More Kings on the Path
This page carries Ru-Yi's complete translation of fascicle 26 of the Jīng Lǜ Yì Xiàng (經律異相): "Kings on the Bodhisattva Path, Part 3" (行菩薩道下諸國王部第三) — nine further entries continuing the compendium's account of royal generosity and awakening. Among them: a king converted from blood sacrifice by the Buddha's own direct teaching that no ritual killing can cure his mother's illness, King Sarvadatta's offered head refused by the very debtor sent to collect it, King Universal-Light's recitation of a Prajñāpāramitā verse before a cannibal king awaiting his own execution, and the fascicle's long closing entry: King Ajātaśatru's extended philosophical dialogue with Mañjuśrī on the true nature of doubt itself.
Translation Method
Fascicle 26 closes out the compendium's section on kings practicing the bodhisattva path, continuing directly from fascicle 25. Entry 7, King Ajātaśatru's dialogue with Mañjuśrī, is unusually long and philosophically dense even by this compendium's standards; the source text itself notes an omission ("如此往反甚長文多不載" — "this exchange continued at much greater length, not recorded here in full"), and we translate the full text as the compendium preserves it, including that acknowledged gap. Several royal epithets here — "King Sarvadatta," "King Great Radiance" — recur from fascicle 25 under different narrative traditions; we preserve each telling independently.
Fascicle Contents
- 1. King Héhēi's Mother, and the Uselessness of Sacrifice 惒黑王因母疾悟道大行惠施
- 2. Two Kings and a Robe Too Heavy to Lift 二王以袈裟上佛得立不退之地
- 3. King Sarvadatta's Head, Refused by a Debtor 薩和達王布施讓國後還為王
- 4. King Rìnán Saves Three Lives, and Loses Everything for It 日難王棄國學道濟三種命
- 5. King Sage-at-Ease Protects the Dharma by Killing a Brahmin 仙豫王護法殺婆羅門
- 6. King Universal-Light's Prajñāpāramitā Verse 普明王誦般若偈得免班足王害
- 7. Ajātaśatru's Dialogue with Mañjuśrī on Doubt 阿闍貰王從文殊解疑得於信忍
- 8. King Great Radiance's First Resolve for Enlightenment 大光明王始發道心
- 9. Two Teachers' Contest of Miracles 多福王事梵志增福太子奉佛兩師角術
1. King Héhēi's Mother, and the Uselessness of Sacrifice
A border king, taught by two hundred brahmins that only mass animal and child sacrifice can cure his own dying mother, is intercepted en route to the slaughter by the Buddha himself, who teaches instead that grain comes from planting, wealth from giving, and long life from loving-kindness — a lesson that heals the queen and converts an entire kingdom at once.
昔有國王。名曰惒黑。處在邊境未覩聖化。奉事外道舉國邪信。殺生祭祠王母寢病。求諸醫神經歷年歲。未得除差。更召國內諸婆羅門二百人。而告之曰。吾大夫人病困經久不知何故。諸婆羅門言。星宿倒錯陰陽不調故使爾耳。王曰。作何方宜使得除愈。婆羅門言。當於城外平治淨處。郊祀四山日月星宿。當得百頭畜生種種異類及一小兒殺以祠天。王自躬將母跪拜請命然後乃差。王即奉命。驅人及象馬牛羊百虫之類。隨道悲鳴震動天地。從東門出當就祭壇殺以祠天。佛懷大慈愍王頑愚。即將徒眾往向其國。王遙見佛。如日初出如月盛滿光相炳然。人民見者莫不愛敬。祭餟之具皆願求脫。王為佛作禮叉手長跪問訊說。母病經久良醫神祇無不周遍。今始欲行解謝星宿四山五嶽。為母請命冀蒙得差。佛言。欲得穀食當行耕種。欲得大富當行布施。欲得長壽當行大慈。欲得智慧當行學問。行此四事隨其所種得其果實。祠祀婬亂以邪為正。殺生求生去生道遠。即說偈言。若人壽百歲 勤事天下神 象馬用祭祀 不如行一慈。佛放光明烈照天地。三塗八難莫不歡喜。王聞法覩光即得道迹。母聞情中悅豫所患消除。二百梵志慚愧悔過皆為沙門(出慈仁法句譬喻經第二卷又出大乘方便經上卷)王於是後愛民若子。五穀豐熟一國無災毒。人壽八萬歲慈護眾生如天帝釋。信敬三寶常行十善率化四鎮一切人民。時有貧者盜他財物。財主得之。王問何以盜。答曰。貧無自活仰違聖法。王悵然曰。民之飢者即我餓之。寒者即我裸之。吾勢能令國無貧者。民之苦樂在我而已。即大赦國內。出藏珍寶布施飢寒。車馬湯藥恣意而取。飛鳥走獸下及蟲魚王施之。後國豐民富相率以道。無十惡之名。鬼神助喜擁護其國。五穀豐登家有餘財。即得五福。一者長壽。二者顏色更好。三者德動八方。四者無病增力。五者境內安隱心常悅樂(出度無極集經第三卷)。
Long ago there was a king named Héhēi, dwelling at the frontier, who had not yet witnessed the sage's own teaching, and served a non-Buddhist path, his whole kingdom given to false belief, offering killing as sacrifice. When the queen, his own mother, fell gravely ill, he sought physicians and healers of every kind for years on end, without finding any cure, and at last summoned two hundred brahmins of his own realm, telling them: my great consort's illness has persisted so long, and I do not know its cause.
The brahmins told him: the stars and constellations have fallen out of proper order, and yin and yang are no longer in balance — this is the cause. The king asked: what means, then, might bring about her cure? The brahmins answered: you must clear and consecrate open ground outside the city, and offer sacrifice to the four mountains, the sun, moon, and stars — a hundred head of livestock of every different kind, together with one small child, killed as an offering to heaven. Only once the king himself has personally knelt and prayed for his mother's own life will she recover.
The king accepted this counsel, and drove together men, elephants, horses, cattle, sheep, and a hundred kinds of lesser creatures, their own cries of grief along the road shaking heaven and earth, out through the eastern gate toward the altar, to be killed there as an offering to heaven.
The Buddha, moved by great compassion for the king's own stubborn ignorance, went with his own assembly toward that kingdom. The king, seeing the Buddha from afar — radiant as the rising sun, luminous as the full moon — and the people, seeing him, could not help but love and revere him; all those gathered for the sacrifice wished at once to be spared.
The king bowed before the Buddha, joined his palms, knelt at length, and, greeting him, explained: my mother's illness has persisted so long that no physician or spirit has been left untried; I now intend to appease the stars, the four mountains, and the five peaks, praying for my mother's own life, hoping thereby to secure her cure.
The Buddha said: if you wish to obtain grain, you must plant and cultivate it; if you wish to obtain great wealth, you must give in charity; if you wish to obtain long life, you must practice great loving-kindness; if you wish to obtain wisdom, you must pursue learning. Practice these four things, and you shall reap the fruit of whatever you have planted. But sacrificial killing, born of confused and dissolute practice, mistakes what is false for what is true — killing to seek life only leads further from the true path of life. He then spoke this verse:
"Though a man live a hundred years, / diligently serving every spirit under heaven, / offering elephants and horses in sacrifice — / this is not worth a single act of loving-kindness."
The Buddha then released a blazing radiance, illuminating heaven and earth; even the beings of the three lower realms and the eight difficult conditions rejoiced at it. The king, hearing the Dharma and beholding this light, attained a glimpse of the path at once; his mother, her own heart filled with joy at the news, found her own affliction dissolved entirely. The two hundred brahmins, struck with shame, repented, and all became śramaṇas (Source: Dharmapada Similes on Compassion, fascicle 2; also found in the Mahāyāna Sūtra of Skillful Means, first fascicle).
The king, from that time on, cherished his own people as his children; the five grains grew abundant, and the whole kingdom was free of calamity. Human life then spanned eighty thousand years, and the king cared for all beings with compassion, like Śakra himself, holding faith in the Three Jewels, constantly practicing the ten wholesome actions, and guiding all his own people in every direction.
There was, at one time, a poor man who stole another's property; the owner caught him, and the king asked why he had stolen. He answered: being poor, with no means to sustain myself, I was driven to defy the sage's own law. The king, filled with sorrow, said: whoever among my people goes hungry, it is I who have starved them; whoever goes cold, it is I who have left them unclothed — for I hold the power to ensure that no one in my kingdom need be poor at all; the suffering or ease of my own people rests with me alone.
He then declared a general amnesty throughout his kingdom, opened his own treasury, and gave freely to the hungry and cold, letting anyone take carriages, horses, medicine, whatever they needed, without restraint; he extended this same giving even to birds, beasts, insects, and fish. Afterward, the kingdom grew prosperous and its people wealthy, all following the same path together, with not a single one of the ten unwholesome deeds named among them; spirits and deities, delighted, protected the kingdom in turn, the five grains flourished, and every household had wealth to spare.
And so he obtained the five blessings: first, long life; second, an ever-finer complexion; third, virtue that moved all eight directions; fourth, freedom from illness and increasing strength; and fifth, a realm at peace, its people's hearts always joyful (Source: Sūtra of the Collected Perfections, fascicle 3).
The Buddha's own teaching here refuses to engage with the astrological premise the brahmins offer at all — he neither confirms nor disputes whether the stars have truly fallen out of order, but redirects the whole question toward a simple causal principle: each desired outcome has its own proper cause, and killing has no causal connection to healing whatsoever. The king's later reflection on poverty — "whoever among my people goes hungry, it is I who have starved them" — extends this same logic of direct causal responsibility from religious practice into governance itself, refusing to treat his own subjects' poverty as a fact of nature separate from his own conduct as king.
2. Two Kings and a Robe Too Heavy to Lift
A robe once offered to the Buddha becomes an object of unexplained devotion for generations of kings long after its own origin is forgotten — until a merchant reveals its true history, and the current king's own attempt to offer it back to the Buddha in person meets a resistance that only reveals the smallness of his own aspiration.
昔有國王。以袈裟上佛。因發無上平等度意。佛般泥洹自燒其身。袈裟不然。取佛舍利起塔。滅盡袈裟故在。後轉無塔供事。袈裟積有年歲。不復聞佛法。每到齋日。國王大臣無數人民。以香華幡蓋供養袈裟。轉相承續更相法效未曾有廢。後有國王。念言。先王及我敬事此衣。當得何福。為何等衣。莫有知者。佛國人來商販治生。以白王言。我國有王。名悅頭檀。生一聖子字為悉達。出家學道號名曰佛。身有三十二相。正著此衣。王聞歡喜。遣使請佛。商人言。若請佛者但燒香遙禮請之。即燒香熏請佛。願佛明日。勞屈精神。香煙趣佛繞佛七匝。即於虛空化成華蓋。時佛乃笑。口氣光炎照無數剎。上昇虛空與香共合。合成花蓋俱還入頂。阿難白佛。而此香烟從何方來。佛具告阿難。應時三千大千國土為大震動。彼國城門皆悉為金。箜篌樂器不鼓自鳴。婦女珠環皆悉作聲。百歲枯木更生。王大恐怖呼問人言。此何災怪。使我國動。商人白王。世尊所至之處先現善相。皆王功德之所致。王即踊躍。宣語臣民。燒香迎佛。王心願言。令我得如世尊侍者羅漢。王以袈裟奉上世尊。佛不能勝。下沒地中乃至下方無數佛剎。懸止空中。下剎菩薩白彼佛言。是袈裟從何所來。亦不墮地。佛言。須臾自當有應。釋迦文佛。教目連舍利弗等五百弟子行取袈裟。各盡神足都不能致。佛告文殊往取復不能勝。佛言。此袈裟。前世人持上先佛。發大道意。更無數世。復還屬王。今復上我。中欲取證。願為聲聞。是以袈裟故不可勝。所以者何。前意尊重則袈裟輕。後志於小故袈裟重。王聞佛教即自懺悔。我為國王。不欲令國內人願處我位。若有此意。我謂之逆。佛為世尊。是故不敢願求佛果。王及臣民皆發無上平等度意。袈裟自然於地踊出。王舉袈裟。擎以上佛。願為十方一切蠕動。受此袈裟。便為說經。王及群臣皆立不退轉地(出折伏羅漢經)。
Long ago there was a king who offered a robe to the Buddha, and, through this act, resolved upon the unsurpassed, universal aspiration to deliver all beings. When the Buddha entered final nirvāṇa, and his own body was cremated, this very robe alone did not burn. His relics were taken up and a stūpa raised over them; once the fire had died down entirely, the robe remained.
In later generations, no stūpa was kept to honor it any longer, yet the robe itself persisted across the passing years, though the Buddha's own teaching had, by then, long since gone unheard there. Still, on every fast-day, the king, his ministers, and countless people made offerings to the robe alone, with incense, flowers, banners, and canopies — a practice handed down and imitated from one generation to the next, never once abandoned.
A later king, in time, thought to himself: my own predecessors, and I myself, have long revered and served this very garment — what blessing might this bring us, and what robe is this, truly? No one could say.
Merchants then came from the Buddha's own country to trade, and told the king: in our own land there is a king named Śuddhodana, who fathered a holy son named Siddhārtha; this son went forth to study the path, and is called the Buddha, his own body marked with the thirty-two signs — and it is his very robe that you possess.
The king, hearing this, rejoiced, and sent envoys to invite the Buddha. The merchants told him: to invite the Buddha from so great a distance, you need only burn incense and bow in reverence toward him from afar. The king did so, burning incense and inviting the Buddha, praying: may the Buddha, tomorrow, trouble himself to come, however great the effort.
The incense smoke rose toward the Buddha, circled him seven times, and transformed itself, in the open sky, into a canopy of flowers. The Buddha then smiled, and from his own mouth issued a radiant light illuminating countless buddha-lands; the light rose into the sky and merged with the incense smoke, forming together a single floral canopy, which then returned and settled upon his own crown.
Ānanda asked the Buddha: from what direction has this incense smoke come? The Buddha explained the whole matter to him in full. At that very moment, the whole three-thousandfold world-system shook greatly; in that distant kingdom, the city gates all turned to gold, harps and musical instruments sounded of themselves without being played, the pearls and bracelets worn by the women there rang out on their own, and trees a hundred years dead burst back into life.
The king, greatly alarmed, asked his people: what calamity or omen is this, that has shaken my own kingdom so? The merchants told the king: wherever the World-Honored One is about to arrive, auspicious signs appear first — all of this is brought about by your own merit, my king.
The king, overjoyed, proclaimed to his ministers and people: burn incense, and welcome the Buddha. In his own heart, the king wished: may I come to attain a station like that of the World-Honored One's own attendant arhat.
The king then offered the robe up to the World-Honored One — yet the Buddha could not lift it at all; it sank down into the earth, passing through countless buddha-lands below, until it hung suspended in the open sky there instead. The bodhisattvas of that lower land asked their own buddha: where has this robe come from? — for it would not fall to the ground there either. That buddha said: in a moment, its own answer shall become clear.
Śākyamuni Buddha then had Maudgalyāyana, Śāriputra, and five hundred other disciples in turn attempt to retrieve the robe, each exhausting his own spiritual power, yet none could lift it. The Buddha then had Mañjuśrī go to retrieve it, and even he could not lift it either.
The Buddha then explained: this robe was once offered, in a past life, by this same king, to an earlier buddha, at which time he resolved upon the great path itself; yet, across countless lives since, it passed back into the possession of ordinary kings, and now, offered up to me once more, the king's own heart, in the very moment of offering it, wished only to become a mere śrāvaka disciple — it is for this reason that the robe cannot be lifted. And why is this so? Because his earlier resolve was weighty and exalted, the robe itself was light; but because his later aspiration has shrunk to something small, the robe has become heavy in turn.
The king, hearing the Buddha's own explanation, repented at once: as king of this land, I did not wish for anyone within my own kingdom to aspire to my own throne — should such a wish arise in someone, I would call it rebellion. Since the Buddha is the World-Honored One himself, I dared not wish to attain buddhahood, thinking it too great an aspiration for myself.
The king and his ministers and people then all resolved upon the unsurpassed, universal aspiration to deliver all beings — and, at once, the robe rose up from the ground of its own accord. The king lifted it, and offered it up to the Buddha, wishing that it might be received on behalf of every crawling, breathing creature throughout the ten directions. The Buddha then taught the sūtra's own teaching, and the king and all his ministers attained the stage of non-retrogression (Source: Sūtra of Subduing the Arhat).
The robe's own changing weight is the entry's central conceit, and it inverts the usual moral logic of religious devotion: generations of kings sustain an unbroken tradition of reverence toward an object whose origin they no longer even know, yet that devotion's own physical weight tracks not the consistency of the practice but the scale of the aspiration behind any single act of offering it. The final king's own error is instructive — his instinct to wish for something modest (a mere arhat's station) out of what reads as genuine humility is treated by the story not as becoming restraint but as an actual failure of nerve, one that even the Buddha's own chief disciples cannot compensate for on his behalf.
3. King Sarvadatta's Head, Refused by a Debtor
A brahmin youth, desperate to redeem his own family from debt-bondage, seeks out the one king famous for refusing no request — only to find that king already dethroned and fleeing capture himself, and offering his own severed head as the very payment the youth came to ask for.
過去劫時有大國王號薩和達(梁言一切施)施諸沙門及一切人不逆其意。異國婆羅門子少喪其父。獨與母姊弟居家甚貧苦。其母曰。今窮無自供。可往詣薩和達王乞匃。兒報母言。我今未有所知。先當學問然後乃行。母不許。兒先假貸索一兩金。可備一歲之糧。乃出家行學一歲來歸。母見逆問。汝詣薩和達王。兒復報母言。所學未通當復更學。母言。前金已盡。即復往至前所貸家。貸一兩金。金主語兒。汝前取金既未還我。若復欲索。卿母及姊皆將上券爾乃可得。若至時不畢以為奴婢。便作券取歸以付其母。復捨家學。復經一年。所知粗備欲歸。詣薩和達王。道中為債主所牽。及母姊弟將歸鎖繫。婆羅門子語債主言。卿今繫我終年無益。不如放我往詣薩和達王。乞匃得物相償。其主令去。時異國興兵。取薩和達王。王聞自念。人命短促會歸無常。我少好布施。慈忍無傷不欲復與彼國共相拒逆。所以者何。但不須為備。亦勿恐怖。但且嚴出迎逆作禮恭敬承事。受其勅令使踰於我。諸臣白王。他國入界云何不備。王默然不應。如是至三。王言。不須拒逆。如我前言。諸臣奉旨。王言大善。各自安家慎莫勞擾。其王夜半即脫印綬默亡而去。彼王入國即領王位。便募索薩和達。其賞甚重。王出國行五百餘里遙見一婆羅門子。二人相逢。王問。卿今欲何所至。答曰。欲詣薩和達。我少小失父。居家甚貧窮。以母及姊弟。持行質債。欲乞匃贖之。并得自濟。王言。我是薩和達。有他國王欲得我國。不欲傷害是以避之。婆羅門子躄地大泣。不能自勝。王便諫曉使起不須復啼。所求索者今當相與。婆羅門子言。王今失國。當持何等以相濟乞。王便報言。彼國王來見募甚重。卿今可截我頭持往與之。在所求索皆可得也。於是婆羅門子即說偈言。世間殺父母 命盡墮泥犁 今若加害王 其罪等無異 我今實不忍 加惡於大王 寧今身命盡 終不造逆意。薩和達王。復語婆羅門子言。卿若不欲取我頭者。便可截我鼻耳送之。不復中王故也。婆羅門子言。亦所不忍。王曰。縛送亦可。婆羅門子曰。能知彼王無所危害。於是王與婆羅門子相將共還。臨至國二十餘里。王言。卿可縛我。婆羅門子乃縛王。一國人民男女大小莫不啼哭崩絕。劇喪父母前詣宮門。諸臣即入。白彼王曰。前募薩和達者已為婆羅門子所縛送。今在宮門。彼王即言。便促現之。一切臣民見薩和達王。無不僻地而啼泣者。彼劫人王亦復淚出。而問諸臣。汝輩何以皆啼。諸臣白言。我等見薩和達王。棄國與王。復持身施與婆羅門子。所作不悔是故啼耳。彼劫人王聞諸臣民各各說是。即便躄地而大啼泣不能自勝。即問婆羅門子。汝本那得是王。婆羅門子答王言。我實貧窮。以母姊弟行用質債。聞此薩和達王大好布施故。從遠來欲乞匃還贖母姊弟得自濟活。於道中逢之共相問勞。薩和達王而語我言。我今棄國以與他王。無以相乞。我時愁憂酷毒無賴。時薩和達王。便教我截取其頭送來與王。我時不敢。復令我截取鼻耳送之。我復不肯。遂相將還令縛送之。所問本末其實如此。於彼劫人王。聞婆羅門子所說。即復躄地涕淚。如言。告勅諸臣。促解王縛洗浴衣被著其印綬還立為王。即上坐領國如故。於是彼王即長跪叉手讚嘆。而說偈言。自在本國時 遙聞大王德 今來至於此 見尊踰所聞 巍巍積功德 譬若純金山 其力堅如是 無能動搖者 今見王所行 於世甚無雙 願以國相還 并奉所居界 願歸得本土 修敬為臣禮 不復敢憍慢 事王如尊天。佛言。時王薩和達者我身是也。彼國王者舍利弗是也。婆羅門子調達是也。成我六波羅蜜。三十二相十種力滿諸功德。皆是調達恩。調達是我善知識。亦為善師(出佛說一切施主所行六度檀波羅蜜經)。
In a past kalpa there was a great king named Sarvadatta ("Gives Everything," in the language of Liang), who gave freely to śramaṇas and all others, never once thwarting a request. In another country, there lived a young brahmin whose father had died while he was still young, leaving him to dwell alone with his own mother, sister, and younger brother, in the direst poverty.
His mother said: we are now so poor we cannot even sustain ourselves — you should go and beg from King Sarvadatta. The son answered his mother: I have as yet no learning of my own — I must study first, and only then go to him. His mother would not permit this at first; the son then borrowed a small sum of gold, enough to provide a year's own food, and went off to study for a year before returning home.
His mother, seeing him return, asked whether he had gone to King Sarvadatta. The son answered her again: what I have learned is not yet sufficient — I must study further still. His mother said: the gold I borrowed before is already spent. And so he went again to the same household from which he had borrowed, seeking another small sum of gold. The lender told him: you have not yet repaid what you borrowed before — should you wish to borrow again, your mother and sister must both be pledged as surety this time; and, should the debt not be settled by the appointed time, they shall become slaves. The young man agreed to this bond, took the gold, and gave it to his mother, before leaving once more to study.
Another year passed, and, his own learning now roughly sufficient, he prepared to return, meaning to go at last to King Sarvadatta. On the road, however, he was seized by the very creditor to whom his mother, sister, and brother had been pledged, who was taking them away in chains.
The young brahmin said to the creditor: keeping me bound here serves you no purpose at all in the end — better to release me, that I might go to King Sarvadatta, and beg from him the means to repay you in full. The creditor let him go.
At that time, a foreign army had risen against King Sarvadatta himself, seeking to capture him. The king, hearing of this, thought to himself: human life is fleeting, and must return to impermanence in the end — I myself have long delighted in giving, and hold compassion and patience without any wish to harm; I have no desire to resist that other kingdom's own hostility. There is no need to prepare any defense, nor any cause for fear — simply go out and receive them with full courtesy and respect, and submit to their own command, exceeding even my own.
His ministers said to him: a foreign army has entered our own borders — how can we fail to prepare a defense? The king remained silent, and did not answer. This happened three times over, and, at last, the king said: there is no need to resist them at all — do exactly as I have already said. His ministers obeyed his own command. The king said further: very good — let everyone simply keep their own households at peace, and take care not to trouble yourselves further.
That very night, at midnight, the king removed his own royal seal and ribbon, and quietly fled the kingdom alone. The invading king, entering the country, took the throne for himself at once, and offered a great reward for the capture of Sarvadatta.
The king, traveling some five hundred li from his own former kingdom, came upon the young brahmin from afar, and the two met upon the road. The king asked him: where are you traveling to now? He answered: I seek King Sarvadatta — my own father died when I was young, and my household lives in the direst poverty; my mother, sister, and brother have been pledged for a debt, and I wish to beg the means to redeem them, and sustain us all.
The king said: I myself am Sarvadatta. Another kingdom's own king has sought to seize my own throne, and, unwilling to cause harm, I have fled rather than resist him. The young brahmin threw himself to the ground, weeping uncontrollably. The king consoled him, urging him to rise and weep no more: whatever you have come to ask of me, I shall grant it now.
The young brahmin said: but you, my king, have now lost your own kingdom entirely — what could you possibly still give me? The king answered him: that other king has placed a very great reward upon my own head — you may cut it off, and carry it to him, and whatever you then ask for shall surely be granted.
At this, the young brahmin spoke this verse:
"One who kills their own father or mother in this world / falls, at life's end, down into hell. / Were I now to bring harm to my own king, / this transgression would be no different at all. / I truly could not bear / to do violence to the great king — / I would rather let this body and life of mine end entirely / than ever form so treacherous a thought."
King Sarvadatta then told the young brahmin further: if you do not wish to take my own head, then you may cut off my nose and ears instead, and carry these to him — this too would no longer be fitting for a king, and would satisfy his own demand. The young brahmin said: I could not bear even this. The king said: then simply bind me, and deliver me to him — this, at least, would let him know that his own former king has come to no true harm.
The king and the young brahmin then set out together, and, as they drew within twenty li of the capital, the king said: you may bind me now. The young brahmin bound the king, and, as they entered the city, every person there, men and women, young and old alike, wept and cried out in anguish, as though mourning their own parents, and followed them all the way to the palace gate.
The ministers went in at once, and told the new king: the one for whom a reward was offered, Sarvadatta, has been bound and delivered by this young brahmin, and now stands at the palace gate. The new king said: bring him before me at once. Every minister and subject present, seeing King Sarvadatta, could not help but fall to the ground weeping — and even the invading king himself wept, asking his ministers: why do all of you weep so?
His ministers answered: we weep because King Sarvadatta, having already abandoned his own kingdom to you, still went further still, and offered his own body to this young brahmin as well, without the slightest regret for what he had done.
The invading king, hearing his own ministers and subjects speak in this way, one after another, could not help but fall to the ground himself, weeping without restraint, and asked the young brahmin: how did you come to have this king in your own custody? The young brahmin answered him: I am truly poor, and my mother, sister, and brother had been pledged for a debt; hearing that this King Sarvadatta was famed for his own great generosity, I traveled from afar to beg from him, hoping to redeem my family and sustain us all. I encountered him upon the road, and we greeted one another. King Sarvadatta then told me: I have now abandoned my own kingdom to another king, and have nothing left to give you. I was then overcome with such bitter grief that I knew not what to do — and it was King Sarvadatta himself who then instructed me to cut off his own head, and bring it to you; I dared not do this. He then had me cut off his nose and ears instead, and I would not do this either. And so, in the end, we came here together, and I simply bound him, and delivered him to you — this is the whole truth of the matter, from beginning to end.
The invading king, hearing the young brahmin's own account, fell again to the ground, weeping, exactly as before, and commanded his ministers: release the king from his bonds at once, bathe him, dress him in fine robes, and restore to him his own royal seal, that he might be reinstated as king. King Sarvadatta then resumed his own throne, and governed the kingdom exactly as before.
The invading king then knelt at length, palms joined, and spoke this verse in praise of him:
"While still secure in my own kingdom, / I heard from afar of the great king's own virtue; / now, having come to this very place, / I find him even greater than what I had heard. / Such towering, accumulated merit, / like a mountain of purest gold — / a strength so firm as this / that nothing at all could ever shake it. / Now, seeing what this king has truly done, / I find him without equal in this world. / I wish now to return his own kingdom to him, / together with the very lands I have taken. / I ask only to return to my own homeland, / and, from there, offer him the reverence due a vassal — / never again shall I dare show arrogance, / but shall serve this king as I would serve a honored heaven itself."
The Buddha said: that King Sarvadatta of that time was myself; that invading king was Śāriputra; and that young brahmin was Devadatta. That I came to perfect the six perfections, the thirty-two marks, and the ten powers, complete in every merit, is entirely owed to Devadatta's own kindness — Devadatta is my own good spiritual friend, and my own good teacher as well (Source: Buddha's Discourse on the All-Giving Donor's Practice of the Six Perfections).
This entry reuses the same royal epithet, "Sarvadatta" ("Gives Everything"), already given to a different king in fascicle 25's entry 9, drawn from a different source text with an entirely unrelated plot — we treat the two as independent narrative traditions sharing a stock title rather than variant tellings of one story. The Buddha's own closing identification of the invading king's ally as Devadatta is worth noting carefully: rather than framing this episode as one more instance of Devadatta's malice, the Buddha instead credits him as a "good spiritual friend," since it was precisely the crisis Devadatta's own aggression created that gave King Sarvadatta the occasion to perfect his own generosity — a rare moment in the compendium where Devadatta's disruptive role is treated as instrumental to the bodhisattva's own progress rather than simply obstructive to it.
4. King Rìnán Saves Three Lives, and Loses Everything for It
A king turned ascetic saves a crow, a snake, and a hunter from a deep pit — and it is the hunter alone, out of the three, who repays this rescue with betrayal, setting off a chain of gratitude and treachery that only the crow and snake, true to their own promised names, manage to set right.
昔摩天羅國。有王名日難。學通神明靡幽不覩。覺世非常曰。吾身當朽為世糞壤。何國之可保。捐榮棄樂服上法服。一鉢食為足。稟沙門戒山林為居積三十年。樹邊有坑深三十丈。時有獵者馳騁尋鹿墮于坑中時有一烏一蛇。俱時驚殞體皆毀傷。仰天悲號有孤窮之音。道士愴然火照見之。涕泗交頸。臨坑告曰。汝等無憂吾將拔汝。即下長繩或銜或持。遂獲全命。俱時謝曰。吾等蒙道士仁惠無量。得覩天日。願終斯身給眾所乏。道士曰。吾為國王。國大民多宮寶婇女諸國為上。願即響應何求不得。吾以國為怨六塵為六劍。常截吾身。六箭射吾體。因此六邪。轉受三塗。酷烈難忍吾甚厭之。故捐國為沙門。願獲佛道開化群生令還本元。豈但汝等三命而已乎。各還舊居見汝所親。令受三自歸無違佛教。獵者曰。我處世有年甞覩善人。無有若佛弟子者。恕己濟眾隱不揚名。若道士有乏願至吾家乞微供養。烏曰。吾名鉢。道士有難願呼吾名。吾當馳詣。蛇曰。吾名長。若道士有患。願呼吾名必來報恩。辭畢各退。他日道士之獵者舍。獵者遙見其來。告妻曰。彼不祥之人來。吾勅汝。為饌徐設之。彼過日中不食。妻覩道士。覲而作色詭留設食虛談過中。道士退而還山。覩烏呼名曰鉢。烏問曰。自何來耶。答曰獵者所來。烏曰已食乎。曰彼設未辦日已過中不待而退。烏曰。凶咎之物難以慈濟。違仁背恩凶逆之人。吾無食飲以相供養。且留心坐。吾須臾飛往般遮國。覩王夫人臥首飾之中有明月珠。烏銜而還以奉道士。夫人寐寤求之不獲。即以上聞。王勅臣民。有得之者。賞金銀各千斤牛馬各千首。得不貢上罪及滅宗。道士以惠獵者。獵者縛考白王。曰。汝何從得。道士深惟。若言其主必一國烏死。此非佛弟子。默然受考杖楚千數。初不怨王亦不讐彼。如慈誓曰。令吾得佛度眾苦矣。王埋道士唯出其頭明日戮之。道士乃呼蛇曰長。蛇曰天下無知我名者。唯有道士耳。揚聲相呼必有以也。疾邁見道士。問曰。何由致此。道士乃說厥所由然。蛇流淚曰。道士仁慈天地之間尚與禍會。豈況無道誰將祐之乎。我將入宮咋殺太子。蛇以神藥與道士傅之即瘳。蛇夜入宮咋太子即絕。停屍三日令曰。有能活太子者。分國而治。載之山間歷道士邊過。道士曰。吾能活之。王聞心喜。道士以藥傅太子身。忽然語曰。吾那在斯。從者具陳所以。太子還宮巨細喜舞分國惠之。道士一無所受。王悟曰。分國不受豈當盜哉。問何從獲珠。行高乃爾忽離斯患。道士具陳本末。王涕淚流面。告獵者曰。汝有勳於國。悉呼九親來。吾欲重賜之。親無巨細皆詣宮門。王曰。不仁背恩惡之元首盡殺之矣。道士入山學道精進不倦。終生天上。時道士者我身是也。烏者秋露子是。蛇者阿難是。獵者調達是。妻者懷柈女子。是也(出摩國王經)。
Long ago, in the country of Mótiānluó, there was a king named Rìnán, learned in every sacred and hidden matter, nothing at all beyond his own understanding. Awakening to the impermanence of the world, he thought: this body of mine must decay to become the world's own refuse — what kingdom, then, is truly worth holding onto? He gave up glory and pleasure alike, put on the highest monastic robes, content with a single bowl of food, and, taking up the śramaṇa's own precepts, dwelt in the mountain forests for thirty years.
Beside a certain tree there was a pit, thirty fathoms deep. A hunter, chasing after a deer, fell into this pit; a crow and a snake, startled at the same moment, fell in as well, their bodies all injured, and, looking up toward the sky, they cried out in mournful, solitary distress.
The renunciant, moved with compassion, brought a torch to look, tears streaming down his own face, and, standing at the edge of the pit, called down to them: do not be troubled — I shall bring you all out. He lowered a long rope, and each in turn, whether biting it in their own mouth or gripping it, was drawn up, and their lives preserved. All three thanked him together, saying: we have received the renunciant's own boundless kindness, and been allowed to see the light of day once more — we wish, for the rest of our own lives, to supply whatever this renunciant may lack.
The renunciant said: I was once king of this land — a great kingdom, with many people, a palace full of treasure and attendant women, foremost among every other realm; my every wish answered before I could even voice it, nothing denied me at all. Yet I came to see my own kingdom as an enemy, the six sense-objects as six blades constantly cutting into my own body, six arrows piercing my own flesh — and, through these six wrongs, I would only transmigrate further through the three lower realms, a suffering so severe I could no longer bear it. It is for this reason that I gave up my kingdom to become a śramaṇa, hoping to attain the buddha's own path, and guide all beings back to their own true origin. How, then, could I concern myself only with the three of your own lives? Return now, each of you, to your own former dwellings, and see your own kin — and take up the threefold refuge, without ever transgressing the Buddha's own teaching.
The hunter said: in all my years in this world, I have never seen a good man such as this, none to compare even with a disciple of the Buddha himself — forgiving himself nothing, yet saving others, all without seeking any renown for it. Should the renunciant ever be in need, I ask only that he come to my own home, and receive whatever small offering I can give. The crow said: my own name is Bo — should the renunciant ever be in danger, call my name, and I shall hasten to your side. The snake said: my own name is Cháng — should the renunciant ever suffer some affliction, call my name, and I shall surely come to repay this debt. Having said their farewells, each departed.
Some time later, the renunciant went to the hunter's own home. The hunter, seeing him approach from a distance, told his wife: that unlucky man is coming — I have already instructed you; prepare a meal for him slowly. And so the renunciant waited until past midday without being fed. His wife, seeing the renunciant, greeted him with an unpleasant expression, delaying the meal's preparation with idle talk until well past noon. The renunciant then withdrew, and returned to the mountains.
Seeing the crow, he called its name, Bo. The crow asked him: where have you come from? He answered: from the hunter's own home. The crow asked: have you eaten, then? He answered: they had not yet prepared the meal, and, the hour already past noon, I left without waiting further.
The crow said: such an ill-omened creature is truly hard to help with kindness — one who betrays benevolence and turns his back on gratitude is a wicked and treacherous man indeed. I have no food or drink of my own to offer you, but wait here a moment, and rest your mind. In no more than an instant, I shall fly to the country of Pañcāla.
There, the crow saw the queen asleep, a luminous moon-pearl among her own hair ornaments, and, taking it in its own beak, carried it back to offer to the renunciant. The queen, waking, searched for the pearl and could not find it, and reported this to the king. The king ordered his ministers and people: whoever finds it shall receive a reward of a thousand catties each of gold and silver, and a thousand head each of cattle and horses; whoever finds it and fails to bring it forward shall be punished, even to the extinction of their own lineage.
The renunciant gave the pearl to the hunter. The hunter, bound and interrogated, was brought before the king, who asked: from where did you obtain this? The renunciant, reflecting deeply to himself, thought: should I name my own true benefactor, an entire kingdom's crows would surely be killed for it — this would be no fitting act for a disciple of the Buddha. And so he remained silent, and endured the interrogation, a thousand blows of the rod, without complaint, harboring no resentment at all, whether toward the king or toward the hunter, and, in his own compassion, vowed: may I attain buddhahood, and deliver all beings from such suffering.
The king had the renunciant buried alive, only his own head left exposed, to be executed the next day.
The renunciant then called the snake's name, Cháng. The snake said: no one else in this whole world knows my true name but the renunciant himself — if he calls me aloud like this, there must be good reason for it. It hastened at once to his side, and asked him: how have you come to this? The renunciant told it the whole matter.
The snake, shedding tears, said: even a renunciant so benevolent and compassionate as this can still meet with such calamity in this world — how much more so those without the path at all; who, then, would ever come to their aid? I shall go now into the palace, and bite the crown prince. The snake then gave the renunciant a divine medicine, applying it to heal him at once, and, that very night, entered the palace and bit the crown prince, who died instantly.
His body was kept for three days, and a proclamation issued: whoever can restore the prince to life shall receive half the kingdom to govern. As the body was carried through the mountains, it happened to pass by the renunciant's own place. The renunciant said: I can restore him to life. The king, hearing this, was overjoyed. The renunciant applied his own medicine to the prince's own body, who at once spoke, saying: where am I now? His attendants explained the whole matter to him in full.
The crown prince, restored to the palace, was greeted with joy by everyone, great and small alike, and the king offered to divide the kingdom and give half of it to the renunciant — yet the renunciant accepted nothing at all.
The king, realizing this, thought: he would not even accept half my own kingdom — how, then, could he possibly be a mere thief? He asked the renunciant how he had truly obtained the pearl. The renunciant told the whole matter, from beginning to end, and the king wept, his own tears streaming down his face, and told the hunter: you shall be honored for this service to the kingdom — summon all nine degrees of your own kin here, that I might reward you all richly.
Every one of the hunter's kin, great and small, came before the palace gate. The king then declared: this man, unkind and ungrateful, the very worst of the wicked — let him and all his kin be put to death.
The renunciant then went into the mountains to study the path once more, applying himself with unwavering diligence, and, at the end of his own life, was reborn in heaven.
That renunciant of that time was myself; that crow was Śāriputra; that snake was Ānanda; that hunter was Devadatta; and that hunter's own wife was the woman Huáibǎn (Source: Sūtra of the King of Mótiānluó).
The story's own moral geometry is unusually precise: three creatures are saved together, in the same act, yet only the human being among them — the hunter — repays the rescue with betrayal, while the two animals, the crow and the snake, honor their promised names exactly and at real cost to themselves. This is worth reading against the compendium's own repeated theme, seen already in this fascicle and elsewhere, that outward form (a lowly animal, an ugly beggar, a demon in disguise) tracks poorly with actual moral worth; here, species itself provides no guarantee at all, since the one creature who fails is precisely the one whose own gratitude the renunciant might most reasonably have expected.
5. King Sage-at-Ease Protects the Dharma by Killing a Brahmin
A brief and doctrinally striking entry: a king devoted to Mahāyāna teaching, after twelve years of supporting a brahmin teacher, kills him on the spot the moment he denies the very existence of enlightenment and the great vehicle's own scriptures — and, far from incurring the guilt of murder, is said to avoid hell entirely for having protected the Dharma.
昔閻浮提有大國王。名曰仙豫。愛重大乘其心純善。無有麁惡嫉妬慳悋。口常宣說愛語善語。身常攝護貧窮孤獨。布施精進無有休廢。時世無佛聲聞緣覺。時王愛樂大乘方等經典。十二年中事婆羅門。供給所須過十二年。施安已訖。即作是言。師等今應發三菩提心。婆羅門言。大王。菩提之性是無所有。大乘經典亦復如是。大王。云何乃欲令人同於虛空。王聞婆羅門誹謗方等。即斷其命。以是因緣不墮地獄。擁護攝持大乘經典。有如是力(出大涅槃經第十一卷)。
Long ago, in Jambudvīpa, there was a great king named Sage-at-Ease, who cherished the Mahāyāna teaching, his own heart utterly pure and good, free of any coarseness, malice, jealousy, or stinginess; his own mouth constantly spoke words of kindness and goodness, and he constantly protected the poor, the orphaned, and the solitary elderly, giving in charity and applying himself diligently without ever growing slack.
At that time, the world held no buddha, no śrāvaka, no pratyekabuddha. The king, delighting in the Mahāyāna's own broadly expansive scriptures, served a brahmin teacher for twelve years, supplying his every need throughout that entire span. Once this period of support and comfort was complete, the king said to him: teacher, you should now arouse the resolve for the threefold enlightenment.
The brahmin answered: great king, the very nature of enlightenment is that it has no true existence at all — and the Mahāyāna scriptures are just the same. Great king, why would you wish to make people identical with empty space itself?
The king, hearing the brahmin slander the Mahāyāna's own broad teachings in this way, cut short his life at once. And it is for this very reason that the king did not fall into hell — for he possessed such power precisely because he protected and upheld the Mahāyāna scriptures (Source: Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, fascicle 11).
This entry is genuinely difficult to reconcile with the compendium's own repeated insistence elsewhere on non-harming as an absolute value, and we translate it exactly as the source presents it rather than softening its own stated conclusion. The doctrinal point being made — drawn from the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra's own broader argument that protecting the true Dharma can outweigh the precept against killing under specific, narrow circumstances — is a minority position even within the wider Buddhist canon, and the compendium offers it here without further commentary or qualification, leaving its own tension with the ahimsā principle for the reader to sit with rather than resolving it.
6. King Universal-Light's Prajñāpāramitā Verse
A crown prince, told by his own teacher that he must collect a thousand kings' heads to complete a ritual sacrifice, has already gathered nine hundred and ninety-nine when the final captive king, King Universal-Light, requests only a single day's grace to recite the Prajñāpāramitā one last time — a recitation whose own content dissolves the entire premise of the sacrifice itself.
昔天羅國王有一太子。欲登王位。一名班足。受外道羅陀師教。應取千王頭以祭冡神然後登王位。已得九百九十九王。所少一王。即北行萬里得普明王。普明白班足言。願聽我一日飯食沙門頂禮三寶。班足許之。普明即依過去七佛法。一日二時講般若波羅蜜八千偈竟。第一法師為王說偈。劫燒終訖 乾坤洞然 須彌巨海 都為灰焬 天龍福盡 於中凋喪 二儀尚殞 國有何常 生老病死 輪轉無際 事與願違 憂悲為害 欲深禍重 瘡疣無外 三界皆苦 國有何賴 有本自無 因緣成諸 盛者必衰 實者必虛 眾生蠢蠢 都如幻居 聲響俱空 國土亦如 識神無形 假乘四蛇 無明寶象 以為樂車 形無常主 神無常家 形神尚離 豈有國耶。時普明王。與其眷屬得法眼空。王自證虛空等定聞法悟解。還至天羅國班足王所。告九百九十九王言。就命時到人人皆應誦過去七佛仁王般若波羅蜜偈。班足問。誦何法。普明王即以上偈答王。王聞是法得空三昧。九百九十九王亦聞法已。皆證三空門定。時班足王極大歡喜。告諸王言。我為外道邪師所誤。非君等過。皆還本國。各各請法師。講般若波羅蜜名味句眾。時班足王以國付弟。出家為道證無生法忍。如十王地中說(出仁王般若經)。
Long ago, in the kingdom of Tiānluó, the crown prince, wishing to ascend the throne, was named Kalmāṣapāda ("Deer-Foot"). He had received the teaching of a non-Buddhist teacher named Luótuó, who instructed him that he must gather a thousand kings' heads to sacrifice to the spirit of the burial mound before he could rightfully ascend the throne. Having already obtained nine hundred and ninety-nine kings, he traveled ten thousand li to the north, and captured the final one he needed: King Universal-Light.
Universal-Light said to Kalmāṣapāda: I ask only to be allowed one day, that I might feed a śramaṇa and bow before the Three Jewels one last time. Kalmāṣapāda granted this. Universal-Light then, following the teaching of the seven buddhas of the past, spent that single day, in two sessions, expounding the eight thousand verses of the Prajñāpāramitā in full. The foremost Dharma-teacher there spoke this verse for the king:
"When the kalpa's own fire at last burns out, / heaven and earth are consumed entirely; / Mount Sumeru and the great ocean itself / are all reduced to ash. / Even the devas and dragons, their own merit exhausted, / wither and perish within it — / when even heaven and earth themselves must perish, / what constancy could a mere kingdom hold? / Birth, old age, sickness, and death / turn in a wheel without any limit; / affairs run always contrary to our own wishes, / and grief and sorrow are the harm that follows. / Desire runs deep and its calamity heavy, / its wounds and sores reaching everywhere at once; / the three realms are, every one, suffering — / what reliance, then, could a kingdom offer? / What has a true origin was, from the start, without one; / it is only causes and conditions that bring all things into being. / What flourishes must, in the end, decline; / what seems substantial must, in the end, prove empty. / Sentient beings, restless and unknowing, / dwell entirely as though within an illusion; / sound and echo are alike empty — / and so too is any kingdom or land. / Consciousness itself has no true form, / borrowing, as if riding, the four serpents of the elements; / ignorance's own jeweled elephant / is taken as a pleasure-chariot. / The body has no constant master; / the spirit has no constant home. / When even body and spirit part ways in the end, / how could there be any true kingdom at all?"
King Universal-Light and his own retinue, hearing this, attained the empty Dharma-eye; the king himself realized the very absorption equal to empty space, understanding fully through what he had heard. He then returned to King Kalmāṣapāda's own place in the kingdom of Tiānluó, and told the nine hundred and ninety-nine other captive kings: now that the moment of our own deaths has arrived, each of us should recite the verse on the Prajñāpāramitā of the benevolent kings, as taught by the seven buddhas of the past.
Kalmāṣapāda asked: what teaching is this that you recite? King Universal-Light then answered him with the very verse given above. The king, hearing this teaching, attained the samādhi of emptiness; the nine hundred and ninety-nine other kings, hearing it as well, all realized the threefold gate of emptiness in meditation.
King Kalmāṣapāda, overjoyed beyond measure, told the assembled kings: I have been misled by a false, non-Buddhist teacher — this fault is none of your own doing. Let each of you return to your own kingdoms, and invite a Dharma-teacher there to expound the very words and phrases of the Prajñāpāramitā in full.
King Kalmāṣapāda then entrusted his own kingdom to his younger brother, went forth to study the path himself, and realized the acceptance of the non-arising of all phenomena — exactly as told in the section on the ten stages of kingship (Source: Sūtra of Benevolent Kings' Perfection of Wisdom).
"班足" (Kalmāṣapāda, "spotted-foot") names the same legendary cannibal-king figure as fascicle 25's entry 8, where he appears under the same name opposite King Sutasoma — yet the two entries draw on entirely different source texts and tell structurally different stories, one a Jātaka-style tale of truthful speech, the other this compendium's own excerpt from the Sūtra of Benevolent Kings, built around the Prajñāpāramitā verse itself. We preserve both as independent tellings rather than treating either as more authoritative. Notice too that the verse's own content directly undercuts the ritual premise it is delivered within: a sacrifice performed to secure a throne is answered with a teaching that dissolves the very reality of kingship, kalpas, and even the distinction between body and spirit — the teaching itself, rather than any appeal for mercy, is what ultimately ends the killing.
7. Ajātaśatru's Dialogue with Mañjuśrī on Doubt
Fascicle 26's longest and most philosophically demanding entry: King Ajātaśatru invites Mañjuśrī and an entire assembly of bodhisattvas to a feast requiring no actual preparation at all, then, in an extended and often disorienting dialogue, is guided to see that his own long-standing doubt has itself never possessed any true foundation — a doubt no buddha, however numerous, could ever resolve by argument alone.
阿闍世王白文殊師利言(普首童真經出白普首童真)唯願加恩明且屈德就我宮食。答言以足可為供養。又佛法非以衣食故。王曰。當何以施之。答言。若深入微妙其事審諦。無所染污亦無所著。亦無所疑。亦無所畏難。又念諸法亦不念有無不念去來現在竟。又不當念一切可見者皆得加哀。王曰。如所言悉法之所載無有異也。唯以身故當加哀受請。文殊言。且止。其道者非以是之故。若飲若食。若王不念有吾我壽命人。以念是者以得加哀(如此往反甚長文多不載)王大歡喜問。有幾人。舍利弗言。五百人。可悉令於宮食。還城勅辦百味之食治其殿上。施諸幢幡帷帳華蓋。以華布地悉以香薰。設五百高床。宮城市里皆悉掃除。布以華香人民奉迎。文殊如申臂頃便到東方。過八萬二千佛土。佛號常名聞。其佛字惟淨首。今現在世。有眾菩薩更無異道。其剎常轉阿惟越致法輪。其土常出三寶之聲。文殊白佛。願盡令諸。菩薩到沙呵剎土。至阿闍世所食。佛言。欲行者行(出阿闍世王經上卷)王聞。文殊師利且到從菩薩二萬二千五百人。其比丘者五百人(普首童真經云二萬二千菩薩及諸聲聞)王自念。吾正作五百人具云何供當。應時天王名曰休息心。與尊閱叉名曰金毘。俱來與王相見曰。勿恐勿懅勿以為難。曰云何不難。報言。文殊者作漚惒拘舍羅無極智慧。以功德光明具足而來。能以一飯與文殊等。若有三千大千一切人。索飯食者悉能飽之其食不盡。是二萬三千人何足為憂。文殊者其功德甚尊。而不可盡。王歡喜踊躍。將其伎樂自出奉迎俱時入宮。有一菩薩。名曰普視悉見。文殊勅三摩陀阿樓陀者。令嚴治其處可容來者。菩薩受教。四面視占則時悉辦。復有菩薩。名曰法來則得。勅令具床。於彈指頃有二萬三千床座種種莊嚴。菩薩聲聞皆悉就坐。王白文殊。所作供具甚少。願忍須臾今更辦具。答言。所作已足勿復勞意。天王毘沙門。與家室僕從悉來而謁。皆恭事左右。釋提桓因。自與大夫人。名曰首耶。及與天女。皆持名香供養。散文殊及諸菩薩比丘僧上。諸菩薩等不以華香之所轉動。梵天。自化作年少婆羅門。姝美端正。住文殊之右侍而扇之。諸梵天子。悉扇諸菩薩比丘。阿耨達龍王。在虛空中而無見者。把持貫珠垂下若幡。八味香水從貫流降。人人之前皆有垂珠。水從中出悉給所須。王念會者而不持鉢當何器食。時文殊言。菩薩者不齎鉢行。而所食處鉢自來手中。諸菩薩念鉢。鉢自飛來行伍而到。阿耨達王。皆自淨洗盛滿其水。諸龍婇女。皆擎持二萬三千鉢。授諸菩薩人人手中。文殊謂王。可分布飯食遍而不減故。文殊言。今為盡不。答言不盡。所以未盡者以有疑故。諸菩薩飯竟。擲鉢虛空行列而住。亦不墮地亦不轉搖。王復問。鉢云何住依何等。文殊言。是鉢所住如王疑所住王復言。是鉢亦無所住處。亦不在地。亦無所。依亦無處所。文殊言。如王狐疑亦無所住。諸法如鉢無所住亦無所墮。飯事既訖。王取一床座。白文殊言。願解我疑。答曰。若恒沙等佛不能為王說是狐疑。王時驚怖。從床而墮若大樹躄。摩訶迦葉謂王言。勿恐勿懼。所以者何。文殊入甚深漚惒拘舍羅。徐徐而問。王言。恒邊沙等佛不能說我之所疑。文殊言。仁者謂從心因緣而可見。王曰。不用心生故可見佛。不生死與脫持是二事作佛。吾之狐疑恒邊沙等佛所不能說。所以者何。若人言。能以塵污虛空乃能為不。若有人言。能却虛空之垢定能却不。王言不能。文殊言。佛知諸法皆若虛空。所以者何。脫於本故。亦不見諸法有本。若有說者王之狐疑非恒邊沙等佛之所能說。時王即得信忍。歡喜踊躍言。善哉善哉。解我狐疑。文殊曰。是為大疑屬所說法諸無有本何從得疑。王言。蒙此大恩而得小差。今我命盡不憂不至泥洹。文殊言。而王之所希望者是無有本。所以者何。諸法本泥洹故無所生。王則從坐起。取名㲲價直億百千撓繞文殊身。文殊身不現。㲲處於虛空中。但聞言說不見其形聞說如見。王自見疑以見諸法如所見。空中有聲謂王所見。便以㲲而與之。次坐菩薩名得上願。王復持是㲲欲奉上之。得上願言。求脫泥洹者。我不從是有所受。亦不受凡人所有。何以故。凡人者。謂有俗間事故而不受。亦不從求羅漢辟支佛者。有所受與者。無二心受者。亦無二心。故曰所受過於脫。王即以衣欲著菩薩上。忽然不現不復知處。但聞其音不見其形。說言。其所現身以衣與之。如是次第一一以衣與之皆悉不現。乃至床机坐處悉亦不現。但聞其音。言其所現者以衣與之。乃至五百聲聞皆亦不受。王熟思念。諸菩薩比丘僧悉亡。當以我衣與誰。自與中宮極大夫人。夫人時亦不現。王便以得三昧。不見諸色。亦不見女人。亦不見男子。乃至垣牆樹木室宅城郭。尚有餘念謂。有我身諸色識。悉止。復聞其音。如一切有所見當自見疑。如所見疑見一切諸法亦復如是。便取其衣還欲自著。不見其身心(說此忘相文多不載)文殊言。曾聞佛說作逆罪者當入大泥犁不。王言聞。汝自知當入泥犁不。王曰。得佛有法上生天入泥犁者不。有法安隱當至泥洹者不。文殊言無王曰。我知諸法空。所以者何。泥犁上天安隱亦復皆空。諸法無可壞敗。是故入法身。法身者亦無天上人間泥犁禽獸薜荔等。世王諸逆以淨已得是忍。王言。一切諸法悉淨無所沾污。說是語時疾得信忍(出阿闍世王經下卷又出普超三昧第二第三卷)。
King Ajātaśatru said to Mañjuśrī (this passage is also found in the Sūtra of Universal Excellence, the Youth, under the title "Address to Universal Excellence, the Youth"): I beg only that you show me the grace, tomorrow, of bending your own excellence to come and eat within my palace. Mañjuśrī answered: my own feet alone are sufficient offering — for the Buddha's teaching does not consist in mere clothing and food. The king asked: by what means, then, might I truly offer to you? Mañjuśrī answered: should you enter deeply into what is subtle, examining the matter with true clarity, you would find nothing there to be defiled, nothing to be attached to, nothing to doubt, and nothing to fear or find difficult. And you would think of no phenomenon at all, neither as existing nor as not existing, neither as past, future, nor present — and you would not think that everything visible must therefore be shown compassion.
The king said: as you have spoken, this is exactly what the Dharma itself teaches, with no difference at all — yet, for the sake of this very body of mine, I ask you still to show compassion, and accept my invitation. Mañjuśrī said: wait — the path is not a matter of this at all. Whether one drinks or eats, if the king holds no thought at all of a self, a life, or a person, it is only in holding such a thought that compassion is truly shown (the exchange continued at much greater length in this manner; it is not recorded here in full).
The king, greatly delighted, asked: how many are in your own company? Śāriputra answered: five hundred. The king said: let them all come to eat in my palace. Returning to the city, he ordered a feast of a hundred flavors prepared, and had his own palace hall adorned with banners, curtains, and canopies, its floor strewn with flowers and perfumed with incense throughout, and five hundred high seats arranged; the whole palace, city, and marketplace were swept clean, scattered with flowers and incense, and the people came out to welcome the guests.
Mañjuśrī, in no more time than it takes to stretch out an arm, traveled to the east, past eighty-two thousand buddha-lands, to a buddha named Ever Renowned, whose own name was Pure-Excellence, presently in the world, together with a great assembly of bodhisattvas, with no other path taught there at all; that buddha-land constantly turns the Dharma-wheel of non-retrogression, and the sound of the Three Jewels is constantly heard throughout that land. Mañjuśrī said to that buddha: I wish to bring all these bodhisattvas to the Sahā world, to Ajātaśatru's own feast. That buddha said: let those who wish to go, go (Source: Sūtra of King Ajātaśatru, first fascicle).
The king, hearing that Mañjuśrī was on his way, learned that twenty-two thousand five hundred bodhisattvas were coming with him, together with five hundred monks (the Sūtra of Universal Excellence, the Youth, says twenty-two thousand bodhisattvas together with the śrāvakas). The king thought to himself: I have prepared for only five hundred guests — how shall I provide for so many?
At that moment, a heavenly king named Resting-Mind, together with a revered yakṣa named Jīnpí, came together to meet with the king, saying: do not be afraid, do not be troubled, and do not think this difficult. The king asked: how could it not be difficult? They answered: Mañjuśrī has come possessed of skillful means and boundless wisdom, his own merit and radiance complete — with but a single meal, he could satisfy every single being throughout the whole three-thousandfold world-system, should they all come seeking food, and the food would never run out. How, then, could a mere twenty-three thousand guests be any cause for worry? Mañjuśrī's own merit is exceedingly exalted, and could never truly be exhausted.
The king, overjoyed, went out himself with his own musicians to welcome them, and they entered the palace together.
There was a bodhisattva named Universal-Sight-Seeing-All. Mañjuśrī instructed the bodhisattvas Samādhi and Aniruddha to prepare the space, that it might hold all who were coming; they, receiving this instruction, surveyed the four directions, and, in that very moment, everything was made ready. There was also a bodhisattva named Dharma-Comes-and-Is-Attained, instructed to provide seating; in the snap of a finger, twenty-three thousand seats appeared, each adorned in every kind of ornament, and the bodhisattvas and śrāvakas all took their own places.
The king said to Mañjuśrī: what I have prepared is far too little — I beg a little more time, that I might make further provision now. Mañjuśrī answered: what has already been prepared is entirely sufficient — trouble yourself no further.
Vaiśravaṇa, the heavenly king, came with his own household and servants to pay homage, all attending respectfully at the assembly's own sides. Śakra himself came with his own chief consort, named Shǒuyē, and the heavenly maidens, all bearing fine incense to offer, scattering it over Mañjuśrī and all the bodhisattvas and monks — yet none of the bodhisattvas were moved in the least by this flower-incense.
Brahmā transformed himself into a young brahmin, handsome and dignified, and stood at Mañjuśrī's own right side, fanning him; the sons of Brahmā likewise fanned all the bodhisattvas and monks. The dragon king Anavatapta, present in the open sky though unseen by any, held strings of pearls hanging down like banners, from which flowed water of the eight excellent qualities and fine fragrance, streaming down before each guest in turn, water flowing forth from within to supply whatever was needed.
The king thought to himself: this assembly holds no alms-bowls at all — what vessel shall they eat from? Mañjuśrī said: bodhisattvas do not carry bowls with them when they travel — wherever they are about to eat, the bowl comes of its own accord into their own hand. The bodhisattvas each thought of their own bowl, and the bowls flew to them of themselves, arriving in orderly rows. The dragon king Anavatapta had each one washed clean and filled with water, and the dragon-maidens then held up all twenty-three thousand bowls, placing each into every bodhisattva's own hand.
Mañjuśrī told the king: you may now distribute the meal — it shall be enough for all, and never diminish. Mañjuśrī then asked: is it now exhausted? The king answered: it is not exhausted. The reason it remains unexhausted is that doubt itself still remains.
Once the bodhisattvas had finished eating, they cast their own bowls into the open sky, where they remained suspended in ordered rows, neither falling to the ground nor swaying at all. The king asked further: upon what do these bowls rest, suspended so? Mañjuśrī said: these bowls rest exactly where the king's own doubt itself rests. The king said: but these bowls rest nowhere at all — not upon the ground, not upon anything, in no place whatsoever. Mañjuśrī said: just so, the king's own doubt likewise rests nowhere at all — all phenomena, like these bowls, rest upon nothing, and fall to nowhere.
Once the meal had ended, the king took a seat, and said to Mañjuśrī: I beg you to resolve my own doubt for me. Mañjuśrī answered: not even buddhas as numerous as the sands of the Ganges could resolve this doubt of yours for you.
The king, struck with terror at this, fell from his own seat as though a great tree had toppled. Mahākāśyapa told the king: do not be afraid, do not be frightened — for Mañjuśrī has entered a most profound skillful means. Mañjuśrī then questioned him slowly and gently.
The king said: not even buddhas as numerous as the sands of the Ganges could resolve this doubt of mine. Mañjuśrī said: you, benevolent one, believe that the Buddha can be seen through some cause arising from the mind. The king said: it is not through the mind's own arising that the Buddha can be seen — it is by holding these two things, freedom from birth-and-death and liberation itself, that buddhahood is attained. This doubt of mine is one that not even buddhas numerous as the sands of the Ganges could ever resolve. And why is this so? Suppose someone were to say: can empty space itself be defiled by mere dust? Or suppose someone else were to say: can the defilement of empty space, once present, then certainly be removed again? The king said: neither is possible.
Mañjuśrī said: the Buddha knows that all phenomena are just like empty space in this respect. And why is this so? Because liberation is itself already inherent from the very origin, and no phenomenon is ever truly seen to have any origin at all to begin with. If there is any teaching that could be given here, then the king's own doubt is indeed not something buddhas numerous as the sands of the Ganges could resolve by speaking.
At this, the king attained the acceptance of true faith, and, overjoyed, exclaimed: excellent, excellent — my own doubt has been resolved! Mañjuśrī said: this is what is called the great doubt — since every teaching spoken has, itself, no true origin at all, from where could any doubt about it ever arise?
The king said: having received this great kindness, I have obtained only a small relief — now, though my own life should end, I shall have no cause for worry, even without yet reaching nirvāṇa itself. Mañjuśrī said: yet what the king truly hopes for is precisely this state of having no true origin at all. And why is this so? Because all phenomena, being originally nirvāṇa itself, have never truly arisen in the first place.
The king then rose from his own seat, took up fine cotton cloth worth a hundred thousand million pieces of gold, and wound it around Mañjuśrī's own body — yet Mañjuśrī's body itself did not appear at all; the cloth simply hung there in the open sky. The king heard only speech, without seeing any form at all, and hearing the speech was, for him, just like seeing.
The king, seeing his own doubt for what it was, thereby saw all phenomena exactly as he saw this. A voice in the open sky said: as the king now sees, so let this cloth be given. He then offered the cloth to a bodhisattva seated nearby, named Supreme-Vow-Attained. The king again took up this cloth, wishing to offer it to him — and Supreme-Vow-Attained said: for one who seeks liberation and nirvāṇa, I accept nothing offered on such terms, nor do I accept what an ordinary person possesses. And why is this? Because an ordinary person's possessions are bound up with worldly affairs, and so I do not accept them; nor do I accept what is given by one who seeks only the fruit of an arhat or a pratyekabuddha — for one who gives without a divided mind is met by one who receives without a divided mind in turn; it is for this reason that what is truly received surpasses mere liberation itself.
The king then wished to place the robe upon this bodhisattva's own body, but he too suddenly vanished from sight, and could no longer be found anywhere; only his voice could still be heard, though his form could not be seen. It was said: wherever his form appears, there give him the robe. And so, in this way, one after another, each bodhisattva the king tried to clothe vanished from sight entirely, even the very seats and benches they had occupied vanishing as well — only their voices remained, saying: wherever this one's form appears, there give the robe. Even the five hundred śrāvakas, in turn, would not accept it either.
The king, reflecting deeply, thought: every bodhisattva and monk here has vanished entirely — to whom, then, shall I give my own robe? He then offered it to his own chief consort, in the inner palace — yet she too vanished from sight at that very moment.
The king then attained a certain samādhi, in which he saw no form at all — neither woman nor man, nor even walls, trees, houses, or city ramparts. Yet a lingering thought still remained in him, that he himself still possessed a body, its own forms and consciousness — and even this, at last, came to rest.
He then heard a voice once more, saying: just as, whenever anything at all is seen, one should recognize that very seeing itself as doubt, so too, seeing all phenomena in just this same way, is likewise itself doubt. He then took up his own robe, meaning to put it on himself — and could no longer find even his own body or mind (this teaching on the forgetting of all marks continued at much greater length; it is not recorded here in full).
Mañjuśrī said: have you ever heard the Buddha teach that one who commits the five heinous transgressions must fall into the great hell? The king said: I have heard this. Mañjuśrī asked: do you yourself know whether you must fall into hell? The king asked in turn: is there any true teaching by which one who has attained buddhahood is reborn in heaven, or falls into hell? Is there any true teaching by which one reaches the peace of nirvāṇa? Mañjuśrī answered: there is no such teaching.
The king said: I now understand that all phenomena are empty. And why is this so? Because hell, heaven, and peace alike are, every one, equally empty; no phenomenon at all can truly be destroyed or broken — and it is for this very reason that one enters the Dharma-body itself. The Dharma-body holds within it no heaven, no human realm, no hell, no animal realm, no realm of hungry ghosts, and so on at all. The transgressions of a worldly king, being themselves already pure from the very start, attain this very acceptance in just the same way.
The king said: all phenomena, every one, are utterly pure, untouched by any defilement at all. As he spoke these words, he swiftly attained the acceptance of true faith (Source: Sūtra of King Ajātaśatru, latter fascicle; also found in the Sūtra of the Universally Transcendent Samādhi, fascicles 2 and 3).
The compendium itself acknowledges, mid-entry, that "this exchange continued at much greater length; it is not recorded here in full" — a rare instance of the compilers explicitly flagging their own compression of a longer source text, and we preserve that acknowledgment exactly as given rather than papering over the resulting gap. The dialogue's own central move is worth naming plainly: Ajātaśatru arrives seeking an answer to a doubt he treats as a fixed, resolvable problem, and Mañjuśrī's own teaching does not supply that answer so much as dissolve the doubt's own presumed foundation — showing that a question resting on nothing cannot be settled by any amount of buddhas' own speech, only released. The vanishing bodhisattvas near the entry's close, each refusing the king's robe by disappearing from the very form he tries to clothe, dramatize this same lesson: an offering aimed at a fixed, locatable recipient cannot land on a teaching that has already dissolved the very notion of a stable self to receive it.
8. King Great Radiance's First Resolve for Enlightenment
A king's own beloved elephant, driven wild by lust, gores him and abandons him half-dead in the forest, and, when it later returns, is killed by its own trainer at the king's angry command — a death whose futility teaches the king the difference between taming a body and taming a mind, the very insight that first turns him toward the path.
阿難知眾所念。前白佛言世尊。從何因緣初發道心。佛言。過去遠劫。此閻浮提有一大王。名大光明。福德聰明。時邊國王與為親厚。更相贈遺國之所珍。時彼國王獵得二象。白如頗梨七支拄地。莊以雜寶極世之珍。遣人往送。時光明王見象心悅。付象師散闍。散闍奉勅。不久調從。往白王言。象今已調。願王觀試。王會臣下令觀試象。大眾既集。王初升象出城遊戲。象氣猛壯。見有群象在蓮華池。奔逐牸象遂至深林。時王身破出血。自惟必死。手搏樹枝象去王住。下樹坐地生大苦惱。象師叩頭白言。願王莫憂苦。象淫心息厭穢。草思美飲食如是自還。王即告曰。吾不復用。象後果還。象師白王。象今還來。王言。我不須汝亦不須象。散闍啟王。王若不須。唯願觀我調象之方。王即可之。尋使師作七鐵丸燒令極赤。作已念言。象吞此丸決定當死。王後或悔白言。大王。此白象寶唯轉輪王乃得之耳。今有小過不應喪失。王怒隆盛告言。遠去。象師告象。吞此鐵丸。若不吞者當以鐵鉤斷裂汝腦。象知其心。我寧吞此熱丸而死。屈膝向王垂淚望救。王怒徐視散闍告象何不吞丸。時象取丸置口吞之。入腹燋爛直過而死。丸墮地猶赤。王見乃悔。即告散闍。汝調象乃爾。何故在林不能制之。時淨居天知光明王應發菩提心。即令象師跪答王言。我唯能調身不能調心。唯有佛能調心耳。王言。佛者何種。姓生。答二種姓生。一者智慧。二者大悲。勤行六事。所謂六波羅蜜。功德智慧悉具足已。號之為佛。王聞踊躍。即起洗浴更著新衣四向作禮。於一切眾生起大悲心燒香立誓。願我所有功德迴向佛道。自調其心亦當調伏一切眾生。若於地獄有所益者當入是獄。終不捨於菩提之心。作是誓已。六種震動。諸山大海虛空之中自然樂聲。佛告諸比丘。爾時白象吞鐵丸者難陀是也。時象師者舍利弗是也。光明王者我身是也。我於爾時見象調從始發道心(出賢愚經第三卷)。
Ānanda, knowing what was on the assembly's own mind, came before the Buddha and said: World-Honored One, by what cause did you first arouse the resolve for enlightenment?
The Buddha said: in a far distant past kalpa, in this Jambudvīpa, there was a great king named Great Radiance, blessed with merit and wisdom. A neighboring king, on close terms with him, exchanged rare treasures with him regularly. This neighboring king once obtained, through hunting, two elephants, white as crystal, their seven points of contact firm upon the ground, adorned with every kind of jewel, the very finest treasure of the age, and sent them as a gift.
King Great Radiance, delighted at the sight of these elephants, entrusted them to his own elephant trainer, Sànshé. Sànshé, following the king's command, had them fully trained before long, and reported to the king: the elephants are now tamed — I ask the king to come and observe a trial of them. The king gathered his ministers to witness the trial; once the whole assembly had gathered, the king mounted one of the elephants and rode out from the city for his own amusement.
The elephant, its own spirit fierce and vigorous, caught sight of a herd of wild elephants at a lotus pool, and, chasing after a female among them, ran off into the deep forest. The king's own body was torn and bleeding; certain he was about to die, he clutched at a tree branch, and the elephant ran on without him. The king climbed down and sat upon the ground, overwhelmed with great suffering.
The elephant-trainer bowed his head and said: I beg the king not to grieve — once the elephant's own lustful urge subsides, and it grows weary of that squalid place, and longs instead for fine food and drink, it will return of its own accord. The king said: I have no further use for it. And, indeed, the elephant later returned. The trainer reported to the king: the elephant has now returned. The king said: I need neither you nor this elephant any longer.
Sànshé said to the king: if the king truly has no further need of it, I ask only that you observe my own method for training this elephant. The king consented. The trainer then had seven iron balls forged and heated until red-hot, thinking to himself: should the elephant swallow these, it will surely die.
The king, having second thoughts, said: great king, a white elephant treasure such as this can be obtained only by a wheel-turning king — it should not be destroyed over so small a fault. The king, his own anger still burning, said: go away. The trainer then told the elephant: swallow these iron balls, or I shall tear open your own skull with an iron hook.
The elephant, understanding his intent, thought: I would rather swallow these burning balls and die — and, kneeling toward the king, wept, hoping to be spared. The king, still angry, looked away, and told Sànshé: why does the elephant not swallow the balls? The elephant then took the balls into its own mouth and swallowed them; entering its own belly, they burned straight through, and it died at once, the balls falling to the ground still glowing red.
The king, seeing this, was struck with regret, and said to Sànshé: you claimed to have trained this elephant so well — why, then, could you not control it in the forest?
At that moment, the devas of the Pure Abodes, knowing that King Great Radiance was ready to arouse the resolve for enlightenment, had the elephant-trainer kneel and answer the king: I am able only to train the body — I cannot train the mind. Only the Buddha is truly able to train the mind.
The king asked: what lineage does a buddha come from? He answered: from two lineages — one of wisdom, and one of great compassion. Through diligent practice of the six things, called the six perfections, once merit and wisdom are both fully complete, one is called a buddha.
The king, hearing this, leapt up with joy, and, rising at once, bathed, put on fresh robes, and bowed in all four directions; giving rise to a heart of great compassion for all beings, he burned incense and made this vow: may all the merit I possess be dedicated toward the path of buddhahood; may I train my own mind, and thereby subdue and train all beings as well. Should there be any benefit to be gained by entering hell itself for their sake, I shall enter that very hell — and shall never abandon my own resolve for enlightenment.
Having made this vow, the earth shook in six ways, and music arose spontaneously from the mountains, the great ocean, and the open sky alike.
The Buddha told the monks: that white elephant, which swallowed the iron balls, is Nanda now; that elephant-trainer is Śāriputra now; and King Great Radiance was myself. It was at that very moment, seeing the elephant tamed in this way, that I first aroused the resolve for the path (Source: Sūtra of the Wise and the Foolish, fascicle 3).
This entry reuses the title "King Great Radiance" already given to a wholly different king and story in fascicle 25's entry 3 (there, a king who gives away his own head to a brahmin); we treat the two as separate narrative traditions sharing a common royal epithet, consistent with our practice elsewhere in this fascicle. The elephant's own death is the story's real turning point, and it is deliberately senseless — the king's initial anger has already passed, replaced by mere pride wounded at being disobeyed, and the animal dies obeying a command given out of nothing more than that wounded pride, its earlier act of lust already long since spent. The trainer's own final teaching — that he can train bodies but not minds — reframes the whole preceding tragedy as a demonstration of exactly the limit the king himself needed to see.
9. Two Teachers' Contest of Miracles
Fascicle 26 closes with a court contest between a Buddhist layman and five hundred rival ascetics, decided by a hunting trial rather than debate — until a jealous wife, unwittingly discarding her own husband's miraculously won prize, nearly costs him the contest before a second miracle restores his own fortune and settles the matter for good.
昔有國王。名曰多福。太子名曰增福。王奉六師。其子事佛。世無沙門。唯一白衣以為師首。外道五百人嫉其名德。即白王言。國事兩法令心不一。願與佛師各現奇德。約不如者役屬為奴。王即可之。外道與師剋日結約。王前各試功藝。梵志善射即行入山。五百人各射大鹿。皆貫左目負來角伎。賢者入山精思念佛。求威佐助以彰大道。有五色鹿踊從地出。歡喜持歸。外道知之。伺賢者行。往語其婦曰。卿夫捨家作沙門。但坐此鹿。破汝家法。婦聞恚怒以鹿乞之。賢者來歸不見其鹿。即問所在。婦曰。此不祥之物今已失去。夫甚愁憂。復還山中至誠悔過。即有明月神珠忽從地出。便持此珠察梵志出行。往詣其門衒賣奇物。梵志婦曰。吾家亦有異物可以相比。即出五色鹿。賢者便言。王使吾齎此鹿。汝今盜之其罪不測。婦遽還之。至其試日。梵志各送鹿皆傷左眼既穢且臭。王甚惋之。賢者來奉奏神鹿齎明月神珠入王殿上。二物飛騰俱戲星流電耀。舉宮讚奇。婆羅門五百人。知術藝不如。即役為奴。其婦為婢。賢者導示經教以為弟子(出雜譬喻經第三卷)。
Long ago there was a king named Many-Blessings, whose crown prince was named Increasing-Blessings. The king himself served the six heterodox teachers, while his own son served the Buddha; at that time the world had no ordained monks at all, and only a single lay Buddhist stood as its foremost representative.
Five hundred non-Buddhist ascetics, envious of this layman's own reputation and virtue, said to the king: the kingdom now serves two teachings, and its own heart is divided — we ask that this Buddhist teacher and ourselves each display our own extraordinary power, and that whoever proves inferior be made a servant to the other. The king consented.
The heterodox ascetics and the Buddhist layman fixed a day and made this agreement, and the king had each side demonstrate their own skill before him. The brahmins, skilled archers, went at once into the mountains, and all five hundred of them shot a great stag, each piercing its own left eye, and brought it back to display their own art.
The worthy layman, for his own part, went into the mountains, and, single-mindedly reflecting on the Buddha, sought his own spiritual assistance, that the great path might be made manifest. A five-colored deer then leapt up from the very earth before him, and he carried it back home, overjoyed.
The heterodox ascetics, learning of this, watched for when the layman was away, and went to speak to his own wife, saying: your husband has abandoned his own household to become a mere layman follower of the Buddha, all because of this one deer — it undermines your own family's own proper standing. His wife, hearing this, grew angry, and gave the deer away to them.
The layman, returning home, could not find his own deer, and asked where it had gone. His wife answered: that ill-omened creature is already lost. Her husband, greatly troubled, returned to the mountains once more, and, with utter sincerity, repented his own fault — and a luminous moon-pearl then rose up spontaneously from the earth before him.
He took this pearl, and, watching for when the brahmin was away from home, went to his own house, and offered to sell this rare treasure there. The brahmin's own wife said: my own household, too, possesses a rare object that might well be its equal — and brought out the five-colored deer. The worthy layman then said: the king had entrusted this very deer to my own keeping — you have now stolen it, and your own transgression cannot be measured. The wife hurriedly returned it to him.
On the appointed day of the trial, the brahmins each presented their own stag, its left eye pierced, its body already foul and stinking; the king was greatly displeased by this. The worthy layman then came forward, presenting the divine deer and the luminous moon-pearl in the king's own hall — the two objects rose into the air together, dancing and playing, gleaming like shooting stars and flashing lightning, and the whole palace praised this wonder.
The five hundred brahmins, knowing their own skill had proven inferior, were made servants at once, and the brahmin's own wife a servant-woman in turn; the worthy layman then instructed them in the scriptures' own teaching, and took them on as his own disciples (Source: Miscellaneous Similes Sūtra, fascicle 3).
The wife's own jealousy functions as a near-fatal complication the layman's own devotion has no direct answer to — his sincere religious practice produces the miraculous deer, but it takes a second act of humble repentance, not further piety alone, to recover from the very ordinary domestic betrayal that nearly cost him everything. The brahmins' own trial, by contrast, produces only a mutilated and decaying carcass, a hunting feat rather than a genuine wonder, and the contest's own final outcome turns less on any comparison of raw spiritual power than on the difference between a gift freely given and a kill violently taken. This closes fascicle 26.