Part 2. Corrupt fruit from a good tree.
Reading edition
One day, while he was amusing himself in the mighty river, in an enclosure formed by a net, there floated up and lodged in the net a single mango fruit fit for the gods. When they lifted the net they saw it and gave it to the king. It was of large size, as big as a water-pot, perfectly round, and of a golden color. The king asked his foresters: “What is that the fruit of?” “The fruit of a mango tree.” Having eaten it, he caused the stone to be planted in his own garden, and to be sprinkled with milk and water. The tree sprouted, and in the third year bore fruit.
Great was the honor rendered to the mango. They sprinkled it with milk and water, they made marks of the spread hand with scented ointment on it, they festooned it with wreaths and ropes of flowers, they burned lamps with perfumed oil before it, and round about it they hung a curtain of fine cloth.
The fruit was sweet and of a golden color. When the king sent the fruit of the mango to other kings, he pierced with a thorn the spot where the sprout starts, for fear a tree might sprout from the stone. When, after eating the mango fruit, they planted the stone, nothing happened. “What, pray, can be the cause of this?” they inquired, and discovered the cause.
Now a certain other king summoned his gardener and asked: “Can you spoil the flavor of my rival’s mango fruit and make it bitter?” “Yes, your majesty.” “Very well, go.” So saying, he gave him a thousand pieces of money and sent him off. The gardener went to Benāres, caused the king to be informed that a gardener had arrived, managed to have himself summoned by the king, and entering the palace, made obeisance to the king. “Are you the gardener?” asked the king. “Yes, your majesty,” said the gardener, and described his own marvelous powers. Said the king: “Go, assist our gardener.”
From that time on the two men cared for the garden. The newly arrived gardener caused flowers to blossom out of season and fruits to grow out of season, and made the garden a charming place. The king, pleased with the new gardener, dismissed the old gardener, and gave the new gardener exclusive charge of the garden. The new gardener, realizing that the garden was in his own hands, planted nimbs and pot-herbs and creepers all around the mango tree.
In the course of time the nimbs grew up. Roots with roots, branches with branches, were in contact, entangled, intertwined. Merely through this contact with the sour, unpalatable nimbs, the sweet fruit of the mango turned bitter, and its flavor became like the flavor of the leaves of the nimbs. The gardener, knowing that the fruit of the mango had turned bitter, fled.
The king went to the garden and ate a mango fruit. As soon as he put the mango into his mouth, perceiving that the juice tasted like the vile juice of the nimb, he was unable to swallow it, and coughing it up, spat it out. Now at that time the Future Buddha was his counsellor in temporal and spiritual matters. The king addressed the Future Buddha: “Wise man, this tree is just as well cared for now as it was of old. But in spite of this, its fruit has turned bitter. What, pray, is the reason?” And by way of inquiry he uttered the first stanza:
Color, fragrance, flavor, had this mango before. Receiving the same honor, why has the mango bitter fruit?
Then the Future Buddha told him the reason by uttering the second stanza:
Your mango, O king, is surrounded with nimbs, Root touches root, branches entwine about branches. Through contact with the bad, therefore your mango has bitter fruit.
The king, hearing his words, had every one of the nimbs and pot-herbs chopped down, the roots pulled up, the sour earth round about removed, sweet earth put in its place, and the mango fed with milk and water, sweetened water, and perfumed water. Through contact with sweet juices the mango became perfectly sweet again. The king gave the regular gardener sole charge of the garden, and after living out his allotted term of life, passed away according to his deeds.