They went, and preached to them, and instructed them in the Fruits, and the next day at dawn returned to the Bambu Grove, bringing those mendicants with them. And as Sāriputta on his return was standing by, after paying his respects to the Blessed One, the mendicants exalted him, saying to the Blessed One, "Lord! how excellent appears our elder brother, the Minister of Righteousness, returning with five hundred disciples as his retinue, whereas Deva-datta is now without any followers at all!"
"Not only now, O mendicants! has Sāriputta come in glory, surrounded by the assembly of his brethren; in a former birth, also, he did the same. And not now only has Deva-datta been deprived of his following; in a former birth also he was the same."
The monks requested the Blessed One to explain how that was. Then the Blessed One made manifest a thing hidden by the interval of existence.
Long ago, in the city Rājagaha, in the land of Magadha, there ruled a certain king of Magadha. At that time the Bodisat came to life as a deer, and when he grew up he lived in the forest at the head of a herd of a thousand deer. He had two young ones, named Lakkhaṇa (the Beautifully-marked One, 'Beauty') and Kāḷa (the Dark One, 'Brownie').
When he had become old, he called them, and said, "My beloved! I am old. Do you now lead the herd about." And he placed five hundred of the deer under the charge of each of his sons.
Now in the land of Magadha at crop time, when the
