The Archer Who Became a Sage

At Jetavana, after the Buddha honored the memory of the elder Moggallana upon his death, some monks wondered aloud why Sariputta had received no such honor, since he had not died in the Buddha's presence. The Buddha answered that Moggallana had been honored this way before as well, in an age long past, and told the story to show them how.

The Bodhisatta was born as Jotipala, son of the chaplain to the king of Benares. Trained at Takkasila, he mastered archery so completely that he could perform twelve unrivaled feats with the bow, including the fabled arrow-defence and the pierced-circle shot, and the king resolved to make him commander-in-chief of the entire royal army.

On the very night before he was to receive that honor, Jotipala reflected on what it would actually mean: a life built on the ability to kill would lead inevitably to more death, more wrongdoing, and eventually to rebirth in hell. Rather than wait for morning, he slipped away that same night without telling his family or the king, and went alone to the forest near the Godhavari River to take up the ascetic life.

There he took the name Sarabhanga, and within seven days of effort attained the eight meditative attainments and the five higher knowledges. Sakka himself built a hermitage for the many followers who gathered around him, and as the community grew too large for one site, his seven chief pupils, Salissara, Mendissara, Pabbata, Kaladevala, Kisavaccha, Anusissa, and Narada, each established hermitages of their own nearby.

Trouble came to the gentle ascetic Kisavaccha through a courtesan King Dandaki had cast out of favor. She spat on Kisavaccha and cursed him as Kalakanni, "Bad Luck," and once restored to the king's favor, she convinced him that blaming his own misfortunes on the ascetic would bring him good fortune in return. Before a battle, Dandaki and his entire army took up the same curse against the innocent holy man, ignoring his own commander's warning that the gods were angered and that the whole kingdom would fall within seven days.

Sarabhanga, learning of the danger, went himself and carried Kisavaccha to safety before the reckoning came. It arrived exactly as warned: a shower first of flowers and coins to tempt the greedy out from shelter, then of blazing weapons, scorching embers, and fire, destroying sixty leagues of Dandaki's kingdom entirely.

Word of this fate reached three neighboring kings, Kalinga, Atthaka, and Bhimaratha, who learned that it was not the first such destruction. King Kalabu had once been swallowed by the earth for his cruelty to the ascetic Khantivadi, King Nalikira had been destroyed for setting dogs upon holy men, and King Ajjuna had perished for slaying the sage Angirasa. Shaken by this pattern, the three kings resolved to seek Sarabhanga's counsel directly.

Sakka, king of the gods, arrived at the hermitage with the very same question in mind, exchanging courteous verses with the pupil Anusissa before the whole assembly gathered before Sarabhanga himself. Sakka asked him in turn about patience under harsh speech, about the true meaning of virtue, wisdom, piety, and fortune, about why wisdom stands supreme above all other virtues, and about where the four destroyed kings had been reborn.

Sarabhanga answered every question in full, naming the Kukkula hell that held Dandaki, the dogs' jaws that had claimed Nalikira, the torments awaiting Ajjuna, and the fire still scorching Kalabu. He taught that a wise person, hearing such fates, never again wrongs a monk or brahmin and wins heaven through right action alone. The Buddha then revealed who each hearer had been in that past life: Sariputta was Salissara, Kassapa was Mendissara, Anuruddha was Pabbata, Kaccayana was Kaladevala, Ananda was Anusissa, and Kolita, who would become Moggallana himself, was the rescued Kisavaccha. He himself, he said, had been Sarabhanga. Jataka No. 522 of the Pali Canon's Mahanipata records the tale under this telling.

Jotipala's decision cost him nothing anyone around him could see in advance; he simply walked into the forest before morning rather than after. Yet that single night's choice is what let him become the teacher three kings and the king of the gods would later cross the land to consult. No command of armies, however skillfully earned, could ever have produced that transformation on its own.