[118] 8.
"In a gabled mansion and in a palace, on a couch spread with a long-fleeced woolen coverlet, you take delight in the fivefold music, well played.
Then, at the waning of the night, toward the rising of the sun, cast away in a charnel ground, you undergo much suffering (dukkha).
What evil deed, then, has been done by body, by speech, or by mind? As the result of what kamma do you undergo this suffering?"
"Formerly I was a deer-hunter in delightful Rājagaha, in charming Giribbaja; a cruel man I was, unrestrained.
I had a companion, good-hearted, a lay follower (upāsaka) endowed with faith; and a bhikkhu who frequented his family was a disciple of Gotama.
He, having compassion on me, restrained me again and again: 'Do not do evil kamma; dear one, do not go to a bad destination. If you wish for happiness after death, desist from the slaying of living beings — from lack of restraint.'
Having heard the words of him who desired my happiness and compassionately sought my welfare, I did not carry out his instruction in full, for I had long delighted in evil and was without understanding.
Again that one of abundant wisdom, out of compassion, established me in restraint: 'If by day you kill living beings, then by night let there be restraint for you.'
So, having killed living beings by day, I was abstinent by night, restrained. Now by night I live at ease; by day, wretched, I am devoured.
Through that wholesome kamma I experience by night superhuman [bliss]; but by day the dogs, as though enraged, rush upon me from every side to devour me.
And those who are constant in devotion, perpetually engaged in the teaching of the Well-Farer (sugata) — it is they, I think, who attain the very deathless (amata) in its entirety, the unconditioned state."
The Dutiyamigaluddapetavatthu — the Second Deer-Hunter Peta Story — the eighth.
English translation from the Pali (Siam Raṭṭha edition) — under review, not for citation.