Once upon a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta came to be a teacher of world wide fame, with five hundred young brahmins studying under him.

One of these pupils was a young Brahmin from a foreign land, who fell in love with a woman and made her his wife. Though he continued to live on in Benares, he failed two or three times in his attendance on the master.

His wife was a sinful and wicked woman; when she had done any wrong thing she will be meek as a slave; and on days when she had not done wrong she will be passionate and tyrannical. Her husband could not make her out at all; and he was worried and harassed by her. Now, some seven or eight days later he renewed his attendances, and was asked by the Bodhisatta why he had not been seen of late.

“Master, my wife is the cause,” said he. And he told the Bodhisatta how she was meek one day like a slave girl, and tyrannical the next; how he could not make her out at all, and how he had been so worried and harassed by her shifting moods that he had stayed away.

The Bodhisatta said,”Precisely so; young Brahmin! On days when they have done wrong, women humble themselves before their husbands and become as meek and submissive as a slave girl; but on days when they have not done wrong, then they become stiff necked and insubordinate to their lords. Women are sinful and wicked; and their nature is hard to know. No heed should be paid either to their likes or to their dislikes.”

Such was the Bodhisatta’s instruction to his pupil, who then onwards paid no heed to his wife’s caprices. And she, hearing that her misconduct had come to the ears of the Bodhisatta, ceased from that time forward from her naughtiness.