Sacred Texts: Buddhism

Buddhism in Translations - § 100. A Family of Magicians.

Henry Clarke WarrenPali Canon TranslationsTheravada Buddhism

Summary only - full text stays on its own separately-gated source. Read the full text at the source »

This is a passage from the Mahā-Vagga, one of the texts of the Vinaya Piṭaka — the section of the Pali Canon governing monastic discipline in the Theravāda Buddhist tradition. The excerpt, translated from Pali, recounts a narrative episode about a householder named Mendaka and his family, who reside in the city of Bhaddiya and each possess a distinct supernatural power: Mendaka can summon grain from the sky, his wife's small pot of food never runs out while she remains seated, his son's purse of coins is inexhaustible in hand, his daughter-in-law's basket of rice never empties, and his slave can plow seven furrows at once. The story's main action is King Bimbisāra of Magadha dispatching a minister with a full army to verify these powers firsthand, and the family demonstrating each ability in turn — feeding and paying the entire army from their supernaturally abundant provisions. The text is distinctive for its formulaic, repetitive style typical of oral Pali literature, where descriptions are restated nearly verbatim multiple times as they pass from rumor to royal decree to direct speech. The passage functions less as doctrinal teaching and more as legendary backstory, likely establishing the spiritual merit or karmic significance of Mendaka's family as context for their later encounter with the Buddha.

Buddhism in Translations - § 100. A Family of Magicians.

Related pages View as graph →