Having uttered this stanza, the Future Buddha arose and passed away according to his deeds. As for the carpenter, his kinsfolk did their duty by his body.
Said the Teacher: “Thus, lay disciples, in a previous state of existence also they were the very men who, with the thought in their minds, ‘We’ll hit a mosquito,’ hit something very different.” Having related this parable, he joined the connection and identified the personages in the Birth-story as follows: “But the wise man who uttered the stanza and departed on that occasion was I myself.”
B. Girl and fly.
Jātaka 45: i. 248-249.
Better an enemy. This parable was related by the Teacher while he was in residence at Jetavana with reference to a certain slave-girl.
A certain wealthy merchant, we are told, had a slave-girl. Where she was pounding rice, her old mother came in and lay down. Flies buzzed round her and ate her up, just as though they were piercing her with needles. She said to her daughter: “My dear, the flies are eating me up. Shoo them off!” “I’ll shoo them off!” replied the daughter. Raising her pestle aloft, intending to kill the flies, with the thought in her mind, “I’ll make way with them!” she struck her mother with the pestle and killed her. When she saw what she had done, she began to weep: “Mother! Mother!”
They reported that incident to the merchant. The merchant had her body attended to, and went to the monastery and reported the whole incident to the Teacher. Said the Teacher: “Verily, householder, not only in her present state of existence has this girl, with the thought in her mind, ‘I’ll kill the flies on my mother’s head!’ struck her mother with a pestle and killed her; in a previous state of existence also she killed her mother in the very same way.” And in response to the merchant’s request, he related the following Story of the Past:
In times past, when Brahmadatta ruled at Benāres, the Future Buddha was reborn in a merchant’s household, and on the death of his father, succeeded to the post of merchant. He also had a slave-girl. She also, when her mother came to the place where she was pounding rice and said to her, “My dear, shoo the flies away from me!”—she also, in the very same way, struck her mother with a pestle and killed her and began to weep. The Future Buddha, hearing of that incident, thought: “For even an enemy in this world, if only he be a wise man, is better!” And he uttered the following stanza:
Better an enemy who is intelligent
Than a well-disposed person who is a fool!