Nigrodha Jātaka

Jataka No. 445 of the Pali Canon was told by the Buddha at the Bamboo Grove. Some monks reminded Devadatta that the Buddha had given him everything: his ordination, his knowledge of the Three Baskets, his meditative absorptions, and a share in the Buddha's glory. Devadatta answered by holding up a blade of grass and saying the ascetic Gotama had not done him even that much good. When the Buddha heard the monks discussing this in the Dhamma Hall, he said Devadatta had shown the same ingratitude toward a friend in a former life.

In Rajagaha, under King Magadha, a merchant's wife who had no child pretended to be with child so that she would not be shamed before her husband's family. On her way to her father's house she passed a banyan tree where a poor woman had given birth and, unable to keep up with her caravan, left the infant at its foot. The tree's deity protected him. The child was the Bodhisatta. The merchant's wife took him as her own, and the family named him Nigrodha, "Master Banyan," for the place of his birth. The same day a merchant's family bore a son beneath a tree branch, named Sakha, "Branch," and a tailor's wife bore a son, named Pottika. The three boys grew up together and went to Taxila for their education.

After their studies the three set out to see the customs of the country and reached Benares. The king had died seven days earlier, and a proclamation announced that the ceremonial chariot would go out the next morning. They slept beneath a tree, and Pottika woke at dawn and began to rub Nigrodha's feet. Above them two fowls were roosting, and the upper one let its droppings fall on the lower. When the lower bird complained, the upper boasted that whoever killed and ate him would receive a thousand pieces of money that morning. The lower scoffed and said that whoever ate his fat would become king that very morning, whoever ate his middle flesh would become commander-in-chief, and whoever ate the flesh around his bones would become treasurer.

Pottika heard this and judged that kingship was the best prize. He climbed the tree, killed the bird, and cooked it over embers. He gave the fat to Nigrodha, the middle flesh to Sakha, and kept for himself the flesh around the bones. He then announced that Nigrodha would be king, Sakha commander-in-chief, and he himself treasurer, and when they asked how he knew, he told them what the fowls had said.

At the first meal of the day they were given rice porridge with ghee and sugar at a brahmin's house, and then went into the royal park, where Nigrodha lay down on a stone slab. At that moment the ceremonial chariot, bearing the five royal emblems, arrived and stopped before him. The royal chaplain, reasoning that a being of great merit must be present, entered the park, uncovered Nigrodha's feet, and studied the marks on them. He declared that this man was destined to rule all of Jambudipa, not Benares alone, and ordered the musicians to play. Nigrodha woke, saw the crowd, and sat up cross-legged. The chaplain knelt and offered him the kingdom, and Nigrodha was seated on a heap of jewels and anointed king.

Nigrodha made Sakha commander-in-chief and entered the city in grand procession with Pottika at his side, and from then on he ruled righteously. Later he thought of his parents and asked Sakha to bring them with a large escort. Sakha refused, saying it was no concern of his, so Nigrodha asked Pottika, who went to the village and invited all three families. They each declined, saying they had enough, and the tailors' families said they were content with their trade.

Pottika returned to Benares. Wishing to rest before seeing the king, he went first to Sakha's house and asked the doorkeeper to announce his old comrade. Sakha, resentful that Pottika had given the kingdom to Nigrodha rather than to him, flew into a rage, called Pottika a low-born nobody, and had his men beat him and throw him out of the house.

Pottika then went to the palace, where Nigrodha received him warmly, rose to greet him, and had him bathed, dressed, and fed. When Sakha, fearing slander, came to the palace too, Pottika told the king in front of him what had happened, and spoke three verses on the ingratitude of such a man. Nigrodha replied with four verses, saying that he had shared his power with both of them and that doing good for an ungrateful man is like sowing seed in fire, while good done to the grateful is never wasted. Sakha stood silent, and the king ordered him seized and put to death. But Pottika pleaded for Sakha's life, saying that a life once lost cannot be restored, and asked the king to forgive him.

The king forgave Sakha. He offered Pottika the post of commander-in-chief, but Pottika declined it, so the king made him treasurer and gave him authority over all the merchant guilds, an office that had not existed before and that continued afterward. Pottika thus received the third portion the fowl had foretold.

At the story's end, the Buddha said that Devadatta had been ungrateful in the past as well, and identified the characters: Devadatta was Sakha, Ananda was Pottika, and the Buddha himself was Nigrodha.

What made Pottika's story worth retelling was not the crown his quick thought gave to Nigrodha, nor the command it gave to Sakha. It was that he gave the better portions to his friends and took the smallest for himself. When the friend he had served turned on him, he did not ask for punishment but begged for that friend's life. His mercy was hardest to offer exactly where it was least deserved, and that is why the Buddha held it up.