A priest had decided to offer a sacrifice to the gods. For this ritual, he got a goat. It was to be bathed and decorated with flowers in preparation for the sacrifice.
When the goat was being taken to the river for a bath, it realized that it was going to be killed. At that moment, it had a vision of all its past births, deaths and rebirths. It came to know that it would pay for its past sins. It would die today and be released finally from the cycle of birth and death.
Thinking about this, it burst out laughing, startling all the people around. But then it thought that the priest would commit the sin of killing it. That thought made the goat very unhappy and it began crying. This confused everyone around even more. The people asked the goat why it had laughed and then cried. The goat said it would tell them if they took it to the priest.
So, they all went to the priest and the goat told them why it had laughed and then cried. “In one of my previous births, I too was a priest. Like you, I also thought my gods wanted sacrifices. So, I offered goats and, as a result, I have been condemned to hundreds of rebirths. Now, I will be sacrificed and set free. So, I laughed. Then I realized that you would suffer like me. That made me cry.” The priest was deeply moved and decided not to sacrifice the goat.
The goat, however, was sure that it would lose its head that day, because it had completed its rebirths as part of its payment for the sins it had committed earlier. So, the priest and his followers offered it their protection. They followed the goat wherever it went and made sure that it was safe.
After some time, they reached a rocky place among the mountains where there were fresh plants growing. The goat was a good climber. So, it went up the rocks for the tender green leaves that it could see. All of a sudden, there was a thunderstorm. The priest and his followers took shelter. But the goat was up on the rock. A bolt of lightning struck the rock and a large, sharp rock killed the goat. “It has been set free from rebirth,” said a fairy in a tree near by. “So, let us not cause pain to any creature, even in the name of religion,” she said.
