Pāli Dictionary

Ubhatobhaṭṭha Jātaka

Jātaka

A Jātaka about a fisherman whose scheme to keep neighbours from claiming a share of an imagined catch backfires disastrously — he is blinded wrestling with a mere snag, robbed of his clothes, and his wife is fined and beaten for a quarrel he had instructed her to start — witnessed by a tree-spirit, told about Devadatta as an example of every scheme of his ending in ruin.

Once in a village of line-fishermen one of the men took his tackle and went with his little son to fish. A snag caught hold of his line, but the man, thinking it was a big fish, sent his son home to ask his mother to pick a quarrel with the neighbours in order to keep them occupied lest they should claim a share of his catch. When the boy had gone, the fisherman went into the water to drag the fish, but he struck against the snag and was blinded in both eyes. Moreover a robber stole his clothes from the bank and his wife was taken before the village chief and fined and beaten for quarrelling. The Bodhisatta who was a Tree-sprite saw all this happen and drew a moral from it. The story was told in reference to Devadatta, who is identified with the fisherman, all his enterprises having come to grief. J.i.482-4.

Ja 139

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