Viśākha (Chapter 021)

Role: son and Bodisat · First appears: Chapter XXI

In lost past times, Viśākha was born to The unnamed king who fathered Śākha, Gulma, Anugulma, and Viśākha (Chapter 021) and The unnamed wife of the king who fathered Śākha, Gulma, Anugulma, and Viśākha (Chapter 021), alongside his brothers Śākha, Gulma, and Anugulma. After they grew up and married kings’ daughters from other lands, the brothers behaved disrespectfully to their father, and the king banished them. In the desert, when his brothers agreed to kill their wives one by one for food, Viśākha fled with The unnamed wife of Viśākha (Chapter 021) rather than take another’s life, saying he thought it “would be better to sacrifice his own life than to take away another’s.” At a mountain, he gave her flesh from his thighs and blood to keep her alive.

At a river, Viśākha rescued The handless and footless cripple (Chapter 021) and entrusted him to his wife’s care, after which the cripple recovered. Later, at a ravine, his wife tricked him into descending for wolf’s-milk and dropped the rope, sending him into the water below. Viśākha survived the fall and was carried by the stream to a royal city, where the ministers and people chose him and installed him as king. He refused to take a new wife and continued to revile women.

At the capital, Viśākha recognized his wife and the cripple and exposed his wife’s betrayal; she stood ashamed.