There was a thick forest. A lake was there in the forest. A water-ogre lived in it. It used to devour everyone who went down into the water.

In those days the Bodhisatta had come to life as the king of the monkeys. He was as big as the fawn of a read deer. He lived in that forest as the head of eighty thousand monkeys; he shielded them from harm. He counselled his subjects:- “My friends, in this forest there are trees that are poisonous and lakes that are haunted by ogres. Mind to ask me first before you either eat any fruit which you have not eaten before, or drink of any water where you have not drunk before .”

All the monkeys said,“Certainly. Master!”

One day they came to a spot they had never visited before. As they were searching for water to drink after their day’s wanderings, they came to this lake. But they did not drink ; on the contrary they sat down watching arrival of the Bodhisatta.

When he came up, he said, “Well, my friends, Why don’t you drink?”

“We waited for you to come.”

The Bodhisatta came around the lake, and scrutinized the footprints round; all the footsteps led down into the water and none came up again. He thought to himself,“this is the haunt of an ogre”. So he said to his followers, ”the lake is haunted by an ogre.”

When the water-ogre realized that they were not entering his domain, he assumed the shape of a horrible monster with a blue belly, a white face, and bright-red hands and feet; in this shape he came out form the water, and said, “Why are you sitting here? Go down in to the lake and drink.”

But the Bodhisatta said to him, “Are you not the ogre of this water? Do you take as your prey all those who go down into this water?”

Ogre said,“Yes, I am; Yes, I swallow everything entering this lake.”

The Bodhisatta said to him, ”we will drink the water, and yet not fall into your power.”

Ogre asked,“How do you propose to drink the water, then?”

The Bodhisatta said to him,“Do you think we shall have to go down in to the water to drink; whereas we shall not enter the water at all but the whole eighty thousand of us will drink water using a hollow stalk of a lotus. And so you will not be able to eat us.”

And he said:

I found the footprints all lead down, none back.

With canes we’ll drink; you shall not take my life.

So saying, the Bodhisatta commanded , saying, “Let all canes growing here become hollow throughout.” Now, thanks to the great virtues of the saving goodness of Bodhisattas, their commands are always fulfilled. And thenceforth every single cane that grew round that lake became hollow throughout.

After giving this command, the Bodhisatta seated himself with a cane in his hands. All the other eighty thousand monkeys too seated themselves round the lake, each with a cane in his hands. And at the same moment when the Bodhisatta sucked the water up through his cane, they all drank in the same manner, as they sat on the bank. This was the way they drank, and ogre could get none of them; so he went off in a rage to his own habitation. The Bodhisatta, too, with his followers went back into the forest.