Dictionary of Pali Proper Names v2.c31.2279

v2.c31.2279

Mahāsutasoma Jātaka (No. 537).—Brahmadatta, king of Benares, was much addicted to meat. One uposatha-day the meat which had been prepared for him was eaten by dogs, and the cook, unable to buy any more, cut a piece from a human body recently dead and cooked it. Brahmadatta had been a Yakkha in a former birth and therefore enjoyed the dish. Having discovered what the meat was, he developed a taste for human flesh, and, in due course, came to having his subjects murdered in order to supply him with food. His crime was discovered and his guilt brought home by his commander-in-chief, Kāḷahatthi,¹ but the king refused to give up his cannibalism and was driven out of the kingdom. He dwelt in the forests with his cooks, eating all the travellers they were able to seize. The day arrived when he killed the cook himself and ate his flesh. Some time after he fell upon a brahmin travelling through the forest with a large retinue, and they gave chase to the king. As he ran an acacia splinter pierced his foot, causing him great pain. Seeing a banyan tree, he made a vow to bathe its trunk with the blood of one hundred and one princes if his foot were healed in seven days. The foot did heal within that time, and with the assistance of a Yakkha, who had been his friend in a previous birth, he managed to capture one hundred kings whom he hung on the tree by means of cords passed through their hands.