A headless Snake

A headless Snake

Yajnadatta is an ancient serpent, sizable, powerful, yet gullible. He engulfed nations, rampaged and devoured them one by one. Out of desperation and compassionate, Mischievous Hippocratic, a wise man, went up to Yajnadatta. Serpent Yajnadatta seized him instantly, but being surprised by his composure.
“Why are you not afraid, puny humon?” puzzled Yajnadatta.
“Oh… the almighty Yajnadatta, you so powerful, yet so in pitfall!” replied Mischievous.
“Why? I owned you, land and your beasts,
How dare you say that, you frail spit?
Answer me with care you little weed,
Or rip you in half that you will be!” infuriated Yajnadatta.

“Though you own us, the land and beasts,
You can never own your head,
‘cause you cannot find it there.
In fact, if I have not informed thee,
You don’t even know that it’s not there.
Sympathize your head, I should,
Laughing at your plight out I will!”

Shocked and chocked by the wise man’s word, he gobbled down the poor Mischievous; then Yajnadatta embarked a journey to find his head; he searched every inch of his body, every inch of the land, but he failed miserably. Eventually he gave up, died and went straight to hell.

Being the demonic lord of the dark realm, Satan was most displeased with his new subject, Yajnadatta. For Yajnadatta is in such state of misery, no amount of punishment and torture, neither physical nor mental, was able to inflict much of suffering on the drifting serpent. In short, Satan was not entertained, and his authority challenged- other demonic nobles started to doubt his might, wisdom and sovereignty.

Then Satan came up with a wily scheme, he went up to Yajnadatta and knock his head with his rod.
“Knocking there is your head,
Lost it again ‘cause I stopped
If you want your head back again,
Do my bidding and it you re-gain! “

Realizing he had just found his head from Satan, and lost it again the instant Satan stopped knocking his head, Yajnadatta succumbed to Satan’s might and became one of Satan’s elite in his eternal quest of dark crusade.

Commentary:
The ideas of this fable came up while I was reading through Chapter four of Shurangama Sutra few days ago, realizing that it is about formation of the universe. Inadvertently, I came across a proverbial teaching from Buddha in Ghanavyūha sutra, pointing out the world of illusion is like entangled snakes. Adding elements of Hippocratic symbol, I created this fable. So what ever happened to Mischievous? Take a guess!

Please refer to the following:
From Shurangama Sutra
”The nature of enlightenment is essentially bright. It is false for you to make it bright enlightenment. 4:17

”Have you not heard of Yajnadatta in Shravasti who on impulse one morning held a mirror to his face and fell in love with the head in the mirror? He gazed at the eyes and eyebrows but got angry because he could not see his own face. He decided he must be a li mei ghost. Having lost all his bearings, he ran madly out. What do you think? Why did this person set out on a mad chase for no reason?. 4:101

From Ghanavyūha sutra
根蘊如蛇聚
境界緣所觸

Organs and Senses tangled like snakes,
Realm contacted then lingered !