Culladhammapala Jātaka

“Mahapatapa’s wretched queen,” etc.—This story the Master, when dwelling n. the Bamboo Grove, told concerning the going about of Devadatta to slay the Bodhisatta. In all other Births Devadatta failed to excite so much as an atom of fear in the Bodhisatta, but in the Culladhammapala Birth, when the Bodhisatta was only seven months old, he had his hands and feet and head cut off and his body encircled with sword cuts, as it were with a garland. In the Daddara Birth he killed him by twisting his neck, and roasted his flesh in an oven and ate it. In the Khantivadi Birth he had him scourged with two thousand strokes of a whip, and ordered his hands and feet and ears and nose to be cut off, and then had him seized by the hair of his head and dragged along, and when he was stretched at full length on his back, he kicked him in the belly and made off, and that very day the Bodhisatta died. But both in the Cullanandaka and the Vevatiyakapi Births he merely had him put to death. Thus did Devadatta for a long time go about to slay him, and continued to do so, even after he became a Buddha. So one day they raised a discussion in the Hall of Truth, saying, “Sirs, Devadatta is continually forming plots to slay the Buddhas. Being minded to kill the Supreme Buddha, he suborned archers to shoot him, he threw down a rock upon him, and let loose the elephant Nalagiri on him.” When the Master came and inquired what subject the Brethren were assembled to discuss, on hearing what it was he said, “Brethren, not now only, but formerly too he went about to kill me, but now he fails to excite a