Mahānāradakassapa Jātaka

The Mahanaradakassapa Jataka, numbered 544 in the Pali collection and recorded in the Jataka Atthakatha, is one of the long Mahanipata birth stories. The Buddha told it in the Latthivana park, in connection with the conversion of Uruvela-Kassapa. After converting that ascetic and his followers, the Buddha had come to the park with a thousand monks who had formerly been ascetics.

The King of Magadha, who had come with a large retinue, sat down after saluting the Buddha. Among the brahmins and householders a dispute arose. Had Uruvela-Kassapa placed himself under the great Samana, or the great Samana under Uruvela-Kassapa? The Blessed One decided to show that Kassapa had come under his guidance, and he asked the elder a question in verse about why he had abandoned his sacred fire. The elder replied that sacrifices speak only of forms, sounds and pleasures. Then the Buddha told this story of the past, at the request of the audience.

In the olden time, in Mithila in the kingdom of Videha, there was a just king named Angati. His chief queen bore a daughter named Ruja, a girl of great merit who had made her aspiration over a hundred thousand ages. The king's other wives had no children, and he loved Ruja dearly. He sent her flowers and fine clothes each day and gave her a thousand pieces so she could give alms every fortnight.

On the full moon of the fourth month, the king stood at a window with his three ministers. They were the general Alata, Sunama and Vijaya. He asked how they should spend such a pleasant night. Alata proposed a campaign to bring unconquered lands under the king's power. Sunama proposed food, song and music. Vijaya replied that pleasures were always near at hand and proposed instead to visit a Samana or brahmin learned in sacred lore who might remove their doubts. The king preferred this last suggestion.

Alata named a naked ascetic of the Kassapa family called Guna, who lived in the deer park. The king drove out in a white chariot and approached him on foot. He asked how a person should act toward parents, teachers, family and subjects, and how some come to heaven and others to hell. Guna gave no true answer. He taught that good and evil deeds bear no fruit, that there is no other world, that beings are carried along by destiny, and that giving is useless.

Alata said that this agreed with his own memory of a past life as a hunter, after which he had been born into a general's family without suffering for it. A slave named Bijaka, who kept the fast days, wept. He recalled a past life as a good, almsgiving man, followed by a hard birth now, and concluded that virtue was useless. The king accepted Guna's view, left without a salute, and told his ministers to arrange all pleasures and to let the three judge cases in his place.

On the fourteenth night, Ruja came to the palace beautifully adorned and asked for a thousand pieces to give to mendicants the next day. The king said that she was wasting money and that fasting had no merit. Ruja answered with courage and love. She said that he who follows children becomes a child, and that a learned king should not fall into so low a doctrine. Acts do bear fruit, she said, like a ship that sinks only when its cargo grows too heavy.

Ruja went on to speak of friends, saying that a person becomes like those he follows. She then said that she remembered seven earlier births. In one she had done wrong, and for it she had suffered in hell and in painful animal births, while a good deed done in another life had since borne fruit in heaven. She expected seven more births, ending as a male god. She asked her father to hear this and to turn from a naked heretic to a good friend. The king was pleased by her sweet words, but did not give up his view.

Ruja could not persuade him. She raised her joined hands in the ten directions and prayed that a righteous Samana, a brahmin, or a god might come to turn her father from his wrong view. The Great Brahma of that time was the Bodhisatta Narada. He saw her prayer and thought that none but he could drive away false teaching. He took the form of an ascetic, golden in colour and richly adorned, and stood in the sky before the king. The king came down from his seat, and the Brahma gave his name as Narada Kassapa, a figure distinct from the ascetic Uruvela-Kassapa of the frame story despite the shared name.

Narada declared that gods, ancestors and another world do exist. The king joked that he would lend five hundred pieces now to be repaid a thousand later. Narada replied that no one lends to someone who dwells in hell. He then described realms of suffering that await those who hold wrong views, in verses meant to shake the king from his certainty. Alarmed, the king asked for refuge and for the path of purity. Narada named righteous kings of old and compared the body to a chariot driven by virtues, a picture of the whole path. Then he told the king to follow good friends and returned to the Brahma world.

The Master said that not only now but formerly too he had converted Uruvela-Kassapa and cut the net of wrong views that bound him. Then he identified the birth. Devadatta was Alata, Bhaddaji was Sunama, Sariputta was Vijaya, Moggallana was Bijaka, and the ascetic Guna was Sunakkhatta. Ananda was Ruja, and Uruvela-Kassapa was the king. The Bodhisatta was the Great Brahma.

The Jataka shows how a wrong view can win a pleasant hearing. The king was offered a doctrine with no cost and gladly took it. Ruja shows another way of speaking. She does not shame her father. She tells him what she remembers, offers an image he can follow, and then asks the gods for help. The Brahma succeeds because he first meets the king where he stands, and only then leads him on. The story ends with the king returned to virtue, and with a chariot-image that remains one of the clearest summaries of the path.