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A young man devoted himself, after his father's death, entirely to his
mother, till the latter, much against his will, brought him a wife. The wife
plotted to estrange mother and son, and the old woman had to leave the house.
The wife, having given birth to a son, went about saying that if the
mother-in-law had been with her such a blessing would have been impossible. When
the old woman heard of this, she felt that such things could only be said
because Right (Dhamma) was dead and, going into the cemetery, she started to
perform a sacrifice in memory of the dead Right. Sakka's throne becoming heated,
he came down and, hearing her story, reconciled the old woman with her son and
daughter-in-law by means of his great power. In the stanza spoken by Sakka, the
old woman is addressed as Kaccāni and Kātiyānī. The scholiast explains that she
belonged to the Kaccānagotta.
The story was related to a young man of
Sāvatthi who looked after his aged mother till his wife came; then the wife
undertook to tend her and for some time did her duties well. Later, she grew
jealous of her husband's love for his mother, and contrived by various means to
make the son angry with the old woman. Finally, she asked her husband to choose
between herself and his mother. The young man, without hesitation, stood up for
his mother, and the wife, realising her folly, mended her ways. J. iii.422-8.

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