No. 5.
TAṆḌULA-NĀḶI JĀTAKA.
The Measure of Rice.[262]
“What is the value of a measure of rice,” etc.—This the Teacher told while sojourning at Jetavana, about a monk called Udāyin the Simpleton.
At that time the Elder named Dabba, a Mallian by birth, held the office of steward in the Order.[263] When he issued the food-tickets in the morning, Udāyin sometimes received a better kind of rice, and sometimes an inferior kind. One day when he received the inferior kind, he threw the distribution-hall into confusion, crying out, “Why should Dabba know better than any other of us how to give out the tickets?”
When he thus threw the office into disorder, they gave him the basket of tickets, saying, “Well, then, do you give out the tickets to-day!”
From that day he began to distribute tickets to the Order; but when giving them out he did not know which meant the better rice and which the worse, nor in which storehouse the better was kept and in which the worse. When fixing the turns, too, he did not distinguish to what storehouse each monk’s turn had come; but when the monks had taken their places, he would make a scratch on the wall or on the floor, to show that the turn for such and such a kind of rice had come thus far, and for such and such a kind of rice thus far. But the next day there were either more or fewer monks in hall. When they were fewer, the mark was too low down; when they were more, the mark was too high up; but ignoring the right turns, he gave out the tickets according to the signs he had made.
So the monks said to him, “Brother Udāyin! the mark is too high, or too low.” And again, “The good rice is in such a storehouse, the inferior rice in such a storehouse.”[264]
But he repelled them, saying, “If it be so, why is the mark different? Why should I trust you? I will trust the mark rather!”
Then the boys and novices cast him out from the hall of distribution, exclaiming, “When you give tickets, Brother Udāyin, the brethren are deprived of their due. You are incapable of the office. Leave the place!”
Thereupon a great tumult arose in the hall of distribution. The Teacher heard it, and asked of Ānanda the Elder, “There is a great tumult, Ānanda, in the hall. What is the noise about?”
The Elder told the Successor of the Prophets how it was.