Once on a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares in
Kasi, the Bodhisatta was born into a minister’s family. He was wise and clever
man with a keen eye for signs and omens. One day on his way to wait upon the
king, he came on a dead mouse lying on the road; and, taking note of the
position of the stars at that moment, he said, "Any enterprising decent
young fellow with his wits only has to pick that mouse up, and he might start a
business and have a wife."
His words were overheard by a young man of good family but
who was poor, who said to himself, "That man has always got a reason for
what he says." And accordingly he picked up the mouse, which he sold for
an anna to a local inn-keeper for their cat.
With the anna he got "gur" and took drinking water
in a water-pot. He came across flower-gatherers returning from the forest, he
gave each a tiny quantity of the "gur" and handed a cup of water out
to them. Each of them gave him a handful of flowers, with the proceeds of
which, next day, he came back again to the flower grounds provided with more
"gur" and a pot of water. That day the flower-gatherers, before they
went, gave him flowering plants with half the flowers left on them; and thus in
a little while he obtained eight “annas”.
Later, one rainy and windy day, the wind blew down a
quantity of rotten branches and boughs and leaves in the king's garden, and the
gardener wasn’t sure how to clear them away. Then up came the young man with an
offer to remove the lot, if the wood and leaves might be his. The gardener
closed the offer on the spot. Then this smart man went to the children's
playground and in a very little while had got them by bribes of "gur"
to collect every stick and leaf in the place into a heap at the entrance to the
garden.
Just then the king's potter was on the look-out for fuel to
fire bowls for the palace, and coming on this heap, took the lot off his hands.
The sale of his wood brought in sixteen annas to this pupil of the minister, as well as five bowls and other vessels. Having now twenty-four pennies
in all, a plan occurred to him. He went to the vicinity of the city-gate with a
jar full of water and supplied 500 mowers with water to drink. Said they,
" You've done us a good turn, friend. What can we do for you ? "
" Oh, I'll tell you when I want your help," said he ; and as he went
about, he struck up an intimacy with a land-trader and a sea-trader. The
land-trader told him, "Tomorrow there will come to town a horse-dealer
with 500 horses to sell." On hearing this piece of news, he said to the
mowers, "I want each of you to-day to give me a bundle of grass and not to
sell your own grass till mine is sold." "Certainly," said they,
and delivered the 500 bundles of grass at his house. Unable to get grass for his
horses elsewhere, the dealer purchased our friend's grass for a thousand
pieces.
Only a few days later his sea-trading friend brought him
news of the arrival of a large ship in port; and another plan struck him. He
hired for eight annas a well appointed carriage which was hired by the hour,
and went in great style down to the port. Having bought the ship on credit and
deposited his signet-ring as security, he had a pavilion pitched hard by and
said to his people as he took his seat inside, "When merchants are being shown
in, let them be passed on by three successive ushers into my presence."
Hearing that a ship had arrived in port, about a hundred merchants came down to
buy the cargo ; only to be told that they could not have it as a great merchant
had already made a payment on account. So away they all went to the young man;
and the footmen duly announced them by three successive ushers, as had been
arranged beforehand. Each man of the hundred severally gave him a thousand
pieces to buy a share in the ship and then a further thousand each to buy him out
altogether. So it was with a large fortune that this man returned to Benares.
With a desire to show his gratitude, he went with a golden mouse to call on the merchant. "How did you come by all
this wealth?" asked the merchant" In four short months, simply by
following your advice," replied the young man; and he told him the whole
story, starting with the dead mouse. Thought the merchant" I must see that
a young fellow of these parts does not fall into anybody else's hands." So
he married him to his own grown-up daughter and settled all the family estates
on the young man. And at the minister’s death, he became minister in that city
continuing to prosper.
