Blood from Maṇḍavya's body dripped on him and left dark spots on his body. From that time he was called Black Dīpāyana, Kaṇhadīpāyana.

The king then realised his mistake. He ordered the stake removed, but it could not be drawn out and was sawn off flush with the body. He settled both ascetics in his park.

One day Dīpāyana went to the home of Maṇḍavya the householder. The man's young son, Yaññadatta, went to fetch his ball, and a snake from an ant-hill bit him. His parents carried him out and begged the ascetic for help.

Dīpāyana made an Act of Truth, a solemn statement of fact meant to heal. He spoke of the little time when his practice had come from a glad heart, against the fifty years in which he had lived the holy life unwillingly. As he spoke, the poison left the boy's chest.

Then the father spoke his own truth. He said that he had welcomed every guest, but had given without a willing heart, and that the wise had not seen his reluctance. The poison left the boy's back.

Finally the mother spoke. She said that she felt the same toward the serpent as toward her husband. At these words the poison fell away altogether. Yaññadatta rose and played.

The cure had exposed what each of them was hiding. The householder asked Dīpāyana why, if he lived the holy life unwillingly, he kept to it. Dīpāyana answered that he was afraid of being thought a fool. The householder was asked in turn why he gave unwillingly, and he said it was the custom of his family. Then he asked his wife why she was cold to him, and she too said that it was the custom of the house. She feared her secret would now be known and begged his pardon.

The Bodhisatta, Dīpāyana, told Maṇḍavya the householder to believe that gifts bear fruit and to give with faith. Maṇḍavya the householder answered by urging Dīpāyana to practise the holy life with a tranquil heart. All of them took the advice. The wife grew to love her husband. The householder gave in faith. Dīpāyana developed the absorptions and the higher knowledges, and was destined for the Brahma world.

The Buddha taught the Truths, and the discontented monk became established in the fruit of the First Path. The Buddha then identified the birth. Ānanda was the householder Maṇḍavya, Visākhā was his wife, Rāhula was the son, Sāriputta was Maṇḍavya the Peg, and the Buddha himself was Black Dīpāyana.

Jātaka No. 444 shows an Act of Truth in an unusual way. Each speaker tells a truth that costs something. None of them claims a virtue. They admit their reluctance, and the poison leaves.

The story does not treat reluctance as a final judgement. Once the truth was said, all three chose to practise with a willing heart. For a discontented monk, that is the quiet turn of the story. An honest account of a divided mind can be where a change in practice begins.