He, they say, was meek, and mild of speech, and served the Elder with great devotion. Now on one occasion the Elder had taken leave of the Master, started on a tour, and gone to the mountain country in the south of Magadha. When they had arrived there, the monk became proud, followed no longer the word of the Elder; and when he was asked to do a thing, would even become angry with the Elder.
The Elder could not understand what it all meant. When his tour was over, he returned again to Jetavana; and from the moment he arrived at the monastery, the monk became as before. This the Elder told the Master, saying—
“Lord! there is a mendicant in my division of the Order, who in one place is like a slave bought for a hundred, and in another becomes proud, and refuses with anger to do what he is asked.”
Then the Teacher said, “Not only now, Sāriputta, has the monk behaved like that; in a former birth also, when in one place he was like a slave bought for a hundred, and in another was angrily independent.”
And at the Elder’s request he told the story.
Long ago, when Brahma-datta was reigning in Benāres, the Bodisat came to life again as a landowner. He had a friend, also a landowner, who was old himself, but whose wife was young. She had a son by him; and he said to himself—
“As this woman is young, she will, after my death, be taking some husband to herself, and squandering the money I have saved. What, now, if I were to make away with the money under the earth?”
And he took a slave in the house named Nanda, went into the forest, buried the treasure in a certain spot of which he informed the slave, and instructed him, saying, “My good Nanda! when I am gone, do you let my son know where the treasure is; and be careful the wood is not sold!”
Very soon after he died; and in due course his son became of age. And his mother said to him “My dear! your father took Nanda the slave with him, and buried his money. You should have it brought back, and put the family estates into order.”