A banker of Sávatthi. He was rich, but he neither enjoyed his wealth himself nor gave it to others; he ate rice-dust with sour gruel, wore coarse clothes and went about in an old chariot with a parasol of leaves over his head. After death he was born in Roruva-niraya.
He died heirless and it took seven days and seven nights for the king's men to remove his wealth to the royal treasury.
In reply to a question of Pasenadi, the Buddha revealed why Ágantuka had been a miser: in a past birth, while going to the king's court, he had met the Pacceka Buddha Tagarasikhí begging for alms and had ordered his servant to give the food prepared for himself (Ágantuka) to the Pacceka Buddha. On his way back, seeing the Pacceka Buddha returning with the excellent food from the merchant's house in his alms-bowl, he wished he had distributed it among his own servants instead, as they would have done some work in return (J.iii.199-300).
The reason for Ágantuka being heirless is related in the Mayhaka Játaka.