14. Nandhi – Visala
Once upon a time at Takkasila in the land of Gandhara, there was a king reigning there, and the Bodhisatta came to life as a bull. When he was quite a tiny calf, he was presented by his owners to a brahmin. The brahmin called it Nandi – Visala (Great Joy), and treated it like his own child, feeding the young creature on rice-gruel and rice. When the Bodhisatta grew up, he thought to himself, “I have been brought up by this brahmin with great pains. How can I repay the brahmin the cost of my nurture by making proof of my strength?” Accordingly, one day he said to the brahmin “Go brahmin! Go to some merchant and wager him a thousand pieces that your bull can draw a hundred loaded carts.” The brahmin went to a merchant and got into a discussion with him as to whose oxen in the town were the strong. The merchant said,“Oh, so-and-so’s oxen is strongest.” The brahmin said, “I have a bull who can pull a hundred loaded carts.”
13. Mittavindaka In Hell
Once upon a time, in the days of the Buddha Kassapa, there dwelt in Benares a merchant, whose wealth was eighty crores of money, having a son named Mittavindaka. The mother and father of this lad had entered upon the First Path, but he was wicked, an unbeliever.
12. Maha Pingala – The Tyrant
Once upon a time, a wicked and unjust king named Maha pingala, the Great Yellow King, reigned at Benares. He ruled the kingdom sinfully after his own will and pleasure. With taxes and fines, and many mutilations and robberies, he crushed the folk as it were sugar cane in a mill; he was cruel, fierce, ferocious. For other people he had not a grain of pity; at home he was harsh and implacable towards his wives, his sons and daughters, to his Brahmin courtiers and the householders of the country. He was like a speck of dust that falls in the eye, like gravel in the broth, like a thorn sticking in the heel.
11. Lust Of Taste
Once upon a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares he had a gardener named Sanjaya. A Wind-antelope came into the king’s pleasaunce, which fled away at the sight of Sanjaya, but the latter let it go without terrifying the timid creature. After several visits the antelope used to roam about in the pleasaunce. Sanjaya was in the habit of gathering flowers and fruits and taking them day by day to the king. One day the king said to him, “Have you noticed anything strange in the pleasaunce?” “Sir! that a wind-antelope has come about the grounds.”
