uTHE BUDDHA’S TOOTH
An old woman lived with her young son in a small village. She eked out a living for the two of them by working for her neighbours and by tending a single cow and some chickens. They were both deeply devout, the woman telling her son of the Buddha, the compassionate one, whose teaching relieved suffering. Painfully she saved tiny bits of money for the day her son would be old enough to go on a pilgrimage to the very tree where the Buddha had gained enlightenment. He grew up, eagerly looking forward to the journey.
At last the boy was old enough to make the trip, and there was enough money for him to travel the great distance and to buy a relic of the Buddha while in the holy city. "Bring me a tooth of the Buddha", his mother requested. "I saved for this all my life and yours. Be very careful of the money. Here is just enough for you to live during the weeks you will be travelling, and the extra, this precious piece of gold, is for the tooth. Keep it safe in your pocket." She kissed him and cried over him, and checked once again that his cloths (such as they were) were clean. She poured out all manner of instructions on him, as well as tears. "Don’t forget the tooth", she reminded.
The boy now a handsome young man, set out. Before very long he fell in with another group heading for the same place. There were all manner of people with the pilgrims, and they sang and chanted, making the journey a pleasant one.
One in the city, however, the young man saw other things that looked attractive and soon forgot that he was on pilgrimage. What with one thing and another, all his money was soon gone, including the precious gold piece his mother had entrusted to him for the sacred relic, the Buddha’s tooth. He woke up one morning with nothing left except a bad headache. He knew he had to find his way home somehow. And he was stricken with sorrow at how he had squandered his mother’s money, so hard won. Hungry and thirsty, he began the painful trek back to his village without ever getting to the tree where the Buddha had reached enlightenment.
When night fell, the young man would lie down by the side of the road and sleep, exhausted and hungry, but still worrying about the relic he had been unable to buy. One morning, as he stumbled along the road, he saw an old dog that had died. As sometimes happen, the dog’s mouth was slightly open and his teeth were showing. The young man reached in and touched one of the teeth. It fell out into his hand. He wrapped it in his torn loincloth.
hen he finally arrived home, his mother was overjoyed beyond measure to see that he was alive and safe. And triply overjoyed when he presented her with the relic, ‘a tooth of the Buddha’, as he declared it to be.
Sobbing with gratitude and awe, the mother washed the tooth and placed it in the shrine she had prepared while the young man had been away. During the months and years that followed, the ‘relic’ became a thing of incredible wonder to the villagers. In fact it almost became a reason for pilgrimage itself. Many miracles were attributed to it and to his mother as keeper of Buddha’s tooth. Her deeds of compassionate listening and goodness were profound and her happiness unbounded.
The young man, however, grew more and more distraught as the relic’s reputation grew and his mother’s saintliness increased. This built up over years, and finally he couldn’t stand living a lie any more. One evening, after several priests had visited and received both blessings and teachings from the tooth, he finally blurted out the true story to his mother. "That’s not the Buddha’s tooth. I lost all the money you gave me. I got that tooth from a dead dog!" And he ran outside the house.
Just outside the door stood a beautiful man looking at him with eyes of kindness and humour. It was Buddha’s smiling. In a gentle voice, the Buddha said, "That was my tooth, you know."
