On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c15.71

v1.c15.71

This man Kokālika is better known as a partisan of Devadatta than as an enemy of the Buddha. He was, we learn from other sources, an unscrupulous friend and follower of Devadatta, always praising his master and calling right wrong and wrong right in agreement with him. They had met in a former state of existence when Kokālika was a crow and Devadatta a jackal. The latter had scented the corpse of an unburied eunuch, and had nearly devoured its flesh, when the hungry crow, eager to get bones to pick, praised and flattered the jackal in fulsome lying phrases. To these the latter replied in a similar strain, and their feigning language brought on them a rebuke from a rishi who was the P'usa.¹