Ja 150 The Story about the Brahmin Youth Sañjīva
(Sañjīvajātaka)

Devadatta will bring him a like reward and the earth will open up and swallow him. The Buddha tells a story of how in a previous life, when given a spell of resuscitation, an earlier incarnation of the king, then called Sañjīvaka, had used it to bring a tiger back to life, who had promptly killed him (full story).

1. Asantaṁ yo pagaṇhāti, asantañ-cūpasevati,
Tam-eva ghāsaṁ kurute, vyaggho Sañjīvako yathā ti.

He who favours the bad, and mixes with the bad, makes fodder of himself, like Sañjīvaka and the tiger.

In this connection, the bad means endowed with the three ways of wrong conduct, By body, voice and mind. lacking virtue, wicked.

He who favours, whoever, amongst the nobles and so on, lacking virtue, whether he has gone forth and is given robes and so on, or is a householder given the state of viceroyalty, generalship and so on, favours someone with honour and respect, this is the meaning.

And mixes with the bad, he who mixes with, associates with, attends to, the bad, the one lacking in virtue.

Makes fodder of himself means favouring the bad, the one lacking virtue, the bad person, devours, chews over, brings to destruction.

How? Like Sañjīvaka and the tiger, like the brahmin student Sañjīva who, having recited his mantra, lifted up and revitalised the dead tiger with life, himself giving life, Sañjīva had his life taken from him, and fell right there, thus another who favours the bad, that one lacking virtue, being uplifted destroys him. Thus favouring the bad leads to destruction.