Once upon a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta was born as the son of the king’s family priest. He was named as young Jotipala. When he grew up, he learned all the arts at Takkasila. He went to the forest and became an ascetic in the Kavitthaka hermitage, called Sakkadattiya. He attained perfection in meditation. As he dwelt there many hundreds of sages waited on him. He was attended by a great company and had seven chief disciples. Of them the sage Salissara left the Kavitthaka hermitage for the Surattha country, and dwelt on the banks of the river Satodila with many thousand sages in his company. Mendissara with many thousand sages dwelt near the town of Lambaculaka in the country of king Pajaka. Pabbata with many thousand sages dwelt in a certain wooded mountain in Avanti and the Deccan. Kisavaccha dwelt alone near the city of Kumbhavati in the park of king Dandaki. The ascetic Anusissa was attendant on the Bodhisatta and stayed with him. Narada, the younger brother of Kaladevala, dwelt alone in a cave-cell amid the mountainous country of Aranjara in the Central Region.

Now not far from Aranjara there is a very populous town. In the town there is a great river, in which many men bathe and along its banks sit many beautiful courtesans tempting the men. The ascetic Narada saw one of them and being enamoured of her, forsook his meditations and pining away without food lay in the bonds of love for seven days. His brother Kaladevala by reflection knew the cause of this, and came flying through the air into the cave. Narada saw him and asked why he had come. “I knew you were ill and have come to tend you.” Narada repelled him with a falsehood, “You are talking nonsense, falsehood, and vanity.” The other refused to leave him and brought Salissara, Mendissara, and Pabbatissara. He repelled them all in the same way. Kaladevala went flying to fetch their master Sarabhanga and fetched him.

When the Master came, he saw that Marada had fallen into the power of the senses, and asked if it were so. Narada rose at the words and saluted, and confessed. The Master said, “Narada, those who fall into the power of the senses waste away in misery in this life, and in their next existence are born in hell.”

Hearing him, Marada answered, “Teacher, the following of desires is happiness. Why do you call such happiness misery?” Sarabhanga said, “Listen, then,” and spoke:

Happiness and misery ever on each other’s footsteps press:

Thou hast seen their alternation: seek a truer happiness.

Narada said, “Teacher, such misery is hard to bear, I cannot endure it.” The Great Being said, “Narada, the misery that comes has to be endured.”

But Narada answered, “Teacher, the happiness if love’s desire is the greatest happiness. I cannot abandon it.” The Great Being said, “Virtue is not to be abandoned for any cause,” and spoke:

For love of lusts, for hopes of gain, for miseries, great and small.

Do not undo your saintly past, and so from virtue fall.

Sarabhanga having thus shown forth the law, Kaladevala in admonition of his younger brother spoke:

Know the worldly life is trouble, victual should be freely lent.

No delight in gathering riches, no distress when they are spent.

Then Sarabhanga spoke in warning, “Narada, listen to this. He who will not do at first what is proper to be done, must weep and lament like the young man who went to the forest.” And so he told an old tale.

Once upon a time in a town of Kasi there was a young Brahmin, beautiful, strong, stout as elephant. His thoughts were, “Why should I keep my parents by working on a farm, or have a wife and children, or do good works of charity and so forth? I won’t keep anybody nor do any good work; but I will go into the forest and keep myself by killing deer.” So with the five kinds of weapons he went to the Himalaya and killed and ate many deer. In the Himalaya region he found a great defile, surrounded by mountains, on the banks of the river Vidhava, and there he lived on the flesh of the slain deer, cooked on hot coals, he thought, “I shall not always be strong; when I grow weak I shall not be able to range the forest; now I will drive many kinds of wild animals into this defile, close it up by a gate, and then without roaming the forest I shall kill and eat them at my pleasure,” and so he did.

As time passed over him, he lost control over his hands and feet, he could not move freely here and there, he could not find his food or drink, his body withered, he became the ghost of a man, he showed wrinkles furrowing his body like the earth in a hot season; ill-favoured and ill-knit, he became very miserable. The king of Sivei, named Sivi, had a desire to eat flesh roasted on coals in the forest. So he gave over his kingdom to his ministers, and with the five kinds of weapons he went to the forest and ate the flesh of the deer he slew. Incidentaly he met the brahmin. Although afraid, he summoned courage to ask who he was. “Lord, I am the ghost of a man, reaping the fruit of the deeds I have done. who are you?” “The king of Sivi.” “Why have you come here?” “To eat the flesh of deer.” He said, “Great king! I have become the ghost of a man because I came here with that object,” and telling the whole story at length and explaining his misfortune to the king, he spoke:

King, it is with me as if I had been with foes in bitter strife,

Labour, and skill in handicraft, a peaceful home, a wife,

All have been lost to me; my works bear fruit in this my life.

Worsted a thousandfold I am, kinless and reft of stay,

Strayed from the law of righteousness, like ghost I’m fallen away

This state is mine because I caused, instead of joy, distress.

Girt as it were with flaming fire, I have no happiness.

With that he added, “O king! through desire of happiness I caused misery to others and have even in this life become the ghost of a man. Do not commit evil deeds, go to your city and do good deeds of charity and the like.” The king did so and completed the path to heaven.

The ascetic was roused by the teacher Sarabhanga’s account of this case. He became agitated, and after saluting and gaining his teacher’s pardon, by the proper processes he regained the power of meditation he had lost. Sarabhanga took him back with him to his own hermitage.

After the lesson, the Master declared the Truths and identified the Birth:– after the Truths the backslididn Brother was established in the fruition of the First Path:– “At that time Narada was the backsliding Brother, Salissara was Sariputta, Mendissara was Kassapa, Pabbata was Anuruddha, Kaladevala was Kaccana, Anusissa was Ananda, Kisavaccha was Moggallana, and Sarabhanga was myself.”