Jataka Online

In those days, there was a wise merchant preparing to travel to a back country with five hundreds carts filled with merchandise. He saw that another merchant, who was foolish, was preparing five hundreds carts filled with merchandise also.

The wise merchant thought that if he travel together with the foolish merchant, there would be not enough space, firewood and water. So he called the foolish merchant and consult with the foolish merchant, “Look, I think that it would be not good if we travel together. Do you want to travel first ?”

The foolish merchant thought that if he went first, way would be not muddy yet, his cows would have untouched grass, water would be clear, and he could set the price of merchandise by himself. So he said “I’ll travel first.”

The wise merchant thought that if he went last, way would be smoothed, his cows would have newly sprouted mild grass, there would be dug wells. He also thought that setting price is like killing people, so he preferred to sell merchandises at the set prices. Because of these, the wise merchant said “My friend, you should go first.”

The foolish merchant accepted and begun traveling. The path was lack of water, so he prepared many large water jars and put them on the carts.

While the foolish merchant was traveling in an arid forest, he found a small cart surrounded by twelve soaked guards. It looks like they had a lot of water. The small cart was stopped to give way to the foolish merchant’s carts.

One of the guards asked the foolish merchant “Where are you from ?”

“Noble man, we are from Varanasi.” the foolish merchant replied. “How about you ? You all looks so wet, is it rain on the way you passed ?”

The guard replied, “What you say ! On the way I have passed, there are a lot of water source. It always rain. However, I see that you have big carts at the end. They looks so heavy. What do they contain ?”

“They contains water.” The foolish merchant replied.

“Oh ! They are not need anymore !” the guard said, “there are a lot of water sources ahead. You should break all jars and travel with lighter carts.” and then went away.

The foolish merchant ordered his followers to break all water jars and went ahead. However, there is no water at all. After travel for a while, the foolish merchant and his followers were thirsty and exhausted so they all stopped the caravan and slept there.

Actually, the guards are ogres who masqueraded as the guards to deceive humans. They wanted to make deceived humans tired so they are easy to be eaten.

In the night, the ogres came from the ogres town. They ate all humans and cows. All five hundreds carts were untouched.

After the foolish merchant had left the village about half a month, the wise merchant started his caravan.

Before entering the arid forest, he announced to his followers “Noble men, unless you’ve got permission from me, you don’t waste any water. In the forest, there may be a poisoned fruit, if you found any fruit that you never eat, don’t eat it.” And then they entered the arid forest.

In the arid forest, the ogres with cart appeared again. The wise merchant noticed that they had red eyes and had no shadow. They also suggested that the wise merchant broke all water jars.

The wise merchant said “Thank you for your suggestion. However, I’m a merchant. I won’t discard any water if I don’t see new water source.”

When the ogres disappeared, the wise merchant said to his followers, “Those men aren’t humans, they are actually ogres. They want to deceived us to discard our water to make us tired. My friend is not smart, he may be deceived and has been eaten. We should go ahead fastly.”

They finally found five hundred carts with a lot of bones on the ground. In the night, the wise merchant ordered his followers to build a camp and guard the camp securely.

In the morning, the wise merchant ordered his followers to choose only strong carts and high-priced merchandises from the foolish merchant’s carts and then went ahead. When the wise merchant reached his destination, he could sell his merchandises with double to triple prices.

The foolish merchant finally reincarnated as Devadatta. The wise merchant finally reincarnated as the Buddha.

Moral: Trust only the truth, not estimation.