Tirita-Vaccha Jataka

The Pali Canon's Tirita-Vaccha Jataka, recorded in the Jataka commentary J.ii (314), was told by the Buddha concerning the occasion when Ananda received five hundred robes from the women of King Pasenadi's palace. It recalled a former life in which a different king had once owed a debt of gratitude too large to repay with any single gift.

In the reign of Brahmadatta, king of Varanasi, trouble broke out on the frontier of the kingdom. The king rode out to meet it, but the battle was lost, and fearing for his life he mounted his elephant and fled secretly through the forest, with no thought beyond escaping alive.

Weary and parched with thirst, the king came upon the leaf hut of a hermit while its owner was away gathering wild fruit. Searching for water, he found a well at the end of a covered walk, but there was neither rope nor bucket. He unfastened the girth that ran beneath his elephant's belly and tied it to the rim of the well. It was too short, so he knotted his lower garment to it as well. Even so the water lay beyond his reach, so he lowered himself down, drank his fill, and then found he could not climb out again. He stood in the well while his well-trained elephant waited patiently above.

At evening the Bodhisatta, the ascetic Tiritavaccha, returned with his fruit and saw the armoured elephant standing at his dwelling. It waited calmly as he approached. He looked into the well, found the king standing there, and called down, "Fear nothing, O king!"

The hermit set a ladder in the well and helped the king climb out. He rubbed and oiled the king's weary limbs, fed him fruit, and took the armour off the elephant. For two or three days the king rested in the hermit's care, and when he left he asked the Bodhisatta to promise that he would come and visit him. Meanwhile the royal forces were camped near the city, and they gathered around their king as he returned.

About six weeks later the Bodhisatta came to Varanasi and took lodging in the royal park. The next day he went to the palace for alms. The king saw him from a window, came down, greeted him with honour, and seated him on a throne beneath the white umbrella of state. He shared his own meal with the hermit, had a covered walk and a dwelling built for him in the garden, supplied him with the requisites of an ascetic, and placed him in a gardener's care. The Bodhisatta took his meals in the royal dwelling and was held in great honour.

Some of the courtiers took offence. They murmured that if a mere soldier were given such honour, he would only grow arrogant and behave badly. They carried their complaint to the viceroy, who confronted the king. In his verse he asked what wise deed this wandering ascetic had done, since he was neither kinsman nor companion, and why he should be fed the choicest food.

The king told his son how he had been defeated and left alone in the forest, and how the hermit had rescued him. In his own verses he spoke of the dreadful wilderness where he had stood, beaten and in distress, until this man stretched out a hand and drew him from the pit. He declared that he had returned to life through the ascetic's deed, that Tiritavaccha was worthy of gifts, and that wealth and honour should be offered to him.

The king's words affirmed the Bodhisatta's virtue, and the king's own reputation grew with them, along with his gifts and honours. No courtier or official spoke against the ascetic again. The king followed the Bodhisatta's counsel, gave alms and did good, and was reborn in a heavenly world. The Bodhisatta cultivated the higher knowledges and the meditative attainments and was destined for the Brahma realm.

At the story's end, the Buddha identified the rescued king of Varanasi with Ananda, and himself as the ascetic. The gratitude that moved a king to honour his rescuer was the same gratitude Ananda showed in repaying a faithful attendant with the gift of robes.

What this story preserves is more than an account of a rescue. It is a record of how fully gratitude, honestly felt, refuses to stay quiet once circumstances allow it to act. A kindness done without thought of reward, with nothing but a ladder, some fruit, and an open hand, came back to its giver as lasting honour. The deepest debts are not the ones measured in gold, but the ones that change how a person treats everyone who once drew him, quite literally, out of the dark.