In the time of Kassapa Buddha there lived a monk who was
maintained by a rich man of the district. Into the monastery belonging to this
rich man there came one day an arahant, and the former, liking his appearance,
asked him to stay in the monastery, promising to look after him. The arahant
agreed, but the incumbent of the monastery grew jealous and told their patron
that the arahant was lazy and good for nothing. Some food sent by the patron for
the arahant the incumbent threw into the embers. The arahant, reading his
thoughts, left and went elsewhere. The monk was seized with remorse and was
reborn in hell. In five hundred successive births he was a Yakkha, with never
enough to eat; during a further five hundred births he was a dog. Then he was
born, under the name of Mittavindaka, in a poor family
in Kasi. Because of him, dire misfortune befell the family, and he was driven
out. In Benares he became a charity scholar under the Bodhisatta, who was a
teacher there, but he was so quarrelsome that he was sent away. He married a
poor woman and had two children. For a while he was a teacher, but the village
in which he lived earned the kings displeasure seven times, their houses caught
fire and the water dried up. Having discovered the cause, the villagers drove
out Mittavindaka and his family. In a haunted forest the wife and children were
eaten up by demons.
In his wanderings Mittavindaka came to a coastal village,
Gambhira, where he took service in a ship. On the seventh day of the voyage the
ship suddenly stopped sailing. Lots were cast, and seven times the lot fell on
Mittavindaka, so they put him on a raft and lowered him overboard. He was cast
ashore on an island where lived four vimana petas in palaces of crystal, and he
enjoyed happiness with them for seven days. From there he went to an island
where lived eight goddesses in palaces of silver, thence to another where lived
sixteen in palaces of jewels, thence to another still where lived thirty two in
palaces of gold. In each he stayed seven days. From the last he went to an
island of ogres. There he seized an ogress wandering about in the shape of a
goat, and, when she kicked him, he was hurled into the dry moat of Benares.
There goatherds were keeping watch for thieves, and when Mittavindaka seized a
goat, hoping to be kicked back to his original place, he was caught. As he was
being led away, the Bodhisatta saw and recognized him and persuaded the
goatherds to allow him to have him as a slave.
The story was told in reference to
Losaka Tissa, with whom Mittavindaka is identified. J.i.234 46.
