The Bodhisatta was once a prince. In past lives, two women in a king’s harem had a rivalry so intense that one of them prayed she would have the chance to eat the other’s children in a future life. In this present lifetime, the vengeful woman was born as an ogress, allowing her to fulfill her desire. The other woman became a chief queen, the Bodhisatta’s grandmother. When this queen bore her first child, the ogress ran into the queen’s room and devoured the baby in front of everyone before running off. When the queen gave birth again, the ogress did the same thing.
During the queen’s third birth, guards surrounded the palace and kept a strict watch, but the ogress was still able to sneak into the room and seize the baby; though she did not have time to eat it. She fled with the baby boy and escaped through the sewers. The ogress fell in love with the child and raised him as her own. They lived in a cave at the cemetery and ate the corpses brought there. Because the boy was human, he couldn’t turn himself invisible like she could, but the ogress gave him a magic root to make it happen.
When the queen gave birth for the fourth time, it was after the ogress had died, so her newborn son was safe. When he grew up, he ascended the throne and was a righteous king. This king’s wise eldest son was the Bodhisatta, and he served as viceroy.
No longer having his magic root, the ogress’s son was now visible to people, and they were frightened because he appeared just like a regular ogre. Fearing that the man-eater would eventually kill and eat them, they complained to the king, so he sent soldiers to capture him. The ogress’s son frightened the soldiers so much that he was able to escape to the forest. He lived at the foot of a banyan tree and never returned to the city. Now, instead of eating corpses, he seized people traveling by road.
One day the king organized a hunt. Just as the king was departing, a brahmin came to sell him a poem for four hundred coins. The king declared that whoever among his friends let a deer escape would pay for the poem, and he gave the brahmin lodging to await their return.
While they were in the forest, a deer ran straight at the king and got away. The king gave chase, and when he caught up to the deer, he chopped it in two with his sword. As he walked back with the carcass halves hung on a pole, the ogress’s son captured him. The king declared who he was and urged him to take the deer instead, but the ogress’s son mocked the king and said he was going to eat both him and the deer. Resigned to death, the king asked permission to return to the city and keep his promise to pay the brahmin so he could die with honor; he swore he would come back the next morning. The ogress’s son, knowing a virtuous king would never lie, agreed.
The king went straight back to the city and paid the brahmin four thousand coins instead of four hundred. He tried to make the Bodhisatta the new king, but he refused the crown, instead insisting he would save his father by sacrificing himself to what they assumed was an ogre. The king reluctantly accepted the offer, and in the morning, the Bodhisatta bid his distraught parents, sister, and wife farewell and walked into the forest with the courage of a lion.
The ogress’s son, waiting in a tree for the king, saw the Bodhisatta approach with no fear. “Cruel ogre, I know you well,” he said. “Eat me and set my father free.” The ogress’s son had never before met a person who didn’t fear death—the Bodhisatta told him he’d never done an evil deed and would surely be born in the glory of heaven—and it frightened him. The ogress’s son could not bring himself to eat such a virtuous man’s flesh, so he told the Bodhisatta to gather firewood, hoping he would take the opportunity to run away. But the Bodhisatta returned, built a fire, and told the ogress’s son about another time (as told in the Sasa Jataka (#316)) he had offered his life to help another.
Amazed by the Bodhisatta, the ogress’s son set him free. The Bodhisatta, however, remained there to talk, and his words humbled the ogress’s son to righteousness. As he taught the five moral laws, the Bodhisatta realized this was not actually an ogre. Ogres’ eyes are red and do not blink; ogres cast no shadow and have no fear. This must be his abducted uncle, the rightful heir to the throne. Not believing the Bodhisatta’s theory, the ogress’s son said he would only believe the word of an ascetic gifted with supernatural vision who lived nearby. They went to meet him, and the moment the ascetic saw them approaching, he asked, “What brings you two descendants from a common ancestor to visit me?” Now knowing the truth of his life, the ogress’s son said he had no desire to be a king. Instead, he was ordained by the ascetic.
A great multitude greeted the Bodhisatta on his return to the city and listened to his story. The king went to see his long-lost brother and tried, unsuccessfully, to convince him to take the throne. Then he urged his brother to come live in the royal park, but he also refused this. So the king built a town for one thousand families near the ascetics’ monastery to ensure they would always receive abundant alms.
In the Lifetime of the Buddha
The parents of one of the Buddha’s disciples had been reluctant to let their son adopt a religious life, but he begged them and they agreed. After five years, he fully mastered dharma, so he went out to live alone and meditate in the forest to reach spiritual insight. But after twelve years of striving, he still had not achieved it. One day another disciple visited him at his hut and told him that his parents had fallen into ruin. With no children around to protect them, their servants and workers had stolen everything, and they were now homeless beggars, clothed in rags. The son began to cry, and realizing he had labored in vain for the past twelve years, he decided to leave the sangha and return home to care for his parents.
The depressed disciple went to listen to the Buddha preach one last time before returning home. The Buddha divined this disciple’s situation and made his morning talk about the virtues of parents. Listening to the sermon, the son realized that, though it would be difficult, he could remain a disciple and still support his parents, and he resolved to do so. He took up abode near their hut, and from then on he made two daily alms rounds: one for them and a second for himself. He usually got little food for himself, and some days he got none, so he grew pale and thin.
When some other disciples learned what he was doing, they told him that sharing alms with people who are not disciples was an offense, and they reported him to the Buddha. The accused disciple was summoned back to the monastery, where he admitted sharing the alms he collected with his parents. But, to the surprise of the other disciples, the Buddha praised the caring son instead of rebuking him. He then told this story to explain that caring for others was always a good thing, and that in the past he himself had refused to become king in order to save his father.
The ogress’s son was an earlier birth of Angulimala, a dreaded bandit who cut off a finger of each person he murdered and wore them around his neck, and who later became an enlightened disciple of the Buddha. The ascetic and the Bodhisatta’s sister were earlier births of Sariputta and Uppalavanna, two of the Buddha’s top disciples. The queen was an earlier birth of the Buddha’s wife and the Bodhisatta’s father and mother were earlier births of the Buddha’s father and birth mother.
