法苑珠林 26.9

26.9

Furthermore, the new *Vibhāṣā-śāstra* says: Within Rājagṛha there was a butcher named Ghaṭa, who was a childhood friend of King Ajātaśatru. He once said to the crown prince: 'When you ascend the throne, what wish will you grant me?' The prince told him: 'I will grant whatever you ask.' Later, Ajātaśatru killed his father and set himself up. Ghaṭa then begged a boon from the king, and the king said to him: 'Ask as you please.' Ghaṭa said: 'May the king allow me alone to practice butchery throughout Rājagṛha.' The king then told him: 'Why do you now make such an evil request? Are you not afraid of future suffering?' The butcher told the king: 'All good and evil actions have no fruit whatsoever; what is there to fear?' The king then said to him: 'How do you know this?' Ghaṭa told the king: 'I remember six past lives, constantly practicing butchery within this city of Rājagṛha. In the final life, I was born among the Trāyastriṃśa devas, experiencing much joy. Departing from that heaven, I came to be born here, and was able to be a friend of the king from childhood. Therefore, I know that good and evil certainly have no fruit.' When the king heard this, he became doubtful and went to report it to the Buddha. The Buddha told the king: 'This matter is not false. However, that butcher once offered a single meal to a pratyekabuddha and made a wrong vow, saying: "May I always practice butchery alone within Rājagṛha, and afterward be born in heaven!" Due to that superior karmic cause, the fruit fulfilled his vow. That previous superior karma and its fruit are exhausted today; after seven days his life will certainly end and he will be born in the Raurava Hell, experiencing sequentially the bitter fruits of his previous butchery karma. Therefore, this cognition knows at most seven lives.' Still others say that this can at most recollect the events of five hundred lives. That is to say, there was a monk who recalled on his own that during five hundred past lives he had fallen into the preta destiny; when remembering the suffering of hunger and thirst experienced there, sweat flowed over his whole body and his mind was deeply terrified; he ceased all business, his vigor blazing, and after a long time attained the fruit of stream-entry (srotāpanna). Furthermore, there was a monk who recalled on his own that during five hundred past lives he had fallen into the hell destiny; when remembering the suffering of hell experienced there, blood flowed throughout all his pores, and his body and garments were extraordinarily foul; every day he went to the water to bathe and wash his clothes, so that the multitude thought he regarded water as purification.