Reading guide
A vow made freely, before any threat
Bhūridatta's ethical observance does not begin as a response to danger: seeing gods absorbed in pleasure during a visit to a heavenly realm, he undertakes ethical practice on his own initiative, resolving on four factors and lying down on a termite mound, offering his own body to ‘whoever has use for these’.
An offer taken advantage of
A snake-charmer named Ālampāyana takes Bhūridatta at his word in the worst possible way — capturing him, throwing him in a basket, and forcing him to perform in public — treatment the nāga endures without retaliating, though he explicitly names the man as an ingrate.
A comparison of weights
The story states its central value directly, through comparison: ‘to give up my own life was as light as a blade of grass. To transgress my ethical principles was like overturning the earth.’ The two are placed on opposite ends of a scale, not treated as comparable costs.
A stated willingness to repeat the ordeal
Bhūridatta does not describe this as a one-time sacrifice: he states he would give up his own life in a hundred successive lives before violating his ethics ‘for the sake of the four continents’ — the entire world offered as a hypothetical bribe, and refused.
Key terms
The text
§1“Then again when I was Bhūridatta, a dragon of great psychic power, together with Virūpakkha the Great King I went to a heavenly realm.
§2There I saw gods wholly given over to pleasure. For the sake of going to that heaven, I undertook the observance of ethics.
§3After tending to me physical needs, and eating enough to get by, I resolved on the four factors, and lay down atop a termite mound, thinking:
§4‘My outer skin and inner, flesh, sinews and bones: whoever has use for these, they are already given, please take them.’
§5While lying there the ingrate Ālampāyana grabbed me. He threw me in a basket and made me perform in places all over.
§6Though thrown in a basket and crushed by his hands, I did not get upset with Ālampāyana, for fear of breaking my ethics.
§7To give up my own life was as light as a blade of grass. To transgress my ethical principles was like overturning the earth.
§8In a hundred successive lives I would give up my own life. I would not even violate my ethics for the sake of the four continents.
§9For the sake of protecting ethics, and fulfilling my perfection of ethics, I did not let my mind change, even when thrown in a basket.”
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