The Kaṭṭhahāri Jātaka

The Buddha told this story at Jetavana, and the Jātaka Aṭṭhakathā, the classical Pali commentary that preserves the Jataka tales, numbers it as Jātaka No. 7. It concerns Vāsabhakhattiyā, the daughter of the Sakyan noble Mahānāma and a slave-girl named Nāgamuṇḍā. She later became the consort of the king of Kosala and bore him a son, Viḍūḍabha. When the king learned that her mother had been a slave, he stripped her of her rank and did the same to her son. Mother and child stayed inside the palace and never went out.

Hearing of this, the Buddha came to the palace at dawn with five hundred monks. He sat on the seat prepared for him and asked the king where Vāsabhakhattiyā was. The king told him what had happened. The Buddha then asked whose daughter she was, and the king answered that she was Mahānāma's daughter. He asked to whom she had come as wife, and the king answered that she had come to him.

The Buddha pointed out the plain facts. She was a king's daughter, she was married to a king, and she had borne a king's son. He asked why that son should not hold authority in the realm of his own father. He then said that in days gone by a monarch had a son by a woman who gathered sticks, and the king had given that son his own kingdom. The king asked the Blessed One to explain, and the Buddha told the old story.

In the days when Brahmadatta ruled at Benares, the king went in great state to his pleasure park. He wandered about looking for fruit and flowers. In the grove he came upon a woman who was singing happily as she picked up sticks. The king fell in love with her at first sight and became close to her, and in that moment the Bodhisatta was conceived. When the woman knew she would be a mother, she told the king.

The king took the signet ring from his finger and gave it to her. He told her that if the child was a girl, she should spend the ring on raising her. If the child was a boy, she should bring the ring and the child to him. Then he sent her on her way. In due time she gave birth to the Bodhisatta.

When the boy was old enough to run about and play, the other children taunted him that he had no father. One day somebody struck him, and the cry went up that the fatherless boy was hit. He ran to his mother and asked who his father was. She told him that he was the son of the king of Benares. He asked what proof she had, and she showed him the ring and repeated the king's words. He asked why she did not take him to his father, and when she saw that his mind was made up, she took him to the palace gate.

She had their coming announced and was called in. She bowed to the king and said that this was his son. The king knew perfectly well that it was true. But he felt shame before the whole court, and he said that the boy was no son of his. She showed the ring. He answered that it was not his ring either.

The woman said she had no witness left but truth itself. If the king was the father of her child, she prayed that the child would stay in the air, and if he was not, that he would fall to the ground. With these words she threw the boy up. The Bodhisatta sat cross-legged in the air, and in a sweet voice he spoke a verse to his father. He said that he was the king's son and that the king should rear him, for a king nurtures other people's children, and much more so his own.

When the king heard the child speak the truth from the sky, he stretched out his hands. He cried that none but he would nurture the boy. A thousand hands were stretched out to catch the Bodhisatta. But he settled only into the arms of his father and sat in the king's lap. The king made him viceroy and made his mother the chief queen. When the king died, the boy came to the throne as King Kaṭṭhavāhana, the Wood-Bundle Bearer, and ruled righteously until the end of his days.

At the close, the Buddha linked the two stories and named the birth. Queen Mahāmāyā had been the mother of those days, King Suddhodana had been the father, and he himself had been King Kaṭṭhavāhana. The old tale told Pasenadi that birth to a humble mother did not rob a king's son of his claim.

The Jātaka Aṭṭhakathā preserves this story as a lesson about worth. The boy was judged by his mother's trade, yet the truth of his birth rose above shame and rank. The woman had no proof but her honesty, and she spoke it plainly before the whole court. The tale reminds listeners that status by birth is a thin measure, and that virtue and truth carry weight far beyond it. It also warns of the shame that can make a person deny what he knows to be true, and it shows what such denial costs a family.