Linked Discourses 6.12

Chapter Two

About Devadatta

So I have heard.

At one time the Buddha was staying near Rājagaha, on the Vulture’s Peak Mountain, not long after Devadatta had left.

Then, late at night, the glorious divinity Sahampati, lighting up the entire Vulture’s Peak, went up to the Buddha, bowed, stood to one side,

and spoke this verse in the Buddha’s presence:

“The banana plant is destroyed by its own fruit,

as are the bamboo and the reed.

Honor destroys a reprobate,

as pregnancy destroys a mule.”