Saccaṅkira Jātaka

The Buddha told this story while staying at the Bamboo Grove, after the monks fell to discussing the treachery of Devadatta, who denied owing the Buddha anything despite having received ordination, instruction, and many gifts and honors through him. 'It is not the first time Devadatta has been ungrateful,' the Buddha said, and recounted this tale, preserved today as Jātaka No. 73 in the Ekanipāta of the Khuddaka Nikāya's Jātaka collection, to show the pattern repeating across lifetimes.

In ancient days, when Brahmadatta ruled Varanasi, his son Prince Duṭṭhakumāra (literally 'the wicked prince') was so cruel, haughty, and venomous of temper that people cowered before him as before a viper. He showed contempt for servants and commoners alike, and his household feared him more than they loved him.

One afternoon, while the prince was bathing in the Ganges during a torrential storm, his own terrified and resentful attendants seized the chance to be rid of him: they pushed him into the raging current and abandoned him to the waves, fleeing the riverbank before anyone could witness the deed.

As the deluge carried the prince downstream, a serpent, a rat, and a young parrot were also swept from their burrows and tree-hollows by the same storm, clinging desperately to a floating log that the current had torn loose.

Further down the river, the Bodhisatta, dwelling in a humble hermitage on the bank, heard their mingled cries through the storm. Leaping into the flood again and again, he hauled all four survivors to safety one by one. Because the serpent, rat, and parrot were nearly spent with cold and exhaustion, he warmed them by his hearth-fire first and fed them before he attended to the prince, simply because their need was more urgent.

The prince took this ordinary act of triage as an unforgivable insult to his royal blood. Resentment hardened secretly in his heart, though he gave no outward sign of it before his rescuer.

When the time came to part, all four guests pledged their gratitude to the ascetic who had saved them. The serpent and the rat each promised to lead him to a hoard of buried gold should he ever be in need. The parrot promised to summon its kin to gather sacks of fragrant mountain rice for him. The prince, more coldly, merely said: 'Come to Varanasi once I am crowned, and I shall reward you.'

Years later, word reached the hermitage that the prince had indeed inherited the throne. The Bodhisatta resolved to test whether gratitude among his four rescued guests had endured. Journeying first to the serpent, then the rat, then the parrot, he found each overjoyed to see him, and each fulfilled its pledge with heartfelt and immediate devotion.

Encouraged by this, the Bodhisatta approached the royal palace in Varanasi, expecting a similar welcome. But the moment the new king recognized him, the old wound of wounded pride flared into fury. 'Here comes a beggar seeking a reward!' the king screamed before his startled court, and ordered the ascetic flogged through every street of the city and beheaded outside its gates.

As the soldiers dragged him toward the execution ground, the Bodhisatta did not plead for his life. He simply repeated, with unshaken calm, the verse that gives this Jātaka its name, Saccaṅkira ('speaking truth'): 'Truly it is said: timber floating in a flood is worthier of rescue than an ungrateful human heart.'

Hearing a condemned man speak with such serene dignity, the gathering crowds pressed to know his story. As the full account of the rescue and the king's monstrous repayment spread through the streets, the citizens' shock turned swiftly to outrage.

The enraged populace rose up, dragged the treacherous king from his chariot before the execution could proceed, and put him to death in the same place he had intended for his benefactor. In his place, they crowned the serene Bodhisatta as their righteous monarch, and under his compassionate rule the kingdom flourished in peace.

At the story's end, the Buddha identified the birth for the monks at the Bamboo Grove: the cruel prince who became an ungrateful king was Devadatta in that former life; the serpent was the Elder Sāriputta; the rat was the Elder Moggallāna; the parrot was the Elder Ānanda; and the forest ascetic who forgave his betrayer and was crowned king was the Buddha himself.