Somdatta

At a Glance

• Central figures: Somdatta, a young brahmin student; his teacher, a renowned brahmin master in Takshashila; the Bodhisatta, who in this life was Somdatta’s fellow student.
• Setting: The city of Takshashila (Taxila), in the northern reaches of ancient India, where young men of good family studied the arts, sciences, and sacred texts under brahmin masters.
• The turn: Somdatta, desperate to win his teacher’s highest favor, resorts to flattery and deception rather than honest effort, poisoning the teacher’s trust in his other students.
• The outcome: The Bodhisatta exposes Somdatta’s manipulation through a simple demonstration of the truth, and the teacher - recognizing how he was deceived - dismisses Somdatta from the school.
• The legacy: The story remained in the Buddhist teaching tradition as an illustration of how flattery corrupts both the one who gives it and the one who receives it, and how plainly spoken truth, even when unwelcome, restores what deceit has damaged.

Somdatta could not stop talking. That was the first thing anyone noticed about him when he arrived at Takshashila to study under the great teacher - he talked before dawn prayers, he talked through meals, he talked while other students were trying to read. But what made Somdatta dangerous was not the volume. It was the direction. Every word he spoke curved toward the teacher, and every word was sweet.

Your explanations are clearer than any text, master. I have studied under three teachers before you, and none of them understood the Vedas as you do. The other students do not appreciate what you give us.

The teacher was an old man. He had taught five hundred students at a time, had done so for decades, and he was not a fool. But he was tired, and tiredness loosens the mind’s grip on what it knows. Flattery, received often enough, stops sounding like flattery. It starts sounding like the truth.

The School at Takshashila

Five hundred young men studied in the teacher’s compound. They slept on reed mats, ate rice and lentils twice a day, and spent their hours memorizing sacred verses, learning the arts of medicine and archery, debating logic and grammar. Among them was the Bodhisatta - a quiet student, diligent, neither the fastest learner nor the slowest. He watched Somdatta the way a man watches a crack spreading across a wall.

Somdatta had arrived six months after the Bodhisatta. He was clever - genuinely clever - but he did not want to be one student among five hundred. He wanted to be the favorite. And he understood, with the instinct of someone born to manipulate, that the fastest route to a teacher’s heart was not excellence. It was making the teacher feel excellent.

So Somdatta praised. He praised the teacher’s lectures. He praised the teacher’s handwriting. He praised the food the teacher’s household served, though it was the same rice and lentils everyone else ate. He lingered after lessons to ask questions he already knew the answers to, just so the teacher could enjoy the sound of his own explanations.

And it worked.

The Poison in the Ear

Within a year, Somdatta sat at the teacher’s right hand during meals. He was given the choicest portions. When the teacher needed an errand run, he called for Somdatta. When the teacher wanted someone to demonstrate a recitation for the younger students, he called for Somdatta. The other students noticed.

But Somdatta was not satisfied with being favored. He needed to be singular. And for that, the others had to fall.

He began with small remarks. I overheard two students mocking your accent, master. I would never repeat who, but it troubles me. Then larger ones. The older students say your methods are outdated. They say the teacher at Varanasi uses newer commentaries. He never named names - that would have been too crude. He left the poison vague, so it spread evenly across all five hundred.

The teacher grew irritable. He shortened his lectures. He snapped at students who asked questions. He began to trust only Somdatta, the one student who seemed loyal.

The Bodhisatta saw what was happening. He saw the teacher’s sourness, the students’ confusion, and Somdatta sitting at the center of it all with a face as smooth as polished wood.

The Bodhisatta’s Question

One evening, after the other students had gone to their mats, the Bodhisatta approached the teacher.

Master, may I ask you something?

The teacher waved him forward, already impatient.

If a man tells you that everyone in a room despises you, but no one in the room has spoken a word against you - where does the hatred live? In the room, or in the man who told you?

The teacher stared at him. The Bodhisatta did not elaborate. He bowed and left.

The question sat in the old man’s mind like a stone dropped into still water. He could not dislodge it. That night he did not sleep. He thought about the remarks Somdatta had brought to him - all of them. Not one had included a name. Not one had been something the teacher could verify. Every report of disrespect had come through a single mouth.

The Test

The next morning, the teacher called all five hundred students into the courtyard. He stood before them, Somdatta at his right side as usual.

I have heard, the teacher said, that many of you find my teaching inadequate. That you mock me. That you prefer other masters. I want to hear it now, from your own mouths. Stand forward, any of you who have spoken against me.

Silence. Not one student moved. Five hundred faces looked back at the teacher with nothing but confusion.

The teacher turned to Somdatta. He did not raise his voice. That was the worst part - he did not even raise his voice.

You told me they despised me. Every week, a new report. Not once did you bring me a name, a date, a place. Not once did I hear these words from anyone but you.

Somdatta opened his mouth. For once, nothing came out.

You flattered me so I would trust you, the teacher said. And then you poisoned me against every honest student in this compound so that you alone would remain.

He paused. The courtyard was so still that the Bodhisatta could hear doves on the wall behind him.

Leave. Take your things and go before the midday meal.

The Empty Mat

Somdatta left Takshashila that morning. He packed his few possessions and walked south without looking back. No one stopped him. No one spoke to him on the road.

The teacher, after Somdatta was gone, sat in the courtyard for a long time. When the students gathered for the afternoon lesson, he spoke plainly.

I allowed one man’s sweetness to close my ears to all of you. That is my failing, not his alone. A teacher who can be led by flattery is a teacher who has stopped listening.

He resumed his lectures. He was sharper after that - more attentive to what students actually said, less interested in what they said about him. The Bodhisatta completed his studies the following year and returned home. He did not speak of Somdatta again. There was nothing more to say about a man whose words had been emptied of everything except the desire to be preferred.

The mat where Somdatta had slept was taken by a new student within the week. The courtyard where the teacher had stood and asked his question dried in the sun. Five hundred students went back to their verses. The school continued.