Before Buddha Was Buddha by Rafe Martin

Author:Rafe Martin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wisdom Publications

Eleven

Great King Goodness: The Challenge of Nonviolence

Mahasilava Jataka, No. 51

The Bodhisattva, now a king of Varanasi named Goodness, delights in generosity, giving gifts to those in need. A wealthy minister steals a large sum from the king’s treasury. When questioned, he gets angry, leaves, and goes to the neighboring kingdom of Kosala and tells that king that Goodness is weak.

The king of Kosala sends raiding parties to test this.

Three times King Goodness’s men capture the raiders and each time Goodness tells them not to harm others, gives them gifts, and sends them home.

Convinced that King Goodness has been weakened by his commitment to goodness, the king of Kosala invades. King Goodness has a thousand champions ready to fight but orders them not to. The invaders capture the pacifist king and his champions and bury them to the neck in the graveyard, leaving them as food for jackals.

When the jackals come for fresh corpses, twice the king and his men scare them off with loud shouts. But the third time the jackals aren’t scared away. The king then exposes his throat, as if offering his life to the jackal king, hoping for a quick death. When the jackal leader lunges, the king grabs his fur with his teeth, and the jackal’s subsequent struggles loosen the dirt around the king.

The jackals flee. The king gets himself free and then frees the others. Two goblins fighting over a corpse lying in that graveyard across the boundary of their two territories ask the king to split it equally for them. With magic they bring him his bath, a meal, and then his sword. Raising his sword he splits the corpse perfectly. In gratitude, the goblins transport the Bodhisattva and his men back into the palace.

King Goodness strikes the sleeping usurper with the flat of his sword. Awakened, the king of Kosala, shocked by this turn of events, accepts that King Goodness wields a power greater than that of mere force of arms. He now vows to protect King Goodness and his realm.

Back on his throne King Goodness thinks, “How could any victory won by violence compare with this? I’ve saved my people and those of Kosala, too, from much suffering.”

He tells all those gathered that even when the odds are long, it’s worth persevering in goodness.

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