Brahmadatta had, as chaplain, a tawny-brown brahmin who was toothless, and whose wife had a paramour possessed of the same attributes. Wishing for the death of the latter, the chaplain asked the king to build anew the southern gate of his city, and declared that on the day the gate was set up a tawny-brown brahmin should be killed and sacrificed to the guardian spirits. The king agreed, but the chaplain, unable to restrain his wife’s conduct, told her about it. The news spread abroad, and all tawny-brown brahmins fled from the city, leaving, on the auspicious day, only the chaplain. The people demanded that he should be slain to avert ill-luck, and that his pupil, Takkāriya (the Bodhisatta), should be appointed in his place. The chaplain confessed his plan to Takkāriya, who thereupon related several stories showing how “silence is golden.” In the end Takkāriya allowed the chaplain to flee from the city, and had the corpse of a goat buried under the city gates in the dead of night (J.iv.242 ff).

The story was related in reference to Kokālika, who came to grief by abusing the Chief Disciples. See Kokālika (2).

The tawny-brown brahmin is identified with Kokālika.

The Jātaka seems also to have been called the Takka Jātaka (e.g., J.v.446) and the Mahātakkāri Jātaka. J.ii.175.