59. The Mischievous Monkey

In one of his lives, the Bodhisattva came to earth as a hermit, living quietly in a leaf hut on a mountainside and travelling daily to a nearby village to seek alms as was his custom. A troublesome monkey had taken to sneaking into the hermit's hut whenever he was away, eating whatever food he found there and leaving a trail of mischief and disorder behind him.

One day, the hermit set out for the village as usual, but did not return for several days longer than expected. The monkey, arriving at the hut each morning to find it empty of food, grew increasingly hungry and finally decided to venture into the village himself to search for his usual victim.

As chance would have it, he arrived just as the villagers had finished performing a religious ceremony and were preparing to offer the sacred prasad to the hermit as an act of devotion. Seizing the opportunity, the clever monkey thought to himself, “If I appear holy enough, perhaps these trusting villagers will offer some of that food to me instead.” He crept up beside the hermit, sat down solemnly, and pressed his forelegs together as though deep in prayer.

The villagers, charmed by what appeared to be genuine piety in an animal, praised the monkey's apparent devotion warmly. But the hermit, recognising the very same troublemaker who had been raiding his hut for days, quickly explained the truth to the gathered crowd. Once they understood they had nearly been fooled, the villagers' admiration turned swiftly to anger, and they chased the mischievous monkey away, putting an end to his clever disguise for good.

Moral: A trickster's disguise may fool onlookers for a while, but it rarely survives contact with someone who already knows the truth.

60. True Love

In one of his lives, the Bodhisattva was born as Garuda, the divine king of birds, though he often took on the form of a handsome young man to move freely among mortals, and in this guise he became a regular companion of the king of Benaras, joining him often for games of dice. The king's wife, Queen Sussondi, was renowned throughout the land for her extraordinary beauty, and it was during one such game that Garuda's eyes fell upon her – and something in him resolved, then and there, that he wanted her for himself.

Calling upon his considerable supernatural powers, Garuda summoned a violent storm over the city, blanketing it in thick, impenetrable darkness. Under that cover, he swept into the palace and carried Sussondi away with him, leaving the king to wake and discover his beloved queen simply gone, with no trace of who had taken her.

Grief-stricken, the king summoned his most trusted minister, Sagga, entirely unaware that the very friend he played dice with each day was the one responsible for his queen's disappearance. “Wise friend,” the king pleaded, “please help me find my beloved queen. Search every corner of this land, however far, and bring her home to me.” Sagga agreed without hesitation and set out at once with a company of soldiers to begin the search.

All the while, Garuda continued visiting the palace as though nothing at all had happened, sitting down for his usual games of dice with the grieving king, never once suspected. Sagga, meanwhile, sailed for many long days before finally locating the remote island where Garuda had hidden Sussondi away, timing his approach carefully for a moment when Garuda himself was elsewhere, occupied with his usual dice game back at the palace.

Slipping quietly into the queen's private chamber, Sagga called out softly, “Your Highness, the king grieves for you without rest. He has sent me to bring you home to him safely.” With that, he carried Sussondi away from the island and returned her at last to her husband, who embraced her with tears of overwhelming joy. Witnessing the depth of devotion between them – a love his own scheme had never come close to matching – Garuda finally understood the wrongness of what he had done, and let the matter rest.

Moral: Loyalty and devotion, when witnessed clearly, can awaken conscience even in someone who set out only to satisfy their own desire.

61. Two Ascetics

In one of his lives, the Bodhisattva was born as the king of Gandhara, but one night, watching a lunar eclipse darken the sky above his palace, he was struck by a sudden and profound awareness of how fleeting and hollow his royal life truly was. Not long afterward, he set aside his crown entirely and took up the simple life of an ascetic in the forest, seeking a deeper kind of understanding than any throne could offer.

His close friend, the king of Videha, admired this choice so deeply that he soon followed the same path himself, giving up his own kingdom to join the Bodhisattva in the wilderness. Together, the two former kings lived side by side as fellow ascetics, sharing every hardship of forest life and travelling together each day to a nearby village to seek alms, exactly as any humble hermit would.

One day, however, one of the two ascetics quietly set aside a small store of salt without telling his companion, planning ahead for the coming rainy season when foraging would grow more difficult. When his friend happened to discover the hidden salt some time later, he felt a sharp and genuine disappointment – not so much over the salt itself, but over the quiet self-interest it revealed in a friend he had believed shared everything with him completely.

Confronted with his friend's evident hurt, the ascetic who had hidden the salt recognised at once how deeply his small, private act of caution had wounded the trust between them. “I am indeed guilty of clinging to worldly concerns, my friend,” he admitted honestly. “Please forgive me for allowing even so small a thing to come between us.” Moved by his friend's sincerity, the other ascetic forgave him at once, and the two resumed their shared life of penance exactly as devoted and united as they had always been.

Moral: Even a small act of secret self-interest can wound a friendship built on shared simplicity – but honest acknowledgment of the fault can just as quickly mend it.

62. The Jealous King

Long, long ago, the Bodhisattva was born into the royal family of Benaras, a beautiful baby adored by everyone who saw him. The queen, his mother, doted on her seven-month-old son with an intensity that consumed nearly all her waking hours, cradling him, playing with him, and singing to him from morning until night – so completely, in fact, that she gradually had less and less time or attention left for her husband, the king.

One day, as the queen sat absorbed entirely in playing with her infant son, the king entered her chamber, and in her total focus on the baby, she failed to even notice his arrival. Something in that small, ordinary oversight ignited a sudden and irrational fury in the king. “How dare you ignore me?” he shouted, his voice trembling with a jealousy that had clearly been building far longer than this single moment. “I am the lord of a mighty empire, and you cannot spare me even a glance!”

Blinded entirely by this jealous rage, the king summoned his royal executioner and ordered the infant prince put to death. The queen fell to her knees, weeping and begging for mercy, but the king, consumed by his fury, refused to hear a single word of her pleading.

The executioner, however, carried the sweet, unsuspecting baby away from the palace with every intention of following his king's terrible command – but as he looked down at the child in his arms, something in him softened entirely. Unable to bring himself to carry out the act, he instead left the infant safely in the care of a hermitage deep in the forest, sparing the boy's life in quiet defiance of the order he had been given.

There, far from the palace and the jealous rage that had nearly cost him his life, the child grew up under the gentle guidance of the hermits, eventually becoming a saintly and deeply respected scholar – a life entirely unlike the one his father's jealousy had once tried to deny him.

Moral: Jealousy, left to fester, can drive even a loving parent to unthinkable acts – but mercy shown by an unlikely hand can undo the worst of such intentions.

63. Arrogance Can Kill

In one of his lives, the Bodhisattva was born into a family of merchants, and one day, while going about his business in the marketplace, he happened to notice an arrogant ascetic dressed in a heavy leather garment, carrying himself with an exaggerated air of holiness. This self-important man made a habit of demanding that every living creature he passed bow to him in a show of respect, convinced entirely of his own spiritual importance.

As the Bodhisattva watched from a short distance away, he noticed a ram nearby slowly lowering its head toward the ascetic, and the man, predictably, took this as yet another gesture of reverence owed to him. But the Bodhisattva, watching more closely than the ascetic himself, understood immediately what was actually happening – the ram was not bowing in worship at all, but lowering its head to charge, provoked by the unfamiliar and irritating smell of the man's leather garment.

Sensing the danger building, the Bodhisattva tried to call out a warning from where he stood, but before the arrogant ascetic could register the shout or turn to look, the ram lunged forward and struck him with tremendous force, knocking him hard to the ground.

The ascetic lay groaning in pain where he had fallen, his pride having blinded him entirely to the very real danger standing directly in front of him, and before long, the injuries proved too severe, and he breathed his last – undone not by any spiritual failing, but by a simple refusal to see what was plainly there to be seen.

Moral: Demanding respect for its own sake, without regard for how it is actually received, can blind a person to danger standing directly in front of them.

64. A Small Portion of Gruel

In one of his lives, the Bodhisattva was born as the king of Kosala, ruling over a reign marked by lasting peace and genuine prosperity. One night, he dreamed vividly of a life he had lived long before this one, and woke deeply moved by what the dream had shown him.

The following morning, he gathered his entire court and made a striking announcement – that all the prosperity and good fortune of his current kingdom, he believed, traced back to a single small portion of gruel given away in a life long past. Curious and a little astonished by such an unusual claim, his ministers urged him to explain, and the king recounted the dream in full.

In that earlier life, he told them, he had been nothing more than a poor servant, struggling each day simply to make ends meet. One day, he had come across a group of monks who had gone without food for several days, weakened by hunger and unable to continue their journey. Without a second thought for his own needs, the poor servant had set aside his own hunger and offered them the only meal he had – a small, humble portion of gruel, all he possessed for that entire day.

The gods, watching this simple act of selfless charity from a man who had almost nothing to give in the first place, were deeply moved by it, and blessed him for his generosity. In time, that same soul was reborn as the great and prosperous king of Kosala, his entire reign of peace and abundance tracing back, in a sense, to one small bowl of gruel given away without hesitation.

The people of Kosala, hearing their king's story for the first time, were profoundly touched by it, and many of them left that gathering resolved to look for their own small ways to practise generosity, however modest the gift, in their daily lives.

Moral: Even the smallest act of charity, given at real personal cost, can shape an entire lifetime of prosperity that follows – generosity is never too small to matter.

65. Pride Comes Before Fall

Once upon a time there lived a dwarf, small in stature but exceptionally learned, wise, and remarkably skilled with a bow – though few who met him ever suspected that this modest figure was, in fact, the Bodhisattva himself. Known to everyone simply as Little Archer, he understood well enough that his diminutive appearance would prevent him from ever being taken seriously for a position in the king's service, however great his true skill might be.

Rather than accept this limitation, Little Archer struck a clever bargain with a strongly built, imposing man named Fear Maker. Fear Maker, he proposed, would present himself to the king as a skilled archer seeking employment, while Little Archer would quietly do the real work behind the scenes, feeding him instructions and strategy. In exchange, they would split whatever pay Fear Maker earned between them equally.

The arrangement worked exactly as planned. Fear Maker was hired as the king's archer, and with Little Archer's careful guidance whispered to him at every turn, he went on to accomplish feats that earned him great acclaim – slaying a man-eating beast that had terrorised the countryside, and later bringing down a ferocious, ravaging bull that no other hunter had managed to subdue. Praise and honour poured in from every direction, and Fear Maker, basking in a glory that was never truly his alone to claim, began to believe his own legend a little too completely.

As his pride swelled, Fear Maker grew increasingly dismissive of Little Archer's advice, no longer bothering to consult him before acting, certain now that his own skill alone had carried him this far. It was not long before this overconfidence caught up with him.

When the king called upon his celebrated archer to lead the defence against a large invading army, Fear Maker, without Little Archer's guidance to rely on, found himself utterly unable to manage the task. Humbled and desperate, he was forced to seek out his old partner once more, and Little Archer, without complaint, stepped in and defeated the enemy forces with the same quiet skill he had always possessed – earning the king's reward and recognition at last in his own right. Fear Maker, finally understanding the depth of his own mistake, returned quietly to his village, his pride considerably humbled by the experience.

Moral: Success achieved through someone else's quiet support can breed a dangerous pride – forgetting who truly carried the weight of the work invites failure the moment real difficulty arrives.

66. The Greedy Ascetic

A wicked ascetic once lived for a time as a welcomed guest in the home of a wealthy and trusting man. Needing a safe place to hide a box of gold coins, the rich man, believing his guest to be a holy figure who had renounced all worldly desires, chose to bury the treasure secretly in the very room where the ascetic slept – certain that no one would think to disturb the belongings of such a pious man.

But the moment the rich man's back was turned, the ascetic dug up the hidden gold and, thinking quickly, concealed the coins instead within a bundle of ordinary straw. The next day, announcing that he intended to set off on a pilgrimage, he took his leave of the rich man's household, carrying the straw bundle openly with him, claiming it would simply serve as bedding along his travels.

Once safely away and out of sight, the ascetic removed the stolen gold coins from their hiding place among the straw – then, in an audacious final touch, returned to the rich man's house and handed back the very same bundle of straw, now empty of its treasure, insisting piously that he could not bring himself to carry away even a single straw that rightfully belonged to someone else.

The Bodhisattva, who had been reborn in that life as a travelling merchant and happened to witness this entire exchange, sensed immediately that something was amiss in the ascetic's overly virtuous gesture. He urged the rich man to check at once whether his hidden gold coins remained safely where he had buried them.

Sure enough, the gold was gone entirely. Once the theft was confirmed, the Bodhisattva declared the supposedly holy ascetic a cheat and a fraud before the whole household, and the man was swiftly arrested and imprisoned – his carefully staged piety having fooled everyone except the one man sharp enough to see through it.

Moral: A show of piety can conceal deep dishonesty – but genuine wisdom is rarely fooled for long by appearances alone.