43. The Prince and the She-devil

In one of his lives, the Bodhisattva was born as the youngest of a hundred sons belonging to King Brahmadatta of Benaras. Though he grew to be the strongest and wisest among all his brothers, his position as the very last-born left him with little realistic hope of ever inheriting the throne. Uncertain of his future, he sought out the Silent Buddhas – holy men renowned for their wisdom – and asked whether any path to kingship lay open to him at all.

They told him of a distant possibility: if he could reach the city of Takshila within seven days, he might yet become its king. But they also warned him gravely of the danger along the way – a stretch of forest known as Devil Wood, home to spirits that preyed on the weaknesses of travellers.

The very next morning, the prince set out for Takshila with five loyal servants at his side, carrying with him a charmed string and a handful of sacred sand meant to ward off evil. But as they crossed through Devil Wood, one by one his servants fell to the temptations laid in their path by the forest's spirits, until all five were lost.

A she-devil, sensing an even greater prize in the prince himself, vowed silently, “I will not rest until I have tasted his flesh,” and took on the form of a strikingly beautiful woman, following close behind him through the trees. But the prince's self-discipline held firm – he never once let his gaze fall upon her, no matter how she tried to draw his attention.

Reaching Takshila at last, the Bodhisattva went straight to a rest house, and because he still carried the charmed string and sand, the devil found herself unable to follow him inside. It was then that the king of Takshila happened to pass by on his royal chariot, his eyes falling immediately on the beautiful woman standing alone by the roadside. “Why do you stand here, dear lady?” he asked, already taken with her.

“My husband is inside that rest house,” she answered, her voice trembling with practised sorrow, “and he refuses to accept me as his wife.” At this, the Bodhisattva stepped outside and spoke plainly. “She is no wife of mine,” he said. “She is a devil, and she intends to eat me.” The devil burst into false tears at once, sobbing pitifully about her cruel abandonment – and the king, entirely taken in, felt a wave of sympathy for her and married her that very day, taking her into his own palace.

Now separated from the boundaries of Devil Wood, the she-devil had lost the particular power that let her harm anyone unless they first gave in to their own temptation. That night, in the privacy of the royal bedchamber, she whispered to her new husband, “My lord, I fear others in this palace envy my good fortune. Grant me some protection, so that none may harm me.” Moved by her request, the king gave her his own royal armband and declared, “Wear this. No one within these walls shall ever be able to harm you.”

That night, once the entire palace had fallen into a deep sleep, the devil revealed her true nature at last, killing and devouring everyone within the palace grounds. When morning came and the truth of what had happened became clear, the people of Takshila understood at once that everything the Bodhisattva had warned the king of had been true all along. Deeply impressed by his wisdom and unwavering self-control, they made him their new king in the wake of the tragedy.

Moral: Self-control under temptation is its own protection – but even self-control cannot save those who let their guard down once the danger seems to have passed.

44. The Superstitious Brahmin

In one of his lives, the Bodhisattva came to earth as a Brahmin dwelling in the Himavanta forest. One day, invited to stay a while in the royal park after visiting the king's palace, he happened to notice another Brahmin resting beneath a nearby tree, deep in an afternoon sleep.

The sleeping man woke with a sudden start, reaching instinctively for the shawl draped across his shoulders – only to discover that rats had gnawed several ragged holes through the fabric while he slept. “Oh no,” he cried out in alarm, staring at the ruined cloth. “My shawl has been chewed by rats – this can only be a terrible omen! I must be rid of this cursed thing at once.” Turning to his young son, he thrust the shawl into the boy's hands. “Throw this into the river immediately, before misfortune finds us,” he ordered.

The boy flung the shawl as instructed, and it landed, quite by chance, near the feet of the Bodhisattva, who calmly picked it up and examined the gnawed holes. “Learned sir,” he said gently to the frightened Brahmin, “there is no evil omen hidden in this shawl. The rats were almost certainly searching for food, nothing more, and happened to find your shawl in their way. A truly wise man ought not place his faith in omens conjured from such ordinary, explainable events.”

Moral: Fear of imagined omens leads people to see disaster in the most ordinary events – wisdom lies in looking for the simple, practical explanation first.

45. Baby Peacock

In one of his lives, the Bodhisattva was born as a young peacock, still small and dependent on his mother's care. Each day, before setting out to search for food, she would warn him firmly to remain safely hidden indoors until she returned. For a while, the little peacock obeyed her without complaint – but as the days wore on, staying alone indoors grew unbearably dull, and the pull of his friends playing outside became harder and harder to resist.

One afternoon, unable to bear the boredom any longer, he slipped outside to join his friends despite his mother's warning, certain that nothing bad could possibly happen in just one short afternoon of play. But as the young birds darted and chased one another through the open clearing, a group of hunters, watching quietly from the treeline, crept closer and closer – and one by one, they caught the unsuspecting young birds before any of them fully understood the danger they were in.

Trapped and frightened, the young peacock finally understood just how serious his mother's warning had truly been – but the realisation came far too late to do him any good. He cried bitterly, thinking of his mother and of the safety he had so carelessly abandoned, but there was no way left for him to escape. Had he only listened and stayed close to home as she had asked, he would have remained safe within the shelter she had provided.

Moral: A parent's warning, however inconvenient it seems in the moment, is usually given for good reason – ignoring it can carry a cost too great to undo.

46. The Footprint Reader

In one of his lives, the Bodhisattva was born as the son of a yakshini, gifted with an extraordinary and rare ability – he could read the footprints of any creature, human or animal, no matter how faint, and could trace their origins even if the marks were twelve years old. Word of this remarkable talent reached the king of Benaras, who was so impressed that he appointed the Bodhisattva as one of his ministers.

One day, the king himself, together with his royal chaplain, secretly stole a large sum of public money and hid it away in a hidden tank on the palace grounds. When the theft was discovered and an uproar spread through the court, the two guilty men feigned complete innocence and, with practised confidence, ordered the Bodhisattva to investigate and find the thieves responsible.

Using his singular gift, the Bodhisattva traced the telltale footprints back to the hidden tank, and from there, back to the very men who had ordered the investigation in the first place – the king and his chaplain themselves. The people of the kingdom, gathering anxiously as the truth began to surface, pleaded with him: “Please, tell us who the guilty parties truly are.”

After weighing the matter carefully, the Bodhisattva revealed the names of the true thieves to the assembled crowd. Outrage swept through the kingdom once the truth was known, and the dishonest king and his chaplain were swiftly banished from the land they had betrayed. In their place, the people turned to the very man whose honesty had exposed the crime, crowning the Bodhisattva as their new king – and under his fair and steady rule, Benaras prospered as it never had before.

Moral: Extraordinary skill, honestly used, can expose even the highest wrongdoing – and a kingdom is better served by truth than by protecting those in power.

47. The Clever Robber

In one of his lives, the Bodhisattva was born as a robber living in a village near the city of Kasi, his criminal activities eventually drawing the attention of the local authorities. Arrested and brought before the king, he was tried and sentenced to death, and the governor of the city was ordered to carry out the execution without delay.

As the condemned robber was being led toward the execution ground, Sama, the city's most celebrated courtesan, happened to catch sight of him and fell instantly and completely in love. Determined to save him, she sent word to the governor that the prisoner was, in fact, her own brother, and pressed a bribe of a thousand gold coins into his hands to have the man released, if only temporarily.

The governor, tempted by such a substantial sum, agreed to her scheme. Sama then turned to a devoted young admirer of hers, a man hopelessly infatuated with her, and persuaded him to take the robber's place at the execution ground – a request he agreed to without hesitation, blinded by his devotion to her. In the robber's place, the innocent young man was put to death instead.

Freed and safe once more, the robber should have felt only relief – but instead, a cold unease settled over him as he considered what Sama had just done for his sake. “If she was willing to sacrifice an innocent man who loved her, purely to save me,” he thought, “then she might just as easily sacrifice me for someone else, the moment her affections shift elsewhere.” Unwilling to stay and risk such a fate, the robber quietly slipped away from Kasi altogether, leaving Sama behind in despair, her devotion having won her nothing in the end.

Moral: A love bought through betrayal cannot be trusted – if someone will sacrifice one life for you today, they may just as easily sacrifice yours tomorrow.

48. The Foolish Disciple

In one of his lives, the Bodhisattva was born into a Brahmin family and grew up to become a respected teacher with many devoted students. Among them was one particularly earnest but slow-witted young man, well-meaning in every way but prone to saying exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong moment. Hoping to sharpen the boy's understanding, the Bodhisattva began asking him each day to describe, in careful detail, whatever he had seen or done.

One afternoon, while out walking, the young disciple came across a snake stretched across the path. Returning to his teacher, he described what he had seen, and the Bodhisattva, curious to test his powers of observation, asked, “And what did this snake look like to you?”

The student thought for a long moment before answering, “It looked exactly like the handle of a plough.” The Bodhisattva was genuinely pleased with the comparison – it showed real, careful observation, and he praised the boy for it.

Encouraged by this rare success, the disciple grew a little too fond of his new comparison. In the days that followed, he began describing an elephant's curved tusk as looking “exactly like the handle of a plough,” then a tall stalk of sugarcane, then a thick spoonful of molasses, and finally even a simple bowl of curd and milk – applying the same tired comparison to everything he encountered, whether it made any sense or not. It was only then that the Bodhisattva understood, with quiet resignation, that his well-meaning disciple, though devoted, would likely never develop the sharper wit of his fellow students.

Moral: Some students grasp a lesson quickly and then push it too far – genuine understanding lies not just in learning a comparison, but in knowing when to stop applying it.

49. The Flight of Sakka

In one of his lives, the Bodhisattva was born as Sakka, king of the gods, ruling over the celestial kingdom in a time when demons launched a massive assault against the heavens. Sakka mounted his golden chariot, drawn by a thousand swift horses, and rode out at the head of his forces to meet the invading army in open battle.

The fighting turned badly against the gods almost from the start, the demon forces proving far stronger than anticipated, and one by one the celestial warriors began to break ranks and flee the field. Watching the retreat spread through the ranks, Matali, Sakka's own charioteer, turned their chariot as well and began driving it up and away from the battlefield, following the others in retreat.

As the chariot climbed skyward, its wheels swept dangerously close to a great eagle's nest perched among the rocks, threatening to crush both the nest and the young eaglets sheltering inside it. Sakka, catching sight of the danger at the very last moment, called out sharply to his charioteer. “Turn back, Matali – turn the chariot around at once, back toward the battlefield!” he commanded, unwilling to let innocent creatures be harmed even in the chaos of a retreat.

When the fleeing demon army saw Sakka's golden chariot suddenly wheel around and charge back toward the fighting, they assumed, in their confusion, that he must be returning with some powerful new strategy in reserve. Struck with sudden fear at the sight of his return, the demons faltered and fell back in disarray – and in that unexpected reversal, brought about by nothing more than Sakka's instinct to protect a nest of eaglets, the gods won the battle they had, only moments before, seemed certain to lose.

Moral: Even a moment of instinctive compassion, chosen in the middle of retreat, can turn the tide of a battle that seemed already lost.

50. The Great Sage

In one of his lives, the Bodhisattva was born as Jotipala, son of a respected priest, and grew into a young man of exceptional skill with the bow. His talent caught the attention of the king, who recruited him into royal service at a generous salary of a thousand rupees a day – an appointment that quickly stirred resentment among the other servants of the court, who could not match his ability and grew to despise him for his success.

The constant hostility that surrounded him troubled Jotipala deeply, and he found himself turning the question over again and again in his mind: “Why do people so often turn against one another out of nothing more than envy?” In time, the king, impressed by his skill and steady character, appointed Jotipala as chief archer of the realm – the highest honour of its kind. But before formally accepting the position, something in Jotipala shifted. He came to see, with sudden clarity, that so much of the resentment and conflict swirling around him traced back to worldly attachments – to status, wealth, and comparison – and he resolved to leave all of it behind and seek a deeper understanding through meditation in the forest.

At midnight, without announcement or ceremony, he changed into plain saffron robes and quietly left the household and the honours that awaited him, setting out instead for the wilderness to live the simple life of an ascetic. Deep within a dense forest, he built himself a humble hut and began a life devoted entirely to meditation and inner searching.

Word of his choice spread slowly at first, then more widely, and in time many people – including, eventually, his own parents and even the king himself – sought him out and chose to follow his example. What had begun as one man's quiet retreat from jealousy and worldly attachment grew, in time, into the beginnings of a devoted following, and Jotipala came to be remembered as a great and revered sage.

Moral: Worldly success bred jealousy that no achievement could satisfy – and true peace was found only by setting worldly attachment aside entirely.