Once upon a time when Brahmadatta reigned in Benares, the Bodhisatta came to life as a young monkey in the Himalaya region, and when fully grown he lived on the banks of the Ganges. Now a female crocodile in the Ganges a longing for the heart of the monkey told her mate to get it. He planned to get the heart of the Bodhisatta by plunging him in the water.” So he said to the Bodhisatta, “Come, my friend! we will go and eat wild fruits on the opposite island.”

“How shall I get there?” he said.

“I will put you on my back and bring you there,” answered the crocodile.

Innocent of the crocodile’s plans he jumped on his back and sat there. The crocodile after swimming a little way began to dive. Then the monkey said, “Why? Sir! Do you plunge me into the water?”

The crocodile said, “I am going to kill you and give your heart’s flesh to my wife.”

The monkey said, “Foolish fellow! do you suppose my heart is inside me?”

“Then where have you put it?”

“Don’t you see it hanging there on that fig-tree? Take me back; I will give my heart.”

Then the foolish crocodile took him and swam to the foot of the fig-tree on the river bank. The Bodhisatta springing from the crocodile’s back perched on the fig-tree and repeated these stanzas:

Have I from water, fish, to dry land passed

Only to fall into thy power at last?

Of bread fruit and rose apples I am sick,

And rather figs than yonder mangoes pick.

He that to great occasion fails to rise

‘Neath foeman’s feet in sorrow prostrate lies:

One prompt a crisis in his fate to know

Needs never dread oppression from his foe.

Thus did the Bodhisatta in these four stanzas tell how to succeed in worldly affairs, and forthwith disappeared in the thicket of trees.

The Master, having brought his lesson to and end, identified the Birth: “At that time Devadatta was the crocodile, and I myself was the monkey.”