The Treasure Spell That Slayed a Thousand

Jataka No. 48 of the Pali Canon was told by the Buddha concerning a self-willed monk who refused to accept wise counsel from those around him. To show where such stubbornness could ultimately lead, the Buddha recalled a former life in which the very same refusal to listen had once set off a chain of greed that killed a thousand men over a single night's treasure.

In ancient times, when King Brahmadatta ruled in Varanasi, the Bodhisatta was born into a distinguished family and became the foremost pupil of a learned brahmin residing in a rural hamlet. This brahmin was master of an ancient, miraculous incantation known as the Vedabbha Mantra. When recited at the precise astronomical moment when a certain planetary conjunction coincided with the full moon, the spell would cause the heavens to shower seven kinds of celestial gems: beryls, rubies, pearls, diamonds, coral, silver, and refined gold.

One day, the brahmin journeyed with the Bodhisatta toward the kingdom of Cetiya on business. Along the lonely jungle highway, they fell into the clutches of five hundred highwaymen known as the Sending Thieves, whose custom was to capture pairs of travelers, holding one hostage while sending the other to fetch ransom. Keeping the brahmin in chains, the bandits ordered the Bodhisatta to return to the village for wealth.

Before departing, the Bodhisatta looked at the twilight sky and noticed the rare astronomical alignment forming. Realizing the danger at once, he whispered privately to his teacher that the stars of the Vedabbha conjunction would assemble that very night. He begged him not to yield to impatience or chant the spell to buy his own release, warning that jewels raining down would bring disaster and slaughter upon everyone present. The brahmin promised to remain silent.

Yet as night deepened, the brahmin grew weary of his bonds, and his patience failed him long before the danger his pupil had warned of could fade on its own. He called the bandit leader and boasted that he could rain down infinite riches from the heavens if only he were unbound and bathed in scented water. The bandits agreed eagerly, and gazing into the celestial sky, the brahmin chanted the Vedabbha verses.

Instantly, thunder rolled without clouds, and a dazzling torrent of gold and gems cascaded from the heavens. Filling their bags with unimaginable treasure, the first band of bandits released the brahmin and departed in triumph, believing their good fortune had simply ended there.

Moments later, another gang of five hundred bandits intercepted the group, and finding them laden with gems, attacked at once. The first bandits, desperate to save themselves, cried out that it was the brahmin who had rained down the jewels and that seizing him would bring more. The second gang captured the brahmin immediately and demanded another shower of riches.

Trembling, the brahmin admitted that the planetary conjunction had already passed and that a full year would need to pass before the stars returned to the same position. Enraged at being denied the fortune they had already imagined for themselves, the robbers cleaved the brahmin in two with a broadsword without a moment's hesitation.

The victorious robbers then pursued the first gang, slaughtered them in a pitched battle, and claimed the gold for themselves. They divided afterward into smaller factions and butchered one another over the very same spoil until just two men remained standing among the wreckage of a thousand.

Hiding the treasure in a forest thicket, one of the two went to the village to buy food while the other stood guard with his sword, and each privately planned to kill the other the moment it became convenient. The guard ambushed and killed the returning food-bearer, then sat down hungrily and ate porridge his companion had secretly poisoned before leaving, dying in agonizing convulsions beside the very man he had just murdered.

Returning with the ransom he had been sent to fetch, the Bodhisatta found his master cut down. He tracked the bloody trail through the forest, counting one thousand slain corpses until he reached the two dead robbers lying beside an untouched pile of gold that no one remained alive to claim.

At the story's end, the Buddha identified the self-willed brahmin with the stubborn monk who refused all counsel. The very impatience which had once turned a single night's treasure into a field of a thousand corpses was the same impatience still driving that monk to dismiss wise advice offered for his own good.

What the Bodhisatta's warning had tried to prevent was never simply a theft, but the unleashing of a greed so total that it would eventually consume everyone who touched it, including the very people who thought they had already won. Reflecting on the ruin wrought by a single broken promise, the Bodhisatta quietly had the gold collected for charitable works and returned home to practice the Dhamma. He had seen firsthand that unrighteous gain, however it first appears, tends to destroy its holder as surely as it destroys everyone who comes to take it from him.