Once upon a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta was born in a potter’s family in a suburb of Benares; when he grew up he became a householder, had a son and daughter, and supported his wife and children by his potter’s handicraft.

At that time in the Kalinga kingdom, in the city of Dantapura, the king named Karandu, saw at the garden-gate a mango tree laden with sweet fruit; he stretched out his hand from his seat on the elephant and seized a bunch of mangoes; then entering the garden he sat on the royal seat and ate a mango, giving some to others. From the time when the king took one, everybody took one and the tree was left mangoless.ministers, Brahmins, and householders, thinking that others should also do so, took down and ate mangoes from that tree. Coming again and again they climbed the tree, and beating it with clubs and breaking the branches down and off, they ate the fruit, not leaving even the unripe.