0163. The Farmer and the Bar of Gold

From The Jataka Volume 1 translated by Robert Chalmers, online at: Sacred Texts Archive.

Notes. This is the Kancanakkhandha Jataka.

Summary: A farmer finds a bar of gold in a field so heavy that he cannot carry it.

Read the story below:

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THE FARMER AND THE BAR OF GOLD

(farmer in southern India)

Once on a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta came to life as a farmer in a village, and was ploughing one day in a field where once stood a village.

Now, in bygone days, a wealthy merchant had died leaving buried in this field a huge bar of gold, as thick round as a man's thigh, and four whole cubits in length. And full on this bar struck the Bodhisatta's plough, and there stuck fast. Taking it to be a spreading root of a tree, he dug it, out; but discovering its real nature, he set to work to clean the dirt off the gold.

The day's work done, at sunset he laid aside his plough and gear, and essayed to shoulder his treasure-trove and walk off with it. But, as he could not so much as lift it, he sat down before it and fell a-thinking what uses he would put it to.

"I'll have so much to live on, so much to bury as a treasure, so much to trade with, and so much for charity and good works," thought he to himself, and accordingly cut the gold into four.

Division made his burthen easy to carry; and he bore home the lumps of gold. After a life of charity and other good works, he passed away to fare thereafter according to his deserts.