"Envy not Munika."--This the Master told while at Jetavana, about being attracted by a fat girl. That will be explained in the Birth Story of Narada Kassapa the Younger, in the Thirteenth Book.
On that occasion the Teacher asked the monk, "Is it true what they say, that you are love-sick?"
"It is true. Lord!" said he,
"What about?"
"My Lord! 'tis the allurement of that fat girl!"
Then the Master said, "O monk! she will bring evil upon you. In a former birth already you lost your life on the day of her marriage, and were turned into food for the multitude." And he told a tale.
"Long ago, when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisattva came to life in the house of a landed proprietor in a certain village as an ox, with the name of 'Big-red.' And he had a younger brother called 'Little-red.' And all the carting work in the household was carried on by means of the two brothers.
"Now there was an only daughter in that family, and she was asked in marriage for the son of a man of rank in a neighboring city. Then her parents thinking, 'It will do for a feast of delicacies for the guests who come to the girl's wedding,' fattened up a pig with boiled rice. And his name was 'Sausages.'
"When Little-red saw this, he asked his brother, 'All the carting work in the household falls to our lot. Yet these people give us mere grass and straw to eat; while they bring up that pig on boiled rice! What can be the reason of that fellow getting that?'
"Then his brother said to him, 'Dear Little-red, don't envy the creature his food! This poor pig is eating the food of death! These people are fattening the pig to provide a feast for the guests at their daughter's wedding. But a few days more, and you shall see how these men will come and seize the pig by his legs, and drag him off out of his sty, and deprive him of his life, and make curry for the guests!' And so saying, he uttered the following stanza:
"'Envy not "Sausages!"
"And, not long after, those men came there; and they killed 'Sausages,' and cooked him up in various ways.
"Then the Bodhisattva said to Little-red, 'Have you seen "Sausages," my dear?'
"'I have seen, brother,' said he, 'what has come of the food poor Sausages ate. Better a hundred, a thousand times, than his rice, is our food of only grass and straw and chaff; for it works no harm, and is evidence that our lives will last.'"
Then the Teacher said, "Thus then, O monk, you have already in a former birth lost your life through her, and become food for the multitude." And when he had concluded this lesson in virtue, he proclaimed the Truths. When the Truths were over, that love-sick monk stood fast in the Fruit of Conversion. But the Teacher made the connection, and summed up the Jataka, by saying, "He who at that time was 'Sausages' the pig was the love-sick monk, the fat girl was as she is now, Little-red was Ananda, but Big-red was I myself."
