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Ethics

Translator: Bhikkhu Sujato

kn / ja

Stories of Past Lives 12 · The Book of the Ones

Befriend only Banyan, ^[1]

stay away from Branch.

Better is death with Banyan

than life with Branch.

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[1] The king was a meat-lover who hunted deer each day. The deer made a pact to offer one from each herd by lot. When the lot fell on a pregnant doe in Branch’s herd, that wicked deer-king insisted she give herself up, but Banyan intervened and went himself. Seeing the noble deer-king’s self-sacrifice, the king spared his life, the lives of all deer, and even the lives of the fishes and birds.

This Jātaka was analyzed by T.W. Rhys Davids in his Buddhist India, who pointed out that it is an instance where the verse is unintelligible without the story. The story is illustrated on the stupa at Barhut.