The child-eating goblin of Ayoghara

Overview

In Jātaka 510 a formerly barren co-wife’s hostile wish leads to rebirth as a goblin. Her former rival becomes the queen of Benares. The goblin seizes and eats the queen’s first newborn son, then changes the shapes of her limbs to frighten the mother. Guards fail to prevent the same fate for the next child. The text supplies this individual history rather than treating every child-threatening spirit as the same being.

Before the third birth, advisers suggest palm leaves or an iron house as protection. The king has an iron building constructed, and the future Buddha grows up inside it as Ayoghara, the Prince of the Iron House. The narrative separately says that the goblin is destroyed while seeking water belonging to Vessavaṇa. It does not describe her being killed by the prince or defeated in an attack on the iron walls.

At sixteen, Ayoghara first sees the city and learns why he has been secluded. Although the courtiers credit the iron house with saving him, he observes that escaping a goblin cannot free him from ageing and death. He renounces the throne, and the king, queen and population follow him into religious life. The goblin episode sets up this meditation on mortality; it does not establish the universal effectiveness of iron or palm leaves against all spirits.

Origins & earliest records

Pāli Jātaka literary tradition; English translator W. H. D. Rouse, general editor E. B. Cowell.

Records & interpretation

Complete English narrative, frame, ending and attached notes read.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

1. 01

   The Jātaka, Volume 4

   W. H. D. Rouse (translator); E. B. Cowell (editor) · 1901

   510, Ayoghara-Jātaka, pp.304–309; complete frame, renunciation verses, ending and attached notes

Family & connections

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Primary records and illustrations

References

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1. Historical English primary translationComplete Jātaka translation and notesResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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