Jimutavahana's Sacrifice

A famed prince lays down his life for a stranger; then the stranger, already saved, runs back to reclaim his own death. Which one showed the greater courage?

The compassionate prince Jimutavahana offers his own body to Garuda to spare a serpent-youth, Shankhachuda, marked to die that day. But Shankhachuda, rescued and safe, follows the trail of blood up the mountain and begs to take his place back. Which of the two showed the greater fortitude? You judge first, then the king does.

The Burning Ground

Down came the corpse from the tree, onto the king's shoulder for a count he no longer kept. As he walked, the Vetala stirred and began a tale of two lives offered on a single mountain.

The Prince Who Gave Everything Away

Jimutavahana was a prince of the sky-faring Vidyadharas, famed across three worlds for his compassion. He had given away even his family's wishing-tree, the tree that grants every desire, handing it to the poor of the world rather than keep its wealth for himself.

Wandering one day near the sea with a companion, he came upon a shore heaped with the bones of serpents, and learned the terrible arrangement that had made them. Long ago the divine eagle Garuda had made war on the serpent race and would have destroyed it utterly. To save his people, the serpent king Vasuki struck a bargain: each day one serpent would come to the shore and offer itself to Garuda, so that all the rest might live. Day after day, a single life for the many.

Jimutavahana wandered on, and heard weeping, and found a young serpent-youth named Shankhachuda with his aged mother. Shankhachuda was that day's victim. His mother wept over him, saying, my son, whom I bore with a hundred pangs, must I lose you now. The prince's heart could not bear it. Quietly he resolved to take the serpent's place. He sent the two away, wrapped himself in the red cloth of the victim, and climbed the execution rock.

Shankhachuda protested. Who saves a common stone, he said, by throwing away a gem? But the prince would not be moved. When Garuda came, the wind of his wings bending the trees, the great eagle seized the prince and bore him up to a mountain peak to devour him. And there a strange thing happened: the prince lay joyful and unafraid, so calm under that terrible beak that even Garuda paused, astonished, and asked who he was.