104. Mittavinda Jātaka (JA104)

“From four to eight.”—This story was told by the Master while at Jetavana, concerning an unruly Brother. The incidents are the same as those in the previous story of Mittavindaka, but belong to the days of the Buddha Kassapa.

Now at that time one of the damned who had put on the circlet and was suffering the tortures of hell, asked the Bodhisatta—“Lord, what sin have I committed?” The Bodhisatta detailed the man’s evil deeds to hire and uttered this stanza—

From four to eight, to sixteen thence, and so
To thirty-two insatiate greed doth go,
—Still pressing on till insatiety
Doth win the circlet’s griding misery.

So saying he went back to the Realm of Devas, but the other abode in hell till his sin had been purged from him. Then he passed thence to fare according to his deserts.

His lesson ended, the Master identified the Birth by saying, “This unruly Brother was then Mittavindaka and I the Deva.”

The Jātaka, or Stories of the Buddha’s Former Births, edited by E.B. Cowell, published by The Cambridge University Press.

Vol. 1, translated by Robert Chalmers, 1895.

Vol. 2, translated by W.H.D. Rouse, 1895.

Vol. 3, translated by H.T. Francis and R.A. Neil, 1897.

Vol. 4, translated by W.H.D. Rouse, 1901.

Vol. 5, translated by H.T. Francis, 1905.

Vol. 6, translated by E.B. Cowell and W.H.D. Rouse, 1907.

These translations are in the public domain. You are free to do whatever you like with them.

Scanned, proofed and formatted at sacred-texts.com, January 2006–February 2010, by John Bruno Hare and others. Thanks to the Sacred Texts Archive for making these texts available in digital form.

Prepared for SuttaCentral by Bhikkhu Sujato.