Once upon a time, when Brahmadatta was king in Benares, the Bodhisatta was born as a Monkey, and with a troop of eighty thousand monkeys he lived in Himalayas. There was a village, sometimes inhabited and sometimes empty. And in the midst of this village was a tinduka tree, with sweet fruit, covered with twigs and branches. When the place was empty, all the monkeys used to go there and eat the fruit.

Once, in the fruit time, the village was full of people, a bamboo palisade set about it, and the gates guarded. And this tree stood with all its boughs bending beneath the weight of the fruit. The monkeys sent a scout monkey to spy whether the village is inhabited or not. He found that there was fruit on the tree, and the village was crammed with people. When the monkeys heard that was fruit on the tree, they determined to get that sweet fruit to eat; and a crowd of them went and told their chief. The chief asked was the village full or empty; full, they said. Chief monkey said, “Then you must not go; because men are very deceitful.” “But, Sir! we’ll go at midnight, when everybody is fast asleep, and then eat!”

So, having obtained permission from the chief monkey, group of monkeys came down from the mountains, and waited on a rock until the people sleep; then they climbed the tree and began to eat the fruit.

A man had to get up in the night for some necessary purpose; he went out into the village, and there he saw the monkeys. At once he gave the alarm; all the people came out with arms such as bow and sticks surrounded the tree; they thought, “when dawn comes we have them!”

The eighty thousand monkeys saw these people, and were scared to death. They thought, “Nobody except our chief can save us.” They came to him and told the situation and requested to save them.

At this the monkey Chief answered “Don’t fear!human beings have plenty to do. It is the middle watch now; they stand there, thinking to kill us in the morning! but we will find some other way to hinder this.” And to console the Monkeys he said:

“Men have many things to do; something will disperse the meeting;

See what still remains for you; eat, while fruit is left for eating”.

The Great Being cried, “Assemble all the monkeys together!” But in assembling them, there was one they could not find, his nephew, a monkey named Senaka. So they told him that Senaka was not among the troop. He said, “If Senaka is not here, we will find him.”

Now at the time when the troop marched ahead Senaka had been asleep. Later he awoke, and could not see any body. So he followed their tracks, and by and bye he saw all the people hastening up. He thought, “Some danger for our troop.” Just then he saw an old woman, fast asleep, before a lighted fire, in a hut on the outskirts of the village. He lit fire to the hut and all the villagers ran there. So the monkeys ran away, and each brought one fruit for Senaka.