Once upon a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta was born a Tree sprite in a cemetery grove. In those days a festival was proclaimed in Benares, and the people resolved to sacrifice to the ogres. So they strewed fish and meat about courtyards, and streets, and other places, and set out great pots of strong drink. At midnight a jackal came into the town by the sewer, and ate the meat and liquor. Crawling into some bushes, he was fast asleep when morning dawned.

Waking up and seeing it was broad daylight, he knew that he could not make his way back at that hour with safety. So he lay down quietly near the roadside where he could not be seen, till at last he saw a solitary Brahmin on his way to rinse his mouth in the tank. Then the jackal thought to himself, “Brahmins are a greedy lot. I must so play on his greediness as to get him to carry me out of the city in his waist cloth under his outer robe.” So, with a human voice, he cried “Brahmin.”

The Brahmin asked, “Who calls me? What do you want?”

The fox said, “I have two hundred gold pieces, Brahmin; and if you will hide me in your waist cloth under your outer robe and get me out of the city without my being seen, you shall have them all.”

Closing with the offer, the greedy Brahmin hid the jackal and carried the beast a little way out of the city. The fox asked him to carry it to cremation park.

“Put me down here; Spread your robe out on the ground, Brahmin.” said the jackal ; and the Brahmin did so.

The fox said, “Now dig up this tree by the roots.” And while the Brahmin was at work, the fox walked on to the robe, and dunged and staled on it in five places, the four corners and the middle. After doing this done, he fox ran off.

Hereon the Bodhisatta, standing in the fork of the tree, the Bodhisatta said to the Brahmin, “Go now and wash your robe and bathe, and go about your business.” So saying, he vanished from sight, and the Brahmin did as he was told, and departed very mortified at having been so tricked.