The Blessed Buddha was staying in Śrāvastī, in Jetavana, Anāthapiṇḍada’s Park, when a householder living in Śrāvastī took a wife of equal caste and together they played with, took pleasure in, and amused one another. The wife with whom he had played, taken pleasure, and amused himself then gave birth to a son, after which the householder said to her, “Noble woman, our debts are spinning out of control and cutting into our savings, so I will take some merchandise to sell in another land.”

She replied, “Son of a lord, do as you wish.”

The householder departed with his merchandise for another land where, through indiscretion, he came to misfortune. And so his wife, with the help of relatives and by her own industry, fed and nurtured their son as he grew.

In time, the lad went with a peer to a house, where a girl sitting on the house’s roof threw down a bouquet of flowers to catch his notice. His peer asked, “Friend, you haven’t arranged a rendezvous at this house, have you?”

“Indeed I have, and that is our signal,” the lad replied.

“Friend, this house is ill-omened, don’t go in. I warn you, through indiscretion you will come to suffering.”

The lad’s friend then led him on a long detour that took the entire day, eventually leading him back to his mother, to whom the lad’s friend said, “Ma’am, your son here has arranged a rendezvous at a girl’s house. I have safeguarded him the whole day, but you must safeguard him through the night. That house is ill-omened. Do not let him go in. Beware, through indiscretion he will come to suffering.”

She said, “Son, you have done well to inform me.”

She arranged a bed for her son in the house, along with two clay chamber pots, water, and fresh earth cover, and installed her son in the house, saying, “I myself will sleep on a cot by the door.”

“Mother, open the door.”

“Why, son?”

“I must go out and urinate.”

“Son, I have placed a chamber pot there. Urinate in that.”

He sat down for a bit and then said, “Mother, open the door.”

“Why, son?”

“I must go out and defecate.”

“Son, I have placed a chamber pot, water, and fresh earth cover there. Defecate in that.”

Again, he sat for a bit before saying, “Mother, open the door.”

“Son, do you think I don’t know where you want to go? I cannot open the door for you.”

“Mother, I shall kill you.”

“Son, I can face my own death, but I couldn’t bear watching my son die.”

In the pursuit of passion, there is nothing he would not do. His mind merciless, and forsaking all thought of future lives, he unsheathed his knife and cut off his mother’s head at the neck, which tumbled to the floor. Having killed his mother, he left, trembling like a man who has committed a sin.

The girl with whom he had a rendezvous said to him, “Son of a lord, there is no one, there is no other girl but me. Do not be afraid.”

Thinking, “She will be pleased if I tell her what I’ve done,” he said, “Noble woman, I have killed my mother for your sake.”

“What? Your wet nurse or the woman who gave birth to you?”

“The woman who gave birth to me.”

“He has killed his mother without regard for her importance to him,” thought the girl. “What chance would I stand if at some point he became angry with me?”

Then she said to the lad, “Son of a lord, please wait a moment while I climb up to the roof of the house.”

“Go ahead,” he replied.

On reaching the roof, she cried out, “A thief! A thief!”

The lad, scared and frightened, fled back to his own house and laid his knife at the doorstep before crying out, “That thief has been here! He has killed my mother and fled!”

After performing rites of veneration over his mother’s corpse, the lad left home. But a person who has done wrong finds no serenity, so he sought out tīrthika communities and communities of ascetics and asked, “Gentlemen, what can one do to expunge an evil act?”

To that, some said, “Immolate yourself”; some said, “Take poison”; some said, “Jump off a cliff”; and some said, “Strangle yourself with a rope.” All of them recommended some form of suicide; none could offer any means of expiation.

Later, he went to Jetavana, where he posed his question to a monk, who recited a verse:

“He who has done some wrong May curb it through virtue To bring light to this life, As the sun and moon appear from behind clouds.”

On hearing this verse, the lad thought, “Ah! Even wrongdoing can be checked! I shall go forth among these people.” He then approached the monk and said, “Noble one, I want to go forth.”

After his going forth was allowed and he was ordained, he applied himself diligently and began to recite the scriptures. In reciting and saying prayers, he recited and memorized the Three Piṭakas and gained the confidence born of knowledge and freedom.

The monks asked him, “Venerable, what motivates such diligence in you?”

“I must expunge a wrongdoing,” he replied.

“What wrongdoing are you guilty of?”

“I killed my mother.”

“Your wet nurse or the woman who gave birth to you?”

“My birth mother.”

The monks asked the Blessed One about it, and he said to the monks, “Monks, a person who has killed his mother is fit to be excluded from the community, for a person who has killed his mother will not take root in this Dharma and Vinaya. For that reason, monks, you should exclude from this Dharma and Vinaya those persons who have killed their mothers. If someone wishing to go forth approaches any of you, you should ask, ‘Are you a matricide?’ If you allow going forth without asking this, a breach occurs.”

The monk who had killed his mother thought, “Where will I wind up? I must go into the wilds.” And with that, he went into the wilds, where a householder became his follower. Out of deep devotion, the householder had a monastery erected for the monk, where monks from various regions and lands came to live, many of whom went on to actualize arhatship under his guidance.

Sometime later, the monk matricide fell ill. Although the other monks ministered to him with medicinal roots, stalks, leaves, flowers, and fruits, he continued to get worse. The monk matricide then told his wards, “Venerables, prepare a dry sauna for the saṅgha and for me.”

His monk apprentices then prepared a dry sauna for him.

All accumulation ends in depletion; All climbs end in falls; All meetings end in separation; All life ends in death.

So his time came and he died, and he was reborn among the denizens of Avīci, the Great Hell of Unrelenting Torment. One of his arhat wards entered into meditation to find out where his preceptor had been reborn and began searching for him among the gods, but he did not see him there. Nor did he see him when he looked among humans, animals, and spirits. When he began to search among the denizens of hell, he saw that his preceptor had been reborn among the denizens of Avīci, the Great Hell of Unrelenting Torment.

The arhat ward wondered, “If my preceptor was ethical, learned, and attracted a following with the Dharma, what did he do that it should lead him to be reborn among the denizens of Avīci?” He then saw that it was matricide.

Struck by the fiery light of Avīci, the monk matricide cried, “Oh! The heat in this dry sauna is too much!” As soon as he cried out, the guardians of hell lifted their maces and clubbed him on the head, shouting, “Hapless fool! Where is this dry sauna of yours? This is Avīci, the Great Hell of Unrelenting Torment!”

This virtuous thought brought the former monk matricide’s time in hell to an end, and he was reborn among the gods in the realms of the Four Great Kings. It is in the nature of gods and goddesses to have three thoughts shortly after birth: where they have passed on from, where they have been born, and what action has caused that rebirth. Thus the former monk matricide saw he had passed from among the denizens of hell and been reborn among the gods in the realms of the Four Great Kings due to his having washed the dry sauna for the saṅgha.

Then the young god, who had formerly been a denizen of hell, had this thought: “It would not be right of me to spend a day here without going to see and pay my respects to the Blessed One. Thus, before the day is out, I shall go to see and pay my respects to the Blessed One.”

The young god donned a pair of glittering hooped earrings that swung to and fro, adorned his body with two pearl necklaces, one long and one medium in length, filled the folds of his skirt with the dazzling colors of divine blue lotus flowers, lotuses, water lilies, and white lotuses, and when night had fallen, set out to see the Blessed One. On his arrival, he strewed the flowers before the Blessed One and bowed his head at the Blessed One’s feet before taking a place off to one side. The colors of the young god filled the whole of Jetavana with a great light.

As the young god sat on a seat, the Blessed One intuited his thoughts, propensities, disposition, and nature and proceeded to teach the Dharma he needed to hear in order to fully realize each of the Noble Ones’ four truths, thus actualizing the fruit of a stream enterer by decimating with the lightning bolt of wisdom the mountain of belief in the transient aggregates with its twenty tall peaks.

Upon seeing the truth, the young god spoke this panegyric thrice: “Reverend, what the Blessed One has done for me, my father did not do for me, nor did my mother, nor did the king, nor did the gods, nor did my ancestors, nor did ascetics or brahmins, nor did my circle of loved ones and friends, nor did my forebears. For the Blessed One has dried up the ocean of blood and tears, freed me from mountains of bones, shut the door to miserable realms, opened the door to higher realms and liberation, dragged me up by the leg from among the denizens of hell, animals, and spirits, and installed me among gods and humans.”

The young god spoke again:

“Because of you, the path to miserable realms Of terrible and diverse punishments is blocked And the road to higher realms of great merit has opened. I have even found the way to nirvāṇa.

“By relying on you, one of utter purity, I have today gained flawless, pure vision, Have gained the pacific state pleasing to saints, And crossed over the seas of suffering.

“Honored in the world by demi-gods, gods, and men; Free from birth, aging, illness, and death; To see you once in a thousand lives is rare— Today, sage, seeing you has proved fruitful.

“As I bow with my necklace hanging low, Prostrate at your feet, I feel jubilant. Circling the one who has tamed his enemies I turn to the heavens and fly into the sky.”

The young god then departed like a trader who has made a profit, a farmer who has reaped his crops, a warrior who has won a battle, or an ill person who has been delivered from all his ills, and, in the dress in which he arrived in the Blessed One’s presence, returned home.

One of the young god’s former wards, an elder in the saṅgha and an arhat, was seated in the meal row, while another of his wards was distributing water to the saṅgha. After a time, the saṅgha elder lifted his cup of water. It felt extremely cold to the touch of the tip of his fingers, and he thought, “While we drink water as cold as this, the preceptor drinks molten copper among the denizens of Avīci, the Great Hell of Unrelenting Torment.”

Yet when this arhat elder then searched for his preceptor among the denizens of Avīci, the Great Hell of Unrelenting Torment, his preceptor was nowhere to be seen. When the arhat elder searched for him among the animals, spirits, and denizens of other hells, he was nowhere to be seen there either. And so he began to search for him among the gods. There he saw that his preceptor had been reborn among the gods in the realm of the Four Great Kings and, having become a god, saw the truth in the Blessed One’s presence before returning to remain among the gods. Smiling, the arhat elder gained faith in the Blessed One and spoke this panegyric: “O Buddha! O Dharma! O Saṅgha! O the well-spoken Dharma by which even wrongdoers led into such fallen states can attain such a collection of qualities!”

A student of the same preceptor saw him looking jubilant, pleased, and overjoyed and asked, “Venerable, are you so jubilant, pleased, and overjoyed by the thought that now that the preceptor’s time has come, you are the saṅgha elder?”

The arhat elder replied, “Venerable, now is not the time to answer your question. Ask me when we are among the saṅgha and that will prove the time to answer your question.”

Later, after the monks of the saṅgha gathered and were seated, the saṅgha elder asked their preceptor’s student, “Venerable, what was it you wanted to ask me?”

“I asked you, ‘Venerable, are you so jubilant, pleased, and overjoyed by the thought that now that the preceptor’s time has come, you are the saṅgha elder?’ ”

While seated among the saṅgha, the arhat elder explained the situation at length to his fellow student. His fellow student then also rejoiced, as did the saṅgha, who spoke this panegyric: “O Buddha! O Dharma! O Saṅgha! O the well-spoken Dharma by which even wrongdoers led into fallen states can attain such a collection of qualities!”