Pv 24The Dog with the Torn Ears

– STORIES OF HUNGRY GHOSTS

– THE UBBARĪ CHAPTER

2.12

BJT 351The steps of the staircase of gold are spread with golden sand; the white water-lilies there are lovely, of pure fragrance, delightful.

BJT 352(The lake) is sheltered by many different trees, pervaded with many different fragrances, covered by many different kinds of lotus, spread wide with white lotus flowers.

BJT 353(The lake) is stirred by the breeze, spontaneously releasing its perfumes, pleasing, with the cries of swans and herons, with the songs of flamingos.

BJT 354(The lake) is thronged by various flocks of birds gathered together with different voices; there are trees bearing many kinds of fruit, there are groves flowering with different blossoms.

BJT 355This city, being such as it is, bears no resemblance to any place of human beings. She has many palaces made of gold and silver.

BJT 356Blazing with brilliant radiance, the palaces illuminate the four directions all around. She has five hundred handmaidens who attend upon her.

BJT 357They wear bracelets and bangles, adorned with golden garlands upon their heads. She has many long couches made of gold and silver.

BJT 358These are covered with the hides of kadali deer, well prepared, spread with long-piled woolen carpets; there she comes to rest, endowed with the fullness of every pleasure.

BJT 359At midnight she rises from that place and departs. She goes to the garden area surrounding the lake.

BJT 360Then she stands at the bank of the lake where the young grass grows green and lovely. Thereupon a dog with torn ears tears her body apart limb by limb.

BJT 361And having been gnawed and chewed, having been reduced to a skeleton, she sinks deep into the waters of the lake, and her body is restored to its former state.

BJT 362Thereafter, her body fully recovered, most beautiful, of lovely appearance, having covered herself with garments, she comes close to me.

BJT 363So what evil deed was done—by body, by speech, by mind? By the ripened fruit of what karma does the dog with torn ears tear her body apart limb by limb?"

BJT 364"In Kimbilā there was a householder who was a faithful lay devotee. I was his wife, of bad virtue, an adulteress.

BJT 365While I was being unfaithful, he said this to me: 'That you are unfaithful to me—this is not right, it is not good.'

BJT 366And I uttered a terrible oath, a falsehood: 'I am not unfaithful to you by body or by mind.

BJT 367If I am unfaithful to you by body or by mind, let the dog with torn ears tear my body apart limb by limb.'

BJT 368The ripened fruit of both—of that karma and of the lie—I have endured for seven hundred years from that time, and the dog with torn ears tears my body apart limb by limb.

BJT 369And, O great king, you are of great merit; you have come here for my benefit. I have been well delivered from the lake of Kaṇḍamuṇḍa; I am free from sorrow, free from fear from any quarter.

BJT 370O great king, I pay homage to you; I beseech you with joined hands. O great king, pray enjoy pleasures that are not of human kind; pray take delight together with me."

BJT 371"I have enjoyed pleasures not of human kind; I have taken delight together with you. O fortunate one, I beseech you—now quickly take me back."

The Story of the Hungry Ghost at the Lake of Kaṇṇamuṇḍa is the twelfth.