Rathalaṭṭhi Jātaka

Jataka No. 332 of the Pali Canon was told by the Buddha at Jetavana concerning the family chaplain of the King of Kosala. While driving his chariot to a village on his estate, the chaplain met a caravan of carts on a narrow road and shouted again and again for them to clear his way. When one cart did not move aside, he threw his goad-stick at the driver of the first cart. The stick struck the yoke of his own chariot, rebounded, and hit him on the forehead, raising a bump. He went back to the king and claimed that the carters had attacked and wounded him. The carters were summoned, and the judges found that the chaplain alone was to blame. When the monks spoke of the case in the Dhamma Hall, the Buddha said that the chaplain had done the same thing before, and he recalled a story from Benares.

In that former life, Brahmadatta was king of Benares, and the Bodhisatta served him as his lord justice, a wise minister of the law.

The king's chaplain, who was also the headman of a village, drove out to that village in his chariot. On the way he met a caravan of carts on a narrow road, and just as in the later story, he shouted for the carts to clear his way. One of them did not move aside.

Angered, the chaplain threw his goad-stick at the driver of the first cart. It struck the yoke of his own chariot, rebounded, and hit him on the forehead, raising a bump from a mishap entirely of his own making.

The chaplain went to the king and complained that the carters had struck him. This time the king did not examine the facts. He summoned the carters, pronounced them guilty of wounding his chaplain, and ordered all their goods to be confiscated.

The Bodhisatta objected. He told the king that some people wound themselves and then accuse another, and that a ruler must not act until he has heard the whole case.

The Bodhisatta spoke four verses. The first observed that the one who has wounded another may display his own wound, and the one who struck the blow may be the one who complains. The second counselled wise rulers to beware of partial views and to hear both sides before giving a true judgement. The third warned that a king who decides a case unheard acts wrongly, and that anger cannot be justified in a wise person. The fourth praised the ruler who gives a carefully weighed verdict, like a righteous judge, as one who earns a lasting good name.

The king listened, heard the case in full, and judged it righteously. The blame fell on the chaplain alone, and the carters were not punished.

The Bodhisatta's counsel stands for the responsibility every ruler carries to hear a claim with real care before passing judgment. A king who punishes on the strength of accusation alone risks harming the innocent exactly as readily as he punishes the guilty.

The Buddha closed the Jataka by identifying the chaplain as the same person in both stories, and the wise lord justice as himself. The difference between innocent carters ruined and innocent carters saved had never been the accusation itself. It was only whether someone in power would hear both sides before believing it.

What saved the carters in the end was not a clever argument but the simple counsel to listen before judging. A ruler willing to hear both the accuser and the accused would rarely need to rely on anyone's word alone, and the truth of what happened usually came to light for anyone patient enough to ask.