Dhammapada 2.1.p10

2.1.p10

Te gacchantā ekaṃ gopālakulaṃ pāpuṇiṃsu. Taṃ divasañca gopālakassa dhenumaṅgalaṃ hoti. Gopālakassa gehe nibaddhaṃ eko paccekabuddho bhuñjati. So taṃ bhojetvā maṅgalamakāsi. Bahu pāyāso paṭiyatto hoti. Gopālako te āgate disvā, ‘‘kuto āgatatthā’’ti pucchitvā sabbaṃ pavattiṃ sutvā mudujātiko kulaputto tesu anukampaṃ katvā bahukena sappinā pāyāsaṃ dāpesi. Bhariyā ‘‘sāmi, tayi jīvante ahampi jīvāmi nāma, dīgharattaṃ ūnodarosi, yāvadatthaṃ bhuñjāhī’’ti sappiñca dadhiñca tadabhimukhaññeva katvā attanā mandasappinā thokameva bhuñji. Itaro bahuṃ bhuñjitvā sattaṭṭhadivase chātatāya āhārataṇhaṃ chindituṃ nāsakkhi. Gopālako tesaṃ pāyāsaṃ dāpetvā sayaṃ bhuñjituṃ ārabhi. Kotuhaliko taṃ olokento nisīditvā heṭṭhāpīṭhe nipannāya sunakhiyā gopālakena vaḍḍhetvā diyyamānaṃ pāyāsapiṇḍaṃ disvā ‘‘puññā vatāyaṃ sunakhī, nibaddhaṃ evarūpaṃ bhojanaṃ labhatī’’ti cintesi. So rattibhāge taṃ pāyāsaṃ jīrāpetuṃ asakkonto kālaṃ katvā tassā sunakhiyā kucchimhi nibbatti.

Continuing their journey, they came to the house of a certain herdsman. On that day, as it happened, one of the herdsman's cows had calved, and the herdsman was about to hold the customary festival in honor of the event. Now a certain Private Buddha was accustomed to take his meals in the house of the herdsman. The herdsman, after providing the Private Buddha with food, celebrated the cow-festival with an abundant supply of rice-porridge. When the herdsman saw the visitors, he asked them, "Whence have you come?" They told him the whole story, whereupon the tender-hearted youth took pity on them and saw to it that they were given rice-porridge with a plentiful supply of ghee. The wife said to the husband, "Husband, if only you can live, I can live. For a long time you have not had sufficient food. Now eat to your heart's content." So saying, she set the ghee and curds before him, eating only a little of the ghee herself. The husband ate heartily; but so intense was the hunger from which he had suffered during the preceding seven or eight days that he was unable to satisfy it.

When the herdsman had seen to it that they were provided with rice-porridge, he began himself to eat. Now under the herdsman's stool lay a bitch he had raised, and as the herdsman sat there eating, he fed her with morsels of rice-porridge. Kotūhalaka watched him feed her and thought to himself, “Fortunate indeed is that bitch to get such food to eat!” Kotūhalaka was unable to digest the rice-porridge he had eaten, died during the night, and received a new existence in the womb of that very bitch.