by Sarah Shaw
The text as we have it evolved over many centuries and association of Jatakas with particular perfections is probably a later, if deeply creative, development within the tales and popular tradition. It provides a formulation of the work the Bodhisatta sees ahead of him and so a unified way of exploring in greater detail the implications of his vow. A single perfection is cited by name in some stories: ‘The story of the one who taught forbearance’ (313) shows the Bodhisatta’s patient endurance in the face of terrible attack and ‘The story of the hare’ (316) is clearly associated with generosity. In many cases, however, it is less easy to work out if one perfection alone is being described. The Basket of Conduct (Cariyapitaka), a late canonical work, gives associations for some of the stories with the first seven perfections. The preamble to the Jataka collection, the Jatakanidana, links groups of tales to each of the ten perfections. The Thai tradition regards the last ten lives (Mahanipata/Thosachat) as representing each one of the ten: these are constantly depicted in temples throughout South-East Asia as representing the summation of the Bodhisatta’s path. 19 This pre-eminence is manifest, for instance, in the continued popularity of little chants that take the first syllable of each of the Bodhisatta’s names in his last ten lives to make a mnemonic. 20 This diversity of interpretation means that some stories come to be associated with different perfections in different traditions. ‘The story of Temiya, the dumb cripple’ (538) is an instance of this, for the story from the present describes its subject as renunciation (nekkhamma) while the Cariyapitaka and the Jatakanidana associate it with resolve (adhitthana). Both of these elements certainly feature in the story and it is interesting to consider how the two main qualities are fulfilled in the action, for the Bodhisatta, in his attempt to give up kingship and enter upon a renunciate life, also needs great resolve to withstand sixteen years as a prince, pretending to be a cripple. In many the perfections form a more general part of the assumed background and no particular attribution is made at all. The perfections give the Bodhisatta a range of active and immediately applicable resources to be introduced into any situation. They are a way of describing the nature of his vow. They are, however, dependent upon one another and the difference between them is not rigid. Where a story is associated with one particular perfection this is discussed in the introduction to that tale.
Practise generosity (dana), guard your virtue (sila) and keep the full-moon days (uposatha)
The first two perfections do deserve particular mention, nonetheless, because they are constantly enjoined throughout all the stories and provide us with a key to understanding the tales as a whole. The first, generosity, is accorded a special emphasis. This is shown on the night of the enlightenment when Gotama is challenged by Mara, the embodiment of the forces that militate against spiritual development, as being unworthy to sit under the Bodhi tree in pursuit of his goal. At this time, the Buddha-to-be describes the perfections both as his shield and as his weapons of attack. 21 They help him to transform all the varied psychological onslaughts, represented by the coals, darkness, fogs and mists sent by Mara, into garlands of flowers. Yet it is in one act of past generosity that he finally takes refuge: a gift of seven-hundredfold alms to monks, undertaken in an earlier life, to which he asks the earth itself to bear witness. When he does this, the earth rumbles its assent. Mara, his armies and his terrors are routed and Gotama is free to pursue his aim. 22 It is a detail in early Buddhist mythology that has a curiously modern, or perhaps more accurately, a perennial, appeal. The lowest point of Gotama’s doubt and the last hindrance to awakening is his own sense of a lack of worth to sit where he is sitting and to do what he is doing. The recollection of giving overcomes the vestigial fears and doubts, symbolized by Mara and his armies, which might prevent him from attaining his final goal. Indian lists usually work in an ascending sequence of importance, but it is significant that the subject of the last story, the Vessantara Jataka (547), is also giving. 23 Hospitality and appropriate generosity are still taught as the starting point of all Buddhist practice. 24
In the stories generosity is treated as the encapsulation of all the perfections. Giving is also often linked in the tales to the second perfection, of sila, the virtue that is protected by adherence to the five precepts (panca silani), of refraining from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying or malicious speech and intoxication. Throughout the stories these two are accorded a special place for their transformatory power. Whatever the situation and however difficult the rebirth, the injunction is repeated like a refrain: ‘practise generosity (dana), guard virtue (sila) and keep the uposatha’. The uposatha is the full-moon (poya), new-moon or quarter-moon day, a time in South-East Asian countries when the first two perfections are cultivated at leisure. Lay practitioners wear white for the day, donate money, give food to monks, and sometimes keep extra precepts, such as undertaking to refrain from ornaments, eating after noon or sexual intercourse, for the time they have taken them. Events or festivals on the uposatha are the times in which Jatakas are most often recounted now and, it seems likely, were historically too. They are festive, happy occasions when the whole family can take a rest from work to chant, meditate and not do any harm, an activity which is in itself regarded as beneficial. The atmosphere on such days is magical, complicated and relaxed, all at the same time. People make offerings of butter lamps and flowers, light incense sticks, cook and offer food, chant, chat, eat in a leisurely way, ask monks and nuns questions, meet their friends or just sit and appreciate the atmosphere while listening to talks—and Jataka stories. It is considered a good time to recharge and take a rest from other activities. The characters in the stories do not have the teaching of a Buddha to help them. Despite this, many keep the uposatha, including animals, such as the otter, the monkey, the jackal and the hare in ‘The Story of the Hare’ (316). The naga in ‘The Story of Campeyya’ (506) goes to great lengths to observe it. In ‘The Story of Mahajanaka’ (539), the Bodhisatta, as a human, does not resort to the hopeless prayers which fail to save his fellow shipmates, but keeps the full-moon day as best he can when swimming for his life after the shipwreck.
There were some obvious social and economic reasons for stressing the first two perfections: people who behave well and act with generosity live together in cooperation, support the sangha, the community of monks and nuns, and help the continuation of the Buddha’s teaching. If they go to temples on uposatha days they also contribute to their upkeep. From an individual layman’s point of view, the practice of generosity and virtue also brings good kamma. It ensures a rebirth in one of the sense-sphere heavens whose beauties and pleasures are particularly associated with the results of such actions in the world. This would bring great reassurance to those who would be listening to the stories, who may have taken time off from busy lives to observe such days. From the evidence of the tales, however, the function of such activities goes far beyond the promise of happiness in this world and the next, important though that is. They also confer a particular kind of inner confidence, as evinced in the Buddha’s confrontation with Mara under the Bodhi tree. People who practise generosity and virtue can follow a way of life that is resourceful, creative and attentive to the well-being of others. This is action that is kusala, a word that has connotations of goodness, health and skill. 25 It is also sometimes called beautiful (sobhana). The one who has this is likely to have skill in means (kusala upaya): the ability to act as is appropriate to the moment and conditions of the present. In the first story the skilful merchant, the Bodhisatta, does not follow easy options but reads the situation carefully: his judgment, we are told, is not clouded by greed or hatred. The other merchant, motivated only by greed, makes drastic errors of judgement through lack of skill in means. Likewise, the Bodhisatta, as the sensible pupil in Jataka 48, strongly recommends against an obvious course of action, able to see the dangers ahead if his teacher employs magical powers without careful forethought. His teacher, however, in terror for his life, uses his great ability at the wrong moment,
to disastrous effect. In these instances, lack of skill in means is rather like the Aristotelian notion of error (hamartia), the tragic blunder of ‘missing the mark’, which brings down a peculiarly apt, unhappy outcome. 26 The one who has an unskilful (akusala) mind acts inappropriately, at the wrong time and in a constricted, blindly selfish way.
Of course we do not say someone has ‘skill’ if he or she behaves well; we say he or she is good. In Jataka terms he or she is can express wisdom and do ‘auspicious things’ (punna), activities which bring happiness and good luck. For the early Buddhist, however, goodness and a sense of skill in what is wished are linked: the wholesome volition (cetana), or will, is all. ‘It is will (cetana), O monks that I call kamma; having willed one acts through body, speech or mind’. 27 In Jatakas, when the volition behind an act is not kusala, it lacks skill too; it is inept. The wish for immediate gain and gratification is not in accordance with dhamma and does not, in the end, produce happiness for anyone. Skilful volition, helped by the conditions of a full-moon day or the presence of those worthy of generosity, gives characters a different perspective on events. It shapes the underlying predisposition of the protagonists so that they have a completely different orientation from those motivated by greed, ill will or vanity. They just have that bit more space. So the Bodhisatta and those that follow his way are, in the stories, what we might call the ‘goodies’, as opposed to the ‘baddies’, thus enacting a dynamic we might expect in a film or story now. Included in this is also a more ancient pattern: that of ‘the wise man’ and ‘the foolish man’, the lynch pins of traditional folk tale. 28 In the depiction of a clever merchant (1), a skilled teacher (106, 402) and the long-term struggle of a prince avoiding kingship (538), Jatakas combine a portrayal of ‘goodness’ with the practical wisdom associated with the secular narrative tradition. It is almost a kind of common sense, produced by the skilful volition that is hoped for at a time of a full-moon day but possible at other times too. This produces happiness and, in the end, the path to liberation.
The inherent choice in any situation also gives the underlying orientation of the tales. Any difficulty, however desperate, affords the characters opportunities to exercise volition even when the sphere of action seems limited. One writer praised the way that Jatakas fuse popular beliefs and metaphysics to show how every event has causal links which extend far back into the past. They embody in action the law of kamma, whereby ‘every being becomes what he makes himself’. 29 A skilful resolve has even greater effect. The Bodhisatta as the monkey king literally makes himself a bridge on which others may cross (407). As Temiya, his curious determination becomes a means of helping others, as he leads the king and his subjects to find happiness in new lands and terrain, in a kind of Buddhist meditative utopia (538). Generosity and virtue do not automatically produce skill in means. Characters who practise them, though, live with good luck and the wishes of the gods in their favour. The worlds of Jatakas are not saccharine or ‘unreal’: highly varied amongst themselves, they are uncompromising in their description of the risks to health, happiness and life. Fears may be condensed into demonic yakkhas and the uncharted imagination described as wilderness or forest. Human and animal nature are seen at its most stark. According to the Buddhist understanding of the mind, formulated in a series of teachings known as the abhidhamma, mindfulness, or alertness, is always present at the moment of appropriate generosity or the wholehearted keeping of the precepts. 30 So characters who act on the first two perfections were regarded in early Buddhism as likely to be just that bit more awake: like the skilled trader in the first story, they are not seduced by easy options and so can take themselves, and others, to safety. For those listening to the stories the implications are clear: the volition made in the present, in our human form, shapes our futures too.
Cosmology and the heavens and hells
Some explanation needs to be given to the cosmological background of early Buddhism, also important in understanding the settings to the tales. In the Buddhist tradition, any rebirth, of any kind, is temporary and the way that characters constantly jostle, speak and interact suggests their consciousness of an underlying affinity between each other. In a Jataka a human is almost as likely to encounter a yakkha (1, 55) or a shining god (deva) as he is another human (316). An animal encountering a human may be killed by him (407) or sometimes have a chat with him, particularly if the animal is the Bodhisatta (385). 31 When the Bodhisatta is an animal he even addresses and admonishes a king (476). This familiarity, both friendly and hostile, between beings from different levels of existence arises out of a curious sense of proximity between all realms of existence in the Jataka tales. Unlike later Sanskrit drama, which differentiates between the language of the court and the dialects of commoners, all beings in Jatakas speak the same language: there is no difference between the vernacular Pali of a god or an animal and either is as likely to speak in verse. 32 Each realm of existence, however, is separate and each has its own rules. There are in all thirty-one realms where existence may occur and beings move between them according to their kamma. The realms encompass the whole range of possible experience, from the most painful and terrifying punishments of the Niraya and the Ussada hells up to the highest heaven. Lifespans tend to be very long at the lowest and highest levels of the spectrum. Yet, they do not last forever, but are subject to the law of impermanence too. There is something of a ‘snakes and ladders’ aspect to all kinds of bodily form. However low or elevated its status, and however long or short the lifespan, the balance that sustains any existence is fragile and subject, like all things, to decay. The stories enact the possibilities inherent in this over aeons of time: the Buddha’s disciples, for instance, are often born together with the Bodhisatta, as animals or men. Their kamma is knitted together by their search for enlightenment in different spheres of existence.
The four lowest realms below the human are the bad destinies (dugatiyo), or ‘descents’ as they are sometimes called, where beings are reborn for unskilful action, such as breaking the five precepts (See 55). These realms are the animal kingdom, the realm of ghosts (petas), the realm of jealous gods (asuras) and the hells. Lower existences include the edgy, hungry monsters that live in some wildernesses (1), lakes (20) or woods (55). They also include the realms where the Bodhisatta lives as a mouse, a deer, a goose and as a naga, technically a lower rebirth. The Bodhisatta, in order to complete his great vow and to fulfil the perfections, is born in the animal kingdom many times and is constantly tested in different forms and environments. Although they are lower births, such bodily forms impart to the collection, and hence to the Bodhisatta vow, some of its greatest beauty and animation. As a monkey, he is deft and nimble (407), as a goose spectacularly swift in flight (476) and as a mouse clever and quick (128). We do not see him reborn in a hell, though he recollects such a rebirth (538). According to Buddhist theory, beings in animal realms do not take rebirth with the full potential of the skilful mind. 33 Jatakas, however, do not direct our attention to their misfortune, but to their vitality in providing ground for drama, possibility and satiric humour. It is because the animal realms constitute unfortunate destinies that a compassionate Bodhisatta is reborn in them, in order to understand. Only when the first stage of enlightenment, stream-entry, has been obtained is rebirth in such lower realms impossible (See ‘A true story’, 1).
Above the human realm are the sense-sphere heavens, the homes of the shining gods (‘devas’, from root div, to shine). 34 Beings are reborn here for acts of generosity and keeping the five precepts. These gods, a bit like those of other polytheistic societies such as ancient Greece and Rome, live a life marked by pleasure and good living. They like to preside over and intervene in the affairs of men, and animals too, though in the Buddhist tradition this is almost always with benign intent, in accordance with the good kamma that has brought about their fortunate rebirth. The realm of the Four Great Kings is associated with protection: the kings from that realm are said to guard each direction when, f
or instance, the refuges and precepts are chanted by a Buddhist practitioner (539). Sakka, the king of the Heaven of the Thirty-Three gods, is likewise alerted when any great act of virtue is taking place in realms below. When his seat becomes hot, as when the hare is about to offer his own body (316) or the queen about to become lost in ‘The story of Mahajanaka’ (539), he sometimes visits in disguise to ensure that no harm is done. Above the sense-sphere heavens are the Brahma or form realms, where beings are reborn according to their skills in meditation and the divine abidings (brahmaviharas), the meditations on loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity. The heavens give us an enactment of the deep contentment and calm (samatha) of meditation. They are described in an ascending sequence that follows closely the pattern of the four jhanas, or stages of meditation. 35 The meditations are described as possessing specific mental factors: initial thought, sustained thought, joy, happiness and one-pointedness, features that characterize the heavens too. As each level is attained, factors are dropped, so that at the highest only one-pointedness remains. Each Brahma god fills a universe with his mind and lives for many aeons. Brahma gods possess only the senses of sight and hearing, and so exist without the need to search for food. Above these are the four formless jhanas of the formless sphere, where beings exist without any bodily form at all. The Bodhisatta is, however, never reborn here as his lifespan would just be too long, even by the standards of Ancient Indians, who cheerfully included vast, unimaginable aeons in their estimation of time. The higher the heaven the greater the lifespan, which can last for many kalpas in the higher heavens. Despite this, the span of life is always impermanent.