288 Macchuddāna Jātaka (JTA 107) The Seven-Cent Fish Ashin Sarana:
‘Valentina’s drawing Long ago, the Bodhisatta was born as the elder son of a wealthy landowner, but after their father died, he and his younger brother went to a village and took care of family business and collected one thousand coins and started home. While waiting for the ferry to arrive, the brothers ate some lunch, but the elder brother realized he had some leftover rice, so he gave the fish some, and shared the merit with the deva of the river. The younger brother however, wrapped some gravel to make a parcel which looked exactly like the parcel of coins, so when they got on the ferry, the younger brother purposely dropped the parcel into the river but what he didn’t realize was that it was actually the real parcel of coins, so when the river deva saw the parcel drop and saw coins, she got a large fish to swallow the coins and set him into the net which the fishermen had cast at that spot. When the younger brother got back home, he was so disappointed to see that the parcel was just full of gravel. The fishermen were selling the fish that they caught for one thousand coins and seven cents, but people went off laughing so the fishermen went to the elder brother’s house and sold it to him for seven cents, so the elder brother bought it and the wife cut it open the see that there was a parcel of money inside of it! The elder brother immediately realized what happened, but at that moment, the river deva hovered into the air and said to him that because he shared the merit with her, and gave the leftover rice to the fish, she has taken care of his property and returned it back. She said that he should not give any of the money to his brother because he is a scoundrel, but the elder brother disagreed with that and said that he is still his brother, so he must give him a fair share and he did exactly that. Having concluded the story, the Buddha identified as the elder brother.Kids’ drawing
