Nakula Jātaka

Jataka No. 165 of the Dukanipata, in the Pali Canon, was told at Jetavana. Two high-ranking officers serving the king of Kosala insulted each other constantly, and neither the king, nor their friends, nor their relatives could reconcile them. The Buddha, seeing that both were ready for the First Path, visited each of them on his alms round and taught each man the benefits of loving-kindness.

After the Buddha declared the Truths, both men attained the Fruit of the First Path. They confessed their faults to each other and ate together in the Buddha's presence. The monks marvelled at the reconciliation in the Dhamma Hall, and the Buddha told them that he had reconciled these two before, in a past life.

When King Brahmadatta reigned in Benares, the Bodhisatta was born into a Brahmin family, renounced the household life and became an ascetic in the Himalayas. He lived on wild roots and fruits. Along the end of his walking path lived a mongoose in an ant-hill, and a snake in a hollow tree, and the two were forever quarrelling.

Seeing their constant strife, the Bodhisatta taught the snake and the mongoose the misery that quarrels bring and the value of peace. He urged them to stop fighting and live in harmony. They accepted his teaching, the enmity ended, and the snake no longer threatened the mongoose.

Some time later, while the snake was out, the mongoose lay asleep at the end of the walking path with its head outside its ant-hill, its mouth open, breathing heavily. The ascetic saw it and asked what it was afraid of. His question took the form of a verse: having made a truce with the snake, its old enemy born from an egg, why did the mongoose lie sleeping with its teeth bared, and what fear had come upon it?

The mongoose replied in a verse of its own: one should make arrangements with one's enemies, yet not place full trust even in friends. Fear that arises where there is no real cause can cut through the very roots of one's well-being, and even a friend's faults, once understood, can lead to that ruin. The mongoose's wariness was not hatred. It was the habit of a creature that had learned caution the hard way.

The Bodhisatta told the mongoose not to be afraid. He had persuaded the snake not to harm it, so the mongoose should stop distrusting the snake. He did not rebuke the mongoose for its caution; he answered it with a promise he had already made good. In that assurance the mongoose could set down the fear it had been carrying.

The Bodhisatta then cultivated the four Divine Abidings (brahmavihara): loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity. Turning toward the Brahma realm, he came to rest there, and the other beings in the story passed on to their future destinations according to their deeds.

The Buddha closed the account by linking the two stories. The two officers who had been reconciled were the snake and the mongoose of that earlier time, and the Bodhisatta was the ascetic who made peace between them.

The two verses give the story its balance. The first asks, with kindness, what lies behind a fear that a truce was meant to remove. The second answers with plain worldly prudence about enemies and friends. The Jataka does not tell the mongoose its caution is a failing; it shows a teacher who had first taught peace and then stood behind the peace he had made. For anyone in a long quarrel, the lesson is to teach peace gently and to stand behind it when the other side is still afraid. The same pattern appears in the frame story: the Buddha went to each officer separately, taught loving-kindness, and only then did the two men face one another and confess their faults. Reconciliation in both tales begins with a patient teacher who goes to each side in turn, and it holds because the teacher remains present afterward to answer the fear that the quarrel left behind.