Jataka 369
Mittavinda Jātaka
The Story of Mittavinda
as told by Eric Van Horn
originally translated by H.T. Francis and R.A. Neil, Cambridge University
originally edited by Professor Edward Byles Cowell, Cambridge University
People who hate Christianity often point to the doom and gloom of birth in hell for misdeeds. Well, I hate to tell them this, but Christianity has nothing on Buddhism’s graphic descriptions of the many hell realms. In Buddhism, there isn’t just one hell realm; there are eight of them! Curiously, it is one reason that Buddhists can have love and compassion for even very cruel people. Buddhists know the fate that awaits such misguided people.
“What was the evil.” The Master told this story while he was living at Jetavana. It is about an unruly monk. The incident that led to the story will be found in the Mahāmittavinda Birth (Jātaka 104).
Now this Mittavindaka, when cast into the sea, showed himself to be very covetous. His excess brought him to the place of torment inhabited by beings doomed to hell. He made his way into the Ussada hell. He thought it was a city, but it was there that he got a wheel as sharp as a razor fixed upon his head. Then the Bodhisatta appeared in the shape of a god on a mission to Ussada. On seeing him, Mittavindaka repeated the first stanza in the form of a question:
What was the evil wrought by me,
Thus to provoke the curse of heaven,
That my poor head should ever be
With circling wheel of torture driven?
The Bodhisatta, on hearing this, uttered the second stanza:
Forsaking homes of joy and bliss,
That decked with pearls, with crystal this,
And halls of gold and silver sheen,
What brought you to this gloomy scene?
Then Mittavindaka replied in a third stanza:
“Far fuller joys I there shall gain
Than any these poor worlds can show.”
This was the thought that proved my bane
And brought me to this scene of woe.
The Bodhisatta then repeated the remaining stanzas:
From four to eight, to sixteen then, and so
To thirty-two insatiate greed does grow.
Thus on and on you, greedy soul, were led
Till doomed to wear this wheel upon your head.
So all, pursuing covetous desire,
Insatiate still, yet more and more require.
The broadening path of appetite they tread,
And, like you, bear this wheel upon their head.
But while Mittavindaka was still speaking, the wheel fell upon him and crushed him so that he could say no more. But the divine being returned straight to his celestial abode.
Figure: Ol’ razor head
The Master, his lesson ended, identified the birth: “At that time the unruly monk was Mittavindaka, and I was the divine being.”
