The Gift of Two Oxen

The Teacher told this story while dwelling at Jetavana concerning the elder Lāḷudāyī, known among the monks as 'Udāyī the Simpleton.' Whenever this elder rose to speak before even a small gathering, nervousness overcame him. He said precisely the opposite of what he intended — the wrong word at a wedding, the wrong word at a funeral. When the brethren remarked on this strange failing, the Buddha told them it was nothing new. Lāḷudāyī had done the very same thing once before, in a much earlier birth, and at the monks' request he related the following tale.

In the past, when King Brahmadatta reigned in Varanasi, the Bodhisatta was born into the humble family of a poor rural peasant in the kingdom of Kāsi. Endowed with brilliant intellect, he journeyed to Takkasila and mastered the three Vedas and all the courtly sciences. Yet he returned home only to find his family still sunk in poverty. He went on to Benares and entered the king's service. There his integrity and charming speech so pleased King Brahmadatta that he was raised to the rank of chief royal confidant and beloved favorite, named Pandit Somadatta.

Meanwhile, Somadatta's elderly father continued to till his small family plot in a distant village with a pair of working oxen. One day, one of the two oxen collapsed from fatigue and died, leaving the old farmer unable to plough his furrow. The father journeyed to the capital and said to his son: 'Dear Somadatta, one of my oxen is dead and I cannot buy another. You are the king's close favorite; ask the Great King to grant me a single ox.' The Bodhisatta replied gently: 'Father, those who serve kings do not beg for personal favors; it compromises honor. But come, I shall take you before the king, and you yourself shall petition His Majesty.' The old man confessed that he was far too bashful to speak even a single sentence before strangers, let alone before a king.

Knowing his father was unlettered and timid, Somadatta took him every evening to the charnel ground outside the city, where no one would disturb the lessons. He bundled together clumps of sweet bīraṇa grass and named them 'King Brahmadatta,' 'The Viceroy,' and 'The Chief Captain.' Then he patiently taught his father to bow before each tuft and recite a respectful verse:

'Two oxen had I, O Great King, wherewith I ploughed my land;

One of the pair has passed away; grant me another at thy hand!'

For a full twelve months, the old farmer practiced bowing to the grass clumps and declaiming the verse until he could recite it flawlessly even in his sleep. Satisfied, Somadatta bathed his father, dressed him in clean white garments, and escorted him into the royal audience hall.

As they entered, trumpets sounded, fly-whisks waved, and jewels blazed upon the king's golden throne. Terrified by the blinding majesty of the court, the old man's heart pounded, his knees trembled, and his memory scattered like dry chaff in the wind. Asked by the king who he was, Somadatta answered that this was his father. The old farmer then rose to recite the verse he had rehearsed for a year — but confusion seized his tongue, and the closing line came out exactly backward:

'Two oxen had I, O Great King, wherewith I ploughed my land;

One of the pair has passed away; take thou the other from my hand!'

The assembled courtiers fell silent in bewilderment. Smiling broadly, King Brahmadatta turned to his favorite and teased: 'Somadatta, it seems your father has plenty of oxen at home, since he comes to our court offering us his livestock!' The Bodhisatta bowed low with serene filial grace and replied: 'Sire, it is the nature of a generous giver to offer whatever remains. My humble father knows that those who approach a righteous king must come bearing gifts, not petitions. Finding only one ox left in his stall, he offers his remaining beast to your majesty!' Delighted by Somadatta's witty filial devotion and touched by the rustic farmer's honest simplicity, King Brahmadatta burst into hearty laughter. The king commanded: 'Give this good father not one, but sixteen magnificent, hump-backed white draught oxen with gilded horns! Bestow upon him a rich agricultural village, sixteen wagon-loads of grain, and royal robes for all his days — and send him home in a chariot drawn by pure white Sindh horses!'

On the journey home, Somadatta could not resist teasing his father: 'Father, I drilled you for an entire year, and yet in the hour that mattered you gave away the very ox you came to save!' The old farmer was untroubled by the jest. Overjoyed at his unexpected fortune, he answered his son good-humoredly: the king's generosity, he said, had answered the spirit of the plea far better than the rehearsed words ever could have. Far from feeling shame, the father rode home content. His guileless simplicity and his son's quick wit together had turned a moment of pure panic into a lifetime of prosperity.

When the tale was told, the Teacher identified the birth. The bashful, tongue-tied father was the elder Lāḷudāyī himself, still prone in this life to saying the opposite of what he means. The clever son Somadatta, who turned his father's blunder into royal favor, was the Bodhisatta — the Buddha in an earlier existence.