by Sarah Shaw
Story from the present
‘I saw footprints’
While going on a journey for alms in Kosalan territory, the Teacher came to the village of Cane Drink (Nalakapana). When he was staying at Ketakavana, near the Cane Drink lotus pool, he told this story about cane stalks. At that time the monks were bathing in the Cane Drink lotus pool and got the novices to get cane stalks for needle cases. They found the stalks were hollow and ready for use and went to the Teacher. ‘Sir, we have had cane stalks picked for needle cases and from tips to root they are hollow and ready for use; why is this?’ they asked. The Teacher replied, ‘This, bhikkhus, was an ancient resolve of mine,’ and he narrated this story of long ago.
Story from the past
Formerly, 7 it is said, this woody thicket was a forest. And in this pool a certain water demon used to eat anyone who went down into the pool. At that time the Bodhisatta was a monkey king, as big as a red deer fawn. He had a retinue of eighty thousand monkeys, whom he protected as they lived in the forest. He gave advice to the tribe of monkeys: ‘Friends, in this forest there are poisonous trees and lakes haunted by non-humans. So before you eat any fruit which you have never eaten before or drink from any water where you have never drunk before, check with me first.’ They assented and one day came to a spot they had not visited previously. After a very long day of travelling they searched for water and saw a lotus pool. They did not, however, drink the water, but sat down and waited for the Bodhisatta to arrive. The Bodhisatta came and said, ‘Friends, why are you not drinking the water?’ ‘We were waiting for you,’ they said. ‘Well done, my friends,’ said the Bodhisatta.
Then he walked all round the pool, examined the track of footprints and saw that they went down to the water, but that none came back. ‘There’s no doubt about it,’ he realized. ‘This is haunted by non-humans’. He said to them, ‘You did well, my friends, in not drinking the water. It is haunted by non-humans.’ The water demon [171] saw that they were not going down into his territory. Making himself quite horrible to look at he divided the water in two, emerged with a dark belly, white face and bright red hands and feet and asked, ‘Why are you sitting there? Come down to drink the water.’ Then the Bodhisatta enquired of him, ‘Are you the water demon who lives here?’ ‘I certainly am,’ he replied. ‘And you take hold of anyone who comes down to the pool?’ ‘Yes I do. I do not let anyone go who comes to the water, even so much as a little bird. I will eat the lot of you.’ ‘We’ll not see you eat us up,’ the Bodhisatta replied. ‘Yet, you will drink the water?’ said the demon. ‘Yes, we will drink the water. And we’ll not come down and be under your power either.’ ‘So how are you going to drink the water?’ ‘Why do you think we need to come down to drink? We won’t come down to the water at all. One by one, the eighty thousand of us will take a cane stalk and drink from your lake as easily as if through a hollow lotus stalk—and you’ll not be able to eat us.’
Having understood this matter the Teacher, as the Fully Awakened Buddha, spoke the first part of the verse:
1. ‘I saw footprints leading down but did not see them coming
back.’
The Great Being spoke the second:
2. ‘We’ll drink the water with a cane, but you will not destroy my life.’8
When he had said this, the Bodhisatta had a cane stalk brought to him and, bringing to mind the perfections, he made a declaration of truth and blew down the opening. [172] The cane then and there became hollow inside so that no knot was left. ‘By this method he had brought another and another and blew down each’, the commentary says: he could not carry this out one by one for all the stalks that were there, so therefore we need not take it that way. The Bodhisatta circled the pond and made the resolve, ‘May all the canes be completely hollow’. Now, because of the magnitude of the saving goodness of Bodhisattas, their resolve is always successful. From that time on all the canes that grow around the lake have had a single hollow right through. In this aeon, or kalpa, there are four wonders that last throughout the aeon: the imprint of the hare on the moon remains for an entire aeon, no fire can be lit for the entire aeon in the place where a fire was put out as it is told in the Vattaka Jataka; no rain ever falls for the entire aeon in the place where Ghatikara had his house and at this lake all the cane stalks are completely hollow, also for the entire aeon. These four are called the miracles that last an entire aeon. The Bodhisatta, having made this resolve, sat down and took one cane. The eighty thousand monkeys each took a reed and, surrounding the pool, sat down too. They all, at the moment when he drank, sucked at their reed and drank the water while sitting on the bank of the pool. In this way the water demon got nothing and went very disgruntled back to his own dwelling place. The Bodhisatta then went back into the forest with his troop.
The Teacher said, ‘This, bhikkhus, is how these reeds came to be tubular when I made a resolve in times long past.’ Then he gave a dhamma talk and made the connections for the birth: ‘At that time Devadatta was the water demon, the retinue of the Buddha were the eighty thousand monkeys and I was the monkey king who had skill in means.’
Notes
1 According to See Than Tun, ed., The Royal Orders of Burma, AD 1598–1885, V: 1788–1806 (Kyoto, 1986), pp. 60–1, the most popular stories at the beginning of the nineteenth century in Burma were the last ten and of those found in this collection, this one, 75 and 316.
2 See Kim, The Writings in Prose and Verse of Rudyard Kipling, 27 vols (London: Macmillan, 1897–1910), XX, pp. 261–2 and Just So Stories for Little Children, Vol. XXI. Such tales feature throughout Indian folklore: see S. Thompson and J. Balys, The Oral Tales of India (Bloomington, Indiana: IUP, 1958), ‘causes of animal characteristics’, motif nos. A2300–99 and ‘origins of plant characteristics’, A2750–99.
3 See Story of Gotama Buddha, p. 87 (J I 65). The needle case is described in the Vinaya, Cullavinaya, V, 11.
4 See ‘The story of the hare’, Jataka 316.
5 See Sutta 81, M II 45–54.
6 Jataka 35 (not in this collection).
7 This story, unusually, opens not with atite (‘once upon a time’, or, literally, ‘in the past’) but with pubbe.
8 It is unusual to have a verse split in this way, but it illustrates the different perspective of the Buddha in the present, the Fully Awakened One, whose comments are in the past tense, and the Great Being, his past self, who employs the tense demanded by the circumstances of the action, in this case the future. Verse interjections from the Buddha in the present occur throughout the stories: here Fausbøll supplies the second part of the verse from the commentary (J I 171, n.12). There are nine syllables in the third pada: this is adjusted in the modern Burmese version which gives pissama, an alternative future of ‘to drink’, to make eight.
{4}
The story of the partridge
Tittira Jataka (37)
Vol. 1, 217–20
This story of three animals is constantly recounted as an example of the correct mode of behaviour for monks in taking and giving precedence. Precedence in the East tends to have been given to the eldest person in any group or assembly, as is the case in this story. To this day in Sri Lanka it is still customary to pay homage to monks and very old people by giving them pride of place and offering prostrations. In a monastic context the hierarchy of precedence is organized with the period of time since ordination as the standard, not age in years. 1 So, for instance, when food is offered to monks it is usual for those who have been ordained the longest to be offered first: a monk ordained even a few minutes before another takes precedence over him. A monk who has been ordained for a very long time would, strictly speaking, take precedence even over a much older man who is newly ordained. This technicality makes the monastic code slightly different from the principle of honouring an old person described in the story, but the spirit of the ruling, that seniority deserves respect, is clear. The offence that transgresses this code is called apatti. Not as serious as to exclude an offender from
the order of monks altogether, it is regarded as warranting confession to the assembly of monks. In popular art the three animals are sometimes shown with the elephant carrying the monkey on his back, who in turn is supporting the partridge.
Story from the present
‘Those who honour an old person’
The Teacher told this story on his way to Savatthi about the time when the elder Sariputta was excluded from a place of lodging. When Anathapindika had built a monastery and sent a message that he had done so, the Teacher left Rajagaha and went to Vesali, where he stayed as long as he wished, and then decided to go to Savatthi and went on his way there. At that time the disciples of the six errant monks went on ahead and, before the elders could take up lodgings, took over the available accommodation, deciding, ‘These will be our lodgings, for teacher, for preceptor and for ourselves.’ 2
When the elders who came later arrived they could not find any lodgings. Even the followers of the elder Sariputta looked around but could not find a place for the elder to stay. As he did not have anywhere to spend the night, the elder monk passed the time near the lodging place of the Teacher, sitting and walking at the root of a tree. At dawn the Teacher came out and cleared his throat. The elder cleared his throat too. ‘Who is that?’ he asked. ‘It is I, bhante, Sariputta.’ ‘What are you doing here at this time?’ He told him what had happened. The Teacher listened to what the elder had to say, pondered over it and a sense of urgency about the teaching arose in him: ‘Even while I am alive the monks are disrespectful towards one another and lacking in basic courtesy. What are they going to be doing when I have attained complete nibbana ?’ 3 So when night had given way to dawn he called together the order of monks and asked them, ‘Is this story true, that followers of the six monks went on in front of the elder monks and kept them out of lodgings?’ ‘It is true, Exalted One,’ they said. Then, reproving the followers of the six monks, he gave a dhamma talk to the monks. ‘Tell me, who deserves the best accommodation, the best water and the best food?’ Some said, ‘The one who has gone forth who is from a noble family’. Some said, ‘The one who has gone forth from a family of brahmins, or a family of householders’. Others chose variously the keeper of the monastic rules, the one who can preach or the one who has attained the first, the second, the third or the fourth meditation.4Others chose the one who has attained the first, second, third or fourth stage of the path, the one with the three knowledges 5or the one with the six higher knowledges. 6
When the monks had each had a say, according to their own wishes, as to who deserved the best seat and such honours, the Teacher said: [218] ‘In my teaching, bhikkhus, the standard for one who takes precedence in getting the best seat and suchlike is not that he has gone forth from a noble family, nor that he comes from a brahmin family, nor that he is from a householder’s family, nor that he is the keeper of the monastic rules, nor that he knows the suttas, nor that he knows abhidhamma, nor that he has attained any of the meditations, nor that he has attained any stages of the path. In this teaching, monks, it is according to seniority that a rising from one’s seat out of respect, the making of an anjali 7 and the making of a prostration should be made, and the best seat, water and alms should be received. This is the standard; and therefore the elder monk is the right one to have these things. But now, monks, here is Sariputta, my chief disciple, the next to turn the wheel of dhamma, 8 who deserves, next to me, to have the best place to stay. He has passed the night at the root of a tree because he could not find somewhere to sleep. And what about you: if you lack respect and courtesy even now, how will you live as time goes on?’
In order to instruct them further he told this story about the past. ‘Once long ago, bhikkhus, even animals concluded, “it is not right for us to live being disrespectful, lacking in deference and without common courtesy towards one another. Let us find out which of us is the senior and pay due respects to him”. So they examined the matter thoroughly and when they had worked out who was the eldest, they paid respects to him and made full the path to the heavenly realms.’ And he narrated this story of long ago.
Story from the past
Once upon a time, on the slopes of the Himalayas, there lived three friends beside a single large banyan tree: a partridge, a monkey and an elephant. But they became disrespectful, lacking in deference and common courtesy towards one another. So they then thought, ‘It is not right that we live like this. Why don’t we live so that we accord due respect to the one of us who is the eldest?’ ‘But which of us is the eldest?’ they wondered. One day as the three of them sat at the roots of the tree they had an idea as to how to find out. The partridge and the monkey asked the elephant, ‘Good elephant, what size was this banyan tree when you first knew it?’ He said, ‘When I was a baby this banyan tree was just a shrub too and I could walk so that it went between my thighs. When I stood over it its highest branch brushed against my navel. So I have known this tree from the time when it was just a bush.’ Then the elephant and the partridge asked the monkey according to the same method. He said, ‘Friends, when I was a baby monkey I used to sit on the ground [219] and even without having to stretch my neck I could eat the uppermost buds of this young banyan tree. So I have known it since it was just a sapling.’ Then the monkey and the elephant asked the partridge in the same way. ‘Friends, at one time there was a very large banyan tree at such and such a place. I ate the fruits and then expelled excrement over this spot. This tree grew from that. So I have known it from the time even before it existed. Therefore I am older than both of you.’ At these words the monkey and the elephant said to the wise partridge, ‘Friend, you are the eldest amongst us. So from this time we will accord you honour, deference, respect, prostrations and veneration. We will make prostrations and rise from our seats, make an anjali gesture, and perform actions of respect to you. We will do what you advise, and from this time onwards you should give us teaching and instruction.’ So from that time the partridge gave advice, set them up in good behaviour, and followed this code himself. The three, established in the five precepts, were courteous, deferential and respectful to one another, and at the end of their lives had their next rebirth in a heaven realm.
The undertaking of the three came to be known as ‘the holy life of the partridge’. Indeed bhikkhus, even as animals they were courteous, deferential and respectful towards one another. So how can you, who have gone forth in a theory and practice that has been well taught, live without courtesy, deference or respect towards one another? I advise you, monks, from this time forth, to make prostrations and rise from your seats, offering anjalis and behaving in the correct way in accordance with seniority in the matter of the best seats, water and alms. An elder monk should not be excluded from a lodging by a younger. Whoever so excludes an elder commits a serious offence.’ When the Teacher had given this talk, as the Fully Awakened One he said this verse:
‘Those who honour an old person are wise in the teaching:
in this world they receive praise and in the next a good rebirth.’
[220] When the Teacher had spoken of the virtue of honouring seniority, he made the connection with the birth and explained: ‘At that time Moggallana was the lord elephant, Sariputta the monkey and I was the wise partridge’.
Notes
1 The Vinaya is the code of conduct for the Buddhist monastic order; along with the Sutta and Abhidhamma it constitutes one of the three ‘baskets’, or collections, of the teaching. For this rule see Vinaya II 161.
2 The six errant monks and their disciples recur throughout later Buddhist texts as examples for any wrong course of action.
3 The parinibbana is in early texts an epithet for nibbana, but by this stage comes to be the term used to describe the entering of the Buddha or an arahat into nibbana at death, so it is complete nibbana.
4 The first four meditations (jhanas).
5 Tevijja, which could refer to the three Veda knowledges of the Brahmins (see vijja, PED 617–18) or, in a Buddhist context, to the
knowledge of the corruptions (asavas), of past lives and insight into the three marks of existence, impermanence, suffering or unsatisfactoriness and not-self.
6 The six higher knowledges (abhinna) are the miraculous powers described in the Samannaphala sutta. They are: first, the psychic powers, with ability to become many, become invisible, walk through a wall as if it is air, etc.; second, the Divine Ear, that hears sounds far and near, heavenly or human; third, penetration of the minds of others; fourth, memory of past lives; fifth, the Divine Eye, that sees the arising and falling of beings in different conditions; and sixth, the destruction of the corruptions (asavas) (D I 78–83).
7 The anjali is a gesture of respect. It means a cupping of the hands, and is thought to have been at one time associated with the offering of water as a form of greeting. This is uncertain, however, and nowadays in India and throughout South-East Asia it is made by placing the palms of both hands together (see also DP 43–4). Sometimes this is done holding the arms up to the forehead.