Gamani-canda Jataka

At Jetavana, some monks fell to praising the Buddha's uncanny insight into difficult matters. The Buddha told them this was nothing new, and that he had shown the same discernment long ago, in a former birth preserved in the Pali Canon as Jataka No. 257, the Gamani-canda Jataka.

In that age, in Varanasi, King Janasandha's son was the Bodhisatta (the Buddha-to-be, in this former birth), born as Prince Adasa-mukha, "Mirror-face." When his father died, the boy was only seven years old, and the courtiers hesitated to crown so young a child without proof of judgment. Three times they dressed a monkey to resemble a fortune-teller, a judge, and a devoted son, and set the prince before each disguise. Each time, young Adasa-mukha saw through the deception at once. Convinced of his discernment, the court crowned him king.

Years into this reign, an elderly servant of the former king, named Gamani-canda, felt unsuited to serve so young a master. He withdrew to a village three leagues from the city and took up farming to support himself, wanting nothing more than a quiet life.

To plough his field, Gamani-canda borrowed a pair of oxen from a neighbor. He returned them in the evening to the owner's house, but found the man eating with his wife and was not invited to hand the animals over properly before witnesses. That night thieves stole the unguarded oxen. The owner then falsely denied ever receiving them back and dragged Gamani-canda toward the king's court, crying, "Here comes the king's officer; pay for my cattle!"

On the road to the city, Gamani-canda stopped at a friend's house to eat. The friend's wife, seven months with child, climbed a ladder to the grain store, slipped, and miscarried. Her husband blamed Gamani-canda for the accident and joined the procession of accusers marching him to the palace.

Further along the road, an unruly horse bolted toward the travelers. Its groom shouted for Gamani-canda to turn the animal back with a stone. The stone struck true but broke the horse's foot, and the groom then denied ever having asked for help, adding a third false charge against the hapless farmer.

Overwhelmed by these mounting liabilities, Gamani-canda tried to end his life by leaping from a cliff, but he landed instead upon a basket-maker working below, killing the man instantly. The basket-maker's son seized Gamani-canda and added a fourth charge of manslaughter to the list.

Before the throne, King Adasa-mukha listened patiently as all four accusers spoke. Weighing each case with care, he saw that the ox owner and the horse groom had each lied under oath, while the deaths of the unborn child and the basket-maker were pure misfortune rather than malice. He pronounced four verdicts matched exactly to each man's own wrongdoing. The lying ox owner would have his eyes plucked out and still owed twenty-four pieces of money. The grieving husband would receive Gamani-canda's care of his wife until she bore a healthy son to replace the one lost. The lying groom would have his tongue torn out and pay a thousand pieces for his horse. And the basket-maker's son would see his father's widow and household entrusted to Gamani-canda's keeping. Terrified by verdicts crueler to themselves than to the man they had falsely accused, all four accusers begged for mercy and paid Gamani-canda handsomely to withdraw their claims.

Before leaving the city vindicated and wealthy, Gamani-canda revealed that villagers along his journey, hearing he was bound for the wise young king, had begged him to carry their own unanswered riddles: why brahmin students could no longer remember their lessons, why ascetics found all fruit tasteless, why a woodland pool had turned turbid, why a roadside tree-spirit received no more offerings, and other such puzzles touching birds, serpents, and troubled households. King Adasa-mukha answered every one of them correctly, tracing each riddle to its hidden cause, whether a broken daily routine, an abandoned discipline, or a buried fault.

Delighted by Gamani-canda's part in carrying these questions and by his own vindication, the king granted him a tax-free village to live in for the remainder of his days, free from want and from the capricious lawsuits that had so nearly ruined him.

At the end of the tale, the Buddha revealed who these figures of the ancient past had been: Ananda was Gamani-canda, the long-suffering but ultimately rewarded servant, and King Mirror-face who judged him so wisely was the Bodhisatta, the Buddha himself in that former birth.

Jataka No. 257 does not celebrate cleverness for its own sake. It shows how patient, penetrating judgment can separate true misfortune from deliberate deceit, and how a ruler's wisdom can turn four ruinous accusations into an honest man's lasting security.