Chitra and Sambhut

The opening of the story

Among the teachings that, the tradition says, Bhagwan Mahavir gave in his last days at Pavapuri, there is a short chapter about two brothers. Most of its thirty-five verses are a conversation between an emperor and a monk in a garden. But those two had known each other for six lives, and to explain what passed between them, the commentators go back to the beginning.

Long before, four boys who herded cattle found a monk lying in the forest. He had fallen behind his companions and lost his way, and hunger and thirst had brought him down. The boys fed him and cared for him until he was strong again. While they cared for him he talked to them about the soul and its long journey, and all four of them took up the life of monks. Two of them, the commentary says, could never quite overcome a disgust they felt at the soiled clothes and the dust that belong to a monk's life. They kept their vows and were reborn among the gods, but that small disgust went with them like a seed.