The Jatakas
Page 4
The greatest importance, however, is attached to one realm: the highly mixed world of humans, where beings are reborn on the basis of the skilful mind (kusala citta) but where the greatest variety of activities, both for good and ill, is possible. Poised between the heavens and the bad destinies, it is the meeting place for beings from other realms and the ground for the greater part of the action. It is the lowest rung of the realms that constitute a fortunate destiny (sugati). It is also the rightful place for the Bodhisatta, as the form of existence where he makes his initial vow. 36 All Buddhas are said to be reborn human, for this rebirth, neither too happy nor too painful, offers the best conditions for enlightenment. Because of the mixed nature of this realm, the beautiful, skilful mind (kusala citta) has its greatest scope and range in this existence. The mind of a human is said to be naturally radiant, but covered by defilements and difficulties, which are the ‘grit’ for the spiritual life. 37 Sense-sphere gods also take rebirth on the basis of this skilful mind but have too easy and happy an existence. Their bodily form gives them little experience of physical pain; their birth and death are spontaneous and they lead immensely long, leisured lives. They do not grow old. Therefore, despite their love of dhamma discussions and the inevitability of an—often rather abrupt—end to their sojourn in a heaven realm, they have little motivation to make progress on the spiritual path. 38 The animal and other lower realms are fraught with the hunt for food and the dangers of being eaten, killed, hunted down, or captured. Animals live in bodies and under conditions that are fundamentally unsuitable for the full practice of the path. While this is rarely stated in Jatakas where the Bodhisatta is an animal, the Bodhisatta says so himself in Jataka 55, when he is a human. He also notes this, with some sadness, in those rebirths where he is another lower form, a naga, a semi-serpent creature who lives below the waters. The naga king in the Campeyya Jataka (506) cannot live in the world of men: ‘Lord of men, nowhere but in the world of humans is there purity and self-control. When I have attained a human rebirth I will make an end to birth and death’ (506, v 39). Naturally enough, our attention in the animal stories is on the Bodhisatta’s heroism or kindness: when in animal or naga form he is noble, dignified, delivers dhamma talks (476), is generous (316) and observes the uposatha day (316, 506). He even ensures honour to the eldest (37). In Jatakas, however, the rules that govern lower forms of existence are scrupulously, if unobtrusively, observed. At no time does the Bodhisatta, as an animal, use his body for the practice of meditation (jhana).
For it is this feature above all that really marks out the realm of humans. A human being has the best bodily form for balanced spiritual growth. He or she can choose to sit under a tree, or in an empty place, cross his or her legs and practise both meditative absorption and insight. A human can experience all the meditation states possible for the development of the mind. This is something no animal can do, despite the great strength, swiftness, deftness and vigour of various animal forms. Animals have the potential for higher rebirths but cannot become enlightened in the form they are. The gods are limited in other ways. The sense-sphere heavens embody the delights of keeping the precepts and generosity. In Jataka stories, however, the gods of the sense sphere are having too much fun to sit in meditation. The Brahma heavens, the destinies of those who practise meditation as humans, do, it is true, enact the joys of pure samatha meditation. The formless beings, higher than these, enact the still higher stages of the formless meditations, the higher jhanas. The problem with existence on the meditative levels is its very blissfulness. Beings reborn there have little grounds for insight—the wisdom granted by understanding the three signs of existence, impermanence (anicca), suffering or unsatisfactoriness (dukkha) and not-self (anatta). Neither do they have routine ways of helping and interacting with other less fortunate creatures. So the Buddhism of Jatakas constantly stresses the great gift of the thoroughly mundane conditions of what would have been the present rebirth of its audience. In the suttas, it is compared, for instance, to sittingin the shade under a tree on a hot day, the classic conditions for meditative practice. 39 The ascetic in the Mahajanaka Jataka (539) reminds the Bodhisatta, ‘Sleep, laziness, weariness, discontent, drowsiness from food: for the one living in the bodily frame, there are many dangers’ (v 133). The human needs to obtain food from somewhere, to eat, and then gets a bit sleepy or discontent when he or she has eaten too much. It is precisely because the highest heavens, beautiful though they are and worthy destinations in themselves, do not feel the goad of these problems that they do not encourage real change.
The interplay between realms as enactments of mental states can be seen by looking at the famous story of Makhadeva (9). As a human with the most fortunate kind of existence, he has an extended lifespan very like that of the gods and a regal life, like theirs, marked by enjoyment and play. As a king, he would be addressed by everyone as ‘deva’, or ‘god’. Unlike gods, however, he has plenty of time to notice his grey hairs and see in them a mark of change. His is a paradigm of lucky existence: but he ends it with a common and natural conclusion to a Jataka story in that he leaves the lay life for the practice of the jhanas. This is not an existential denial of the world but is perceived as a way of entering into it further. Exploration of the mind—so neatly and commonly expressed in Indian thought by the idea of forests and wilderness—is seen as a kind of adventure, or a pursuit proper to one who is truly human. We are told that his next rebirth, as a result of this, is in a Brahma heaven: but the real aim of the stories rests in the pattern of constant rebirth in the tales and enlightenment, the conclusion and end to the Jatakas as a whole. Different realms map out the bodily implications of different states of mind and their effects. Rebirth in Brahma heavens is essential for the Bodhisatta as a way of exploring different areas of experience and building up the reserves of calm (samatha) necessary to teach others. The human world, the measure and basis of them all, is, however, the one to which he nearly always returns. All mental states can be experienced here—and hence understood. Most Jataka stories feature the Bodhisatta in this form.
It is clear that a vast and spacious universe of many different levels forms the landscape of the action of Jatakas. The workings of kamma, and the conditions that govern rebirth in different realms and different kinds of bodily form, are explored in complex and intricate detail through the events of the stories. These realms embody the possibilities of many forms of meditation and different kinds of behaviour. They are in many senses physical extrapolations—one could even say explorations—of mental states. Beings seem to create around themselves not only their mode of existence but the realms they live in too. Each realm was, however, felt to have ontological status. Each has an independent existence and contains creatures which all ancient—and many modern—Buddhists would believe were actually there. At danas and uposatha festivals blessings are chanted to this day to encourage the goodwill of the sense-sphere gods and to extend merit, good fortune and loving kindness to any gods, animals, spirits or ghosts that may be nearby. The Metta Sutta, which extends loving kindness to all beings, whatever their rebirth, is usually chanted. 40 Jatakas, recounted at such events, are vivid and precise in their exploration of the mind through imagery and symbol that derive from many realms. The stories are not just psychological voyages, however. For someone hearing the stories in such a context, the realms are what they are. A god would really be a god, reborn there for past good kamma; a demon, a demon reborn there for his bad, and a cat, a cat, for his failure to keep the precepts, such as not killing other beings. In Jatakas animals, gods and men have different bodies: all, however, deserve respect and can in time find their way to enlightenment too.
Folkloric stereotypes
Within the stories there is a great deal of the stereotyping characteristic of traditional folklore. As is often pointed out, women, for instance, can be a bad lot in the Jatakas. They plot, betray (402), henpeck husbands (106) and lure men away from their true purpose in life (539). While there are man
y virtuous and highly individualized female characters in the stories the underlying ethos, of the shorter ones at any rate, is that women are problematic. A few things could be said about this. First, we need to remember that the tales evolved around Indian folk traditions where certain conventions and stereotypes would have shaped the way all social groups—and animal species for that matter—behave. In this, they are like the conventions of modern story and cinema. I have met Americans who complain that everyone thinks that people from their nation are fast-talking gangsters; English people feel they are always depicted as ludicrously polite aristocrats. In his introduction to the Pancatantra stories, a collection whose stories have some affinities with the shorter Jatakas, Patrick Olivelle has described the way in which different kinds of behaviour are associated with various animal species. 41 A cat in Indian folktale is likely to be a hypocrite, as is the one in Jataka 128; a monkey playful and cheeky, like the one in Jataka 273. Such typecasting extends to the human realm. Brahmins in the Pancatantra, as in many Jatakas (402), are often weak, hypocritical comic butts. They are likely to find that their wives are unfaithful or dissatisfied with them in bed. Both sets of stories also suggest that women are fickle, treacherous and sexually voracious: it is just how women in Indian folk tales are.
In practice this stereotype is often transcended and in many stories events are transformed by the saving presence of female characters. Kindly local goddesses often feature: Maimekhala, a sea deity, forgets her duties for a bit while having fun with a group of gods, but after seven days her eye alights upon the Bodhisatta in time to save him from death (539). The goddess of the Gandhamadana Mountains, Bahusodari, also forgetful in her enjoyment of divine bliss, intercedes to save the Bodhisatta, her son in an earlier existence (540). The goddess that lives in the royal white parasol (538) is like a wise fairy godmother that presides over the years of Temiya’s grim battle against the assumption of kingship. On a human level, Temiya’s mother in Jataka 538 is movingly portrayed, in her bewildered despair at her son’s continued failure to respond to the world. Even the badly dressed fat lady who becomes a great queen (108) shows down-to-earth virtues of cleanliness and organization. The past lives of the Bodhisatta’s consort, however, give us the richest depiction of female motive. In the conclusions of the stories, she is called, somewhat anonymously and mysteriously, Rahulamata, the mother of Rahula, Gotama’s son in his last life. In the stories in the past, she appears as Sivali, Sumana and the queen of Mahasudassana. Although we cannot assume that a single authorial intent shapes the diversity of her depiction in various tales, she is usually a sympathetic character. 42 She is, nonetheless, no saccharine spouse or the ancient equivalent of a cardboard cut-out figure. In many tales, she is highly individual, resourceful and sometimes tempestuous: indeed, her behaviour must have brought plenty of fireworks to enliven aeons of unfailing loyalty to her partner. As Sivali (539) she is bossy and ‘princess’ like, in the worst possible sense, while choosing her husband; then excessively brahminical in her disdain for leftover food in the final stages of the tale. She is also capable of great deceit in her tricks to lure the Bodhisatta back to his kingdom. She is described, however, as being of great wisdom and accomplishment. She manages, in a number of ways, to lead her husband to the kingdom and in these, and the eloquence of her final pleas for his return, speaks as a moving and glorious embodiment of the splendour of Mithila, and indeed the lay life itself. As Mahasudassana’s wife (94), she agrees with simple nobility to help her husband leave his kingdom at his death. As Sumana, a seductive naga, she latches onto the Bodhisatta on his entry into the naga’s subterranean world (506). Nonetheless, she also goes in pursuit of him to appear, goddess-like, interceding on his behalf with the king and so rescuing him from imprisonment by a snake charmer. In this story she, like the Bodhisatta, fleetingly escapes her watery rebirth, and, in a curiously memorable image, stands next to him for a moment, as a human and his equal, on the solid earth of the human realm, their proper home. In his last life she was said to have been born on the same day as he and to exhibit qualities of great excellence herself. 43 In none of the stories is she unfaithful to him. When fully enlightened he returns to teach her what he has found and she becomes a nun too: this culmination of her long association with him would also be known to those who heard the tales. 44
This rounded sensitivity in the characterization of some female characters is in part a reflection of other genres that share features with Jatakas, such as Indian epic and drama, where heroines also reveal great warmth, emotional stature and complexity. The Buddhist tradition did, however, differ from others of the time in its treatment of women. The Buddha, like Mahavira, the founder of Jainism, admitted women into monastic orders and founded the sisterhood of nuns. According to the theory and accounts of the practice of early Buddhism, both women and men were thought able to attain enlightenment in this life, a supposition in striking contrast to the ideas underlying other religious traditions, such as the Digambara Jains. The verses associated with the early nuns give us some of the world’s most ancient religious poetry composed by women.45 Buddhist texts include many talks given by nuns, often to men, which are endorsed by the Buddha. 46This attitude can be seen in Jatakas too: women are, like men, free moral agents and they too are reborn in heavens and lower rebirths according to their kamma.
There is a real sense of the diversity of all human and animal nature that is found in the tales. In Jatakas stereotypes do not predominate. Monkeys can be mischievous (273) but the Bodhisatta as monkey king saves his own tribe by his fearless courage (407), for instance. Animal, men and women characters behave badly but in many cases they rise above their limitations too. No species has the upper hand in terms of villainy. The exception to this is perhaps the male human, for whom the range of evil possible seems more comprehensive and calculated than in any animal rebirth. King Kaalbu, an earlier rebirth of Devadatta, the Buddha’s jealous cousin (313), is particularly vicious and vengeful, as he is in his last life. There is a crucial counterweight to this: the Bodhisatta is always male and a Buddha always a man. Within the limits felt to confine the male and the female bodily form, however, both sexes in Jatakas reveal themselves as multifaceted. Women, it is true, are often as full of dubious undercurrents and tidal waves of emotion as the ocean of samsara itself. As we see in the stories, they do sometimes embody or dimly apprehend a way to freedom too.
Geography and history
The settings for the stories are in the area around the Ganga basin, the geographical location for the origins of the Buddhist tradition. The most common location for a tale in the past is Varanasi. This is often at the time of a king called Brahmadatta, but this seems to be a formulaic opening, and the regal name possibly just a familial label for any king of Varanasi. Cities such as Mithila and Kusinara also feature. Taxila, in Gandhara, is often mentioned as a centre of learning and pupils seem to have attached themselves to teachers there. This is about thirty kilometres from modern Islamabad and was, historically, home to artisans, scholars, craftsmen and merchants. Characters visit Taxila in the stories to acquire skills in magic, as is the case in ‘The Vedabbha mantra story’ (48), or martial arts, as in ‘The story of five weapons’ (55). The social order conforms to the traditional Indian pattern of four castes: the brahmin or priestly caste, the warrior or khattiya caste, the merchant class, the vessa, and the lowest caste, the sudda. Within his community of monks and nuns, the Buddha ignored caste, taking seniority as a rule of thumb for precedence (37). An important social distinction is made between ascetics and laypeople. Holy men or ascetics seem to have been a feature of Indian life for centuries and the pattern of the movement from the life of a householder to that of sannyasin well established. The Himalayas often feature as the destination of those that wish to pursue spiritual practice in this way (99, 539 and 540).
We do not divine much in the way of a chronology or historical dating from the tales, which were not intended, nor can be seen, as literal records of dates a
nd events. As social documents, however, Jatakas are constantly illuminating. Incidental detail about food, buildings, clothes, social mores and law have made them one of our principal sources of information about the assumptions and practices of ancient India around two thousand years ago. To an interested reader they give an abundance of details about coins, clothes, shoes, decorations, jewels, cloth, hairdressing, food, cooking, provisions, flags, weapons, punishments, vehicles, animals, items considered luxurious, travel, childcare, street life, customs concerning meals, the life of the court, shows, music, ways of address, formalities of interchange, structures of city and palace and attitudes to woods, parks, pools, wildernesses and different parts of the countryside. We cannot necessarily date these features of the tales, or differentiate between those that are fabular and those that would have been everyday. They do provide us, though, with a pretty full sense of what a certain group of ancient Indians hoped for, liked and disliked at some point around the time of their composition.