Maṭṭakuṇḍalī Jātaka

The Buddha told Jātaka No. 449, as the Jātaka Atthakatha (the traditional Pali commentary on the Jataka verses) records it, at Sāvatthi. A wealthy landowner of that city had lost his son and was overcome with grief. He no longer cared for himself, he no longer came to attend the Buddha, and he took no interest in his affairs.

The Buddha saw that the man was ready for the Dhamma. He went with the elder Ānanda to the man's house and asked about his sorrow. He told the landowner that wise people of old, who had been afflicted by grief at a son's death, listened to the words of the wise, saw clearly that nothing could bring back the lost, and felt no grief. Then he told of a former birth.

When Brahmadatta reigned in Benares, a wealthy brahmin there had a son. The boy fell ill and died at fifteen or sixteen. He was reborn in the world of the gods.

His father could not bear it. He went again and again to the cemetery and wept beside the heap of ashes. From heaven the son, now reborn as a deva (a heavenly being), saw him and decided to help.

The deva took on the form he had worn in his last life. He adorned himself with all kinds of ornaments, including polished earrings, which give the story its name, Maṭṭakuṇḍalī. He stood in the cemetery holding his head in both hands, weeping.

The brahmin came and saw him. He asked in verse why this splendid youth stood sorrowing in such a place.

The youth answered that his chariot was made of fine gold and shone brilliantly, but he could not find a pair of wheels for it. The brahmin offered to have a chariot with any wheels he liked made for him.

The youth said the wheels he wanted were the moon and the sun. The brahmin told him that he was foolish to seek what he could never obtain.

The youth then turned the words around. The moon and the sun, he said, can at least be seen, rising and setting. But the one the brahmin was mourning was gone and could not be seen again. Which of the two of them was the greater fool?

The brahmin recognised the truth. He said that he was the greater fool. He told the youth that grief had been like a fire burning in him and that the youth had come like water to put it out. He said that the youth had drawn out a cruel dart from his heart, and that he was now free from pain and grief.

The youth then said who he was. He was the brahmin's son, reborn among the gods. He told his father not to grieve for him from that day, but to give alms, keep the precepts and observe the holy Uposatha day.

The brahmin did as he was told. He gave and kept the precepts, and when his life ended he was reborn in the world of the gods.

After the Buddha told the story, the landowner became established in the fruit of the First Path, that of the stream-enterer. The Buddha declared the Truths and identified the birth. He said that he himself had been the deva who gave that admonition.

Jātaka No. 449 does not argue with sorrow. It offers a small and strange picture: a young man in a cemetery asking for the moon. The father hears how absurd it is, and in hearing it, he sees his own grief in a new light.

The consolation is not that the dead are nothing. The son is alive among the gods, and he wants his father to live well. What the story takes away is the impossible hope of getting back what has passed, and what it leaves is a plain instruction: give, keep the precepts, and observe Uposatha.

The Buddha chose this story for a man who had stopped eating, working and visiting the monastery. He did not begin with doctrine. He began with a picture a grieving father could follow, and let the father's own words, I am the greater fool, do the teaching. The Uposatha, the observance day kept on the days of the moon's phases, is a fitting closing note, since the moon itself had just been the subject of the dialogue.