Nakkhatta Jataka

While the Buddha was dwelling at Jetavana near Savatthi, his monks fell to discussing a strange event in the Hall of Truth. A country gentleman had arranged for his son to marry a young woman of equal standing from Savatthi, and a day had been fixed for the wedding party to come and fetch the bride. Before setting out, the gentleman consulted a naked ascetic who was an intimate friend of his family, asking whether the stars favored that day for the festivities. Hearing of this, and knowing it had ended badly, the monks wondered aloud at the mischief such advice could cause.

The naked ascetic was deeply offended that the wedding day had already been fixed without his counsel being sought first. Nursing this slight, and wishing to punish the family for the slight to his pride, he waited until they finally came to him and asked about the stars. Rather than admit he had been passed over for a decision already made, he saw his chance to make them regret it.

Looking gravely toward the sky, the ascetic declared that the stars were in a dangerous and unfavorable configuration that very day. He warned that setting out under such an omen would bring disaster upon the family. Trusting him as a longtime spiritual advisor, the country gentleman's household believed every word and stayed home, letting the appointed hour pass without sending word to the bride's family of any change in plan.

In Savatthi, the bride's relatives made ready for the wedding feast and waited through the day for the groom's party to arrive. No message came explaining the delay, and no one appeared. As the hours passed without any sign of the promised procession, the family grew first anxious, then deeply insulted. They felt certain that they had been publicly humiliated by a household that no longer thought them worth honoring.

Unwilling to bear this disgrace in front of the town, the bride's family resolved not to wait any longer. That same evening, they accepted an offer from another suitable young man of Savatthi and gave the young woman in marriage to him instead, with the ceremony completed before nightfall.

The next morning, the original bridegroom's family arrived in their wedding finery, cheerfully expecting to carry the bride home as planned. Instead they were met with the news that she had already been married the previous evening. The household that had waited for them now turned the humiliation back upon them, remarking that their fine attention to the stars had cost them everything that mattered.

A wise man happened to be present when the dispute broke into the open. Hearing how an ascetic's reading of the stars had cost the family their marriage alliance, he spoke a verse that would become the heart of this teaching: "The fool may watch for lucky days, yet profit passes him by; profit itself is profit's own lucky star, for what can mere stars achieve?"

Explaining to his monks that this was not the first time such foolishness had played out, the Buddha told of a similar case long ago, during the reign of King Brahmadatta in Benares. There too, a family that had already fixed their wedding day consulted their household ascetic about the stars. They received only a false warning from one offended that his counsel had not been sought earlier. There too, the waiting family gave their daughter to another suitor rather than endure further delay. When the disappointed family returned the next day, a wise man pointed out that the stars had nothing to do with their loss; only their own hesitation had cost them the match.

Having told the ancient tale, the Buddha identified the birth for his monks. The naked ascetic of the present day had been the very same scheming ascetic of that old Benares story. The families involved were reborn into the same roles they had once played, and the Buddha himself had been the wise man of Benares who spoke the verse exposing the uselessness of waiting on the stars.

The Nakkhatta Jataka, No. 49 in the Ekanipata (the 'Book of Ones,' the first division of the Jataka collection) of the Khuddaka Nikaya's Pali canon, endures because its target is not astrology itself but the excuse-making it so easily enables. An ascetic's wounded pride, dressed up as a warning from the heavens, cost one family a daughter-in-law and taught a whole village that the sky holds no power a willing hand does not already possess. Across two lifetimes the same lesson repeated itself. The only truly auspicious moment is the one a person is brave enough to act upon, for profit and opportunity answer to effort, never to the slow wheeling of the stars.