by Sarah Shaw
The tale is associated with the fifth perfection, effort (viriya), in the story from the present. This word, linked to English words such as ‘virility’ and ‘virtue’, has connotations of heroism and courage. In the introduction to the Jatakas the Bodhisatta is told to cultivate it, ‘If you wish to find awakening go, making firm and taking upon yourself this fifth perfection, of effort. Just as a lion, the king of the beasts, whether lying down, standing or walking, exhibits unabated vigour and is always courageous.’ 8 It is because of this great heroism against all odds that the story appeals and is so funny. It is not just the abhidhamma that is precise but its way of describing how we all get ‘stuck’ in tricky situations. A strikingly similar story, ‘The Wonderful Tar Baby’, emerged from the poverty-stricken Deep South of the United States in the nineteenth century. When Brer Rabbit tries hitting the annoyingly silent tar baby made by Brer Fox to ensnare him, he gets stuck first with one hand and then another; then one leg and another and, finally, the head. One writer on folk stories said this was ‘perhaps the most remarkable instance of the insidious spread of buddhistic tales’. 9But perhaps the presence of the tales in two such different cultures just shows that similar stories can emerge in different settings: the sense of exuberant vigour is apparent in both.
Story from the present
‘Whoever the man that with a brave heart’ 10
While staying in the Jetavana Grove the Teacher told this story about a monk who had abandoned his vigour. During discussion the Teacher asked this monk, ‘Is it true what they say, bhikkhu, that you have abandoned your vigour?’ ‘It is true, Exalted One,’ he replied. ‘Bhikkhu, formerly wise men attained to royal splendour after making an heroic effort at a time when heroic effort was needed,’ said the Bodhisatta and he narrated this story about long ago.
Story from the past
Once upon a time when Brahmadatta was king in Varanasi the Bodhisatta took rebirth in the womb of the king’s chief queen. When the day came for his naming ceremony his parents plied one hundred and eight brahmins with the pleasures of the senses, and asked them about the marks on his body. 11 Brahmins who were highly skilled in reading the signs discerned the splendour of his markings and explained them, ‘The prince, great king, is endowed with great merit and luck and he will succeed to the throne after you. He will be wise, the most excellent of men, and exhibit in Jambudipa skills in five weapons.’ 12[273] When they heard the prophecy of the brahmins they gave the prince the name ‘Prince Five Weapons’.
Now when the prince had reached the age of discretion and was sixteen years old the king told him to go and learn a craft. 13 ‘With whom, sire, should I study?’ ‘Go, son, to the city of Taxila in the kingdom of Gandhara and study with a world famous teacher there. Pay him with this fee.’ And he sent him off with a thousand pieces. So the prince went and trained in a craft and as he was saying goodbye he accepted a gift of five weapons from his teacher. Armed with these he left Taxila and went on the road to Varanasi. While he was on the road he came to a certain forest inhabited by a yakkha called Furry Hug. At the entrance to the forest people saw him and warned him off: ‘Young man, do not go into the forest, as there is a yakkha there called Furry Hug, who kills every man he meets’. But the Bodhisatta placed his trust in himself and entered the forest like a fearless, maned lion. When he had reached the middle of the forest the yakkha caused himself to appear, the size of a palm tree, with his head as tall as a peaked-roof house, eyes the size of bowls, and two tusks the size of bananas. 14 He showed himself to the Bodhisatta with a white face, mottled belly and dark hands and feet. 15
‘Where are you going? Stay there. You are my lunch!’ he said. Then the Bodhisatta said to him, ‘Yakkha, I came here with trust in myself. You are careless that you approach me as I will destroy you right here with a poisoned arrow.’ With this threat he notched an arrow soaked in the deadliest poison and released it. It just stuck on to the yakkha’s fur. Then he shot another and another, till he had shot fifty. All of these also simply stuck in the yakkha’s fur. The yakkha shook off all the arrows so that they fell off him at his feet, and then went up to the Bodhisatta. The Bodhisatta, challenging again, drew his sword and struck at the yakkha. But the sword, which was thirty-three inches long, stuck in the yakkha’s hair like before. Then the Bodhisatta struck him with a bill-hook. 16But it stuck in his hair too. Seeing the yakkha’s sticky nature he struck him with a battle hammer. But that stuck in his hair as well.
Recognizing his sticky nature, the prince said ‘Sir, yakkha, [274] you have not heard of me before, but I am Prince Five Weapons. When I came into this forest that is under your control I did not put my trust in bows or anything like that but entered with trust only in myself. And today I am going to beat you so that you are crushed to powder!’ Showing his resolve he roared a challenge and hit the yakkha with his right hand. It stuck in his fur. So he hit him with his left hand. It got stuck in his fur too. So he hit him with his right foot. It then got stuck. He hit him with the left foot, and that got stuck. He then hit him with his head, saying, ‘I’ll crush you into powder!’ as he bumped him. But that got stuck in the fur too. So with five blows given, he was trapped in five places, and hung suspended: but he was still without fear and quite confident. Then the yakkha thought to himself, ‘This is a lion of a man, a nobly born man and not just an ordinary man. In all the time that I have been killing on this road I have never seen such a man to equal him. I wonder why he is not afraid?’ Feeling unable to eat him, he asked, ‘Young man. Why are you not frightened with the fear of death?’ ‘Yakkha,’ the Bodhisatta replied. ‘Why should I be frightened? Death is destined for each life. And inside my belly is a diamond sword. 17 If you eat me you will not be able to digest this weapon. It will chop your bowels into pieces and that will be the end of your life. So we will both perish. Because of this I am not frightened.’ For, it is said, the Bodhisatta was talking about the weapon of wisdom within himself.
When he heard this the yakkha thought, ‘This young man is telling the truth. It would not be possible for my stomach to digest a morsel of flesh even the size of a kidney-bean seed from the body of this lion-like man—I’ll let him go.’ Terrified of death, he let the Bodhisatta go. ‘Young man, you are a man like a lion. I will not eat your flesh. You are freed from my hands just as the moon is freed from the mouth of Rahu, the eclipse. 18Go and make your circle of relatives and friends happy.’ Then the Bodhisatta said to him, ‘Yakkha, I will leave you, but you have performed evil. You have been cruel and have blood on your hands. You took rebirth as a yakkha as a result of eating blood and flesh. [275] If you remain here and do more evil you will go from darkness into darkness. But now that you have seen me it will not be possible for you to do evil. The destruction of life produces rebirth in a hell, in an animal realm, in the realm of ghosts or in the body of an asura. 19 If there is a rebirth amongst men, then it produces a shortened lifespan.’ In this and in other ways the Bodhisatta spoke about the wretchedness of the five bad kinds of behaviour. 20 He gave praise to the five precepts, encouraging the yakkha in different ways, and gave a dhamma talk, making him amenable. He established him in the five precepts and installed him as the god of that forest, to whom offerings should be made. 21 Warning the yakkha to be careful, the Bodhisatta left the forest and at the entrance he told people what had happened. Armed with five weapons he then went to Varanasi and saw his mother and father. In the course of time he ruled his kingdom in accordance with dhamma, being generous and performing suchlike auspicious deeds, and when he died was reborn in accordance with his kamma.
The Teacher gave this talk as the Fully Awakened Buddha and recited this verse:
1. ‘Whoever the man that with a brave heart and a brave mind Cultivates the good dhamma for the attainment of peace: In the course of time he reaches the destruction of the fetters.’
In this way he gave a dhamma talk that led to arahatship and he revealed the four noble truths. After hearing these the monk became an arahat. The T
eacher explained the connections with the birth: ‘At that time Angulimala was the yakkha and I was Prince Five Weapons’. 22
Notes
1 S I 99–100.
2 A IV 109–10.
3 J I 72.
4 ‘Besides actual weapons, Ayudhas (or, in Pali, avudhas) include objects such as vessels, manuscripts, flowers and animals.’ G. Bühnemann, The Iconography of Hindu Tantric Deities, 2 vols., (Groningen, 2000– 1), I, 49.
5 The five factors of initial thought, sustained thought, joy, happiness and one-pointedness, associated with the practice of meditation (jhana), are called the ‘meditation limbs’ (jhanangani); see Path of Purification, p. 196 (Vism VI 66). For the five-limbed first meditation (pancangikajhana), see Vibhanga 267.
6 See A. Schimmel, ‘The number of life and love’, The Mystery of Numbers (New York: OUP, 1993), 105–21.
7 See PED 100 for adinava (D II 85).
8 J I 22.
9 ‘The Wonderful Tar Baby’, J. Jacobs, History of the Aesopic Fable, p. 136 in discussing J.C. Harris, ‘The Wonderful Tar Baby’, Uncle Remus (1881). See also Francis and Thomas, Jataka Tales, p. 63.
10 alinacitto: Sutta Nipata v. 68—with an intrepid or brave mind. See also PED 584: [not] clinging, dull.
11 There are thirty-two auspicious marks of a Mahapurisa, or great man, which may be discerned on the body of one who is to become a Buddha or a universal monarch: they are mentioned in the story in the present in Jataka 1. It was the custom for seers to read the marks on the body of the baby at birth to describe his potential and predict his fate. I have taken atthasatam as 108 rather than 800, which is usually atthasatani (see DP 1 53). It is considered an auspicious number: there are said to be 108 marks on the footprint of a Buddha.
12 Jambudipa, the continent of India and hence the known world.
13 Probably a martial art.
14 For this last feature one of the Burmese manuscripts (Be) reads dakalimakula-, which is perhaps a muddled form of kadalimakula -, bunches of bananas. The whole description is reminiscent of the protective yakkha masks that can be bought in Sri Lankan markets today.
15 I have followed a Sinhala manuscript (Cv) which gives seta (white) rather than sena (hawk), as the other two associated compounds are concerned with colour.
16 Kanaya: probably some kind of pole arm. In J VI 107 its tip is used to describe the iron beaks of crows. It is perhaps something with a point and a hook.
17 The word vajira (diamond) has a number of connotations and so is tricky to translate: as a thunderbolt it is associated with King Sakka’s weapons. ‘Adamantine’ is another translation. It is commonly linked to wisdom (see PED 593).
18 Rahu is the demon that swallows the moon or sun at the time of an eclipse and then releases them.
19 An asura is a jealous god, born in a bad destiny.
20 See introduction to this story above.
21 In rural parts of India and Sri Lanka respect for the environment is one aspect of the ancient custom of, for instance, throwing a coconut to the local deity, or the presiding god—often Ganesh.
22 Angulimala is an important figure in Buddhist tradition. In the lifetime in which the Bodhisatta attains Buddhahood, Angulimala is a murderous robber who becomes a convert to Buddhism (see Theragatha, vv. 866–91 and DPPN I 22–3). When he becomes an arahat he is constantly reviled by villagers for his earlier misdeeds. The Angulimala paritta, a short set of verses by which he ensured the safe delivery of a baby to a woman who had been in a long and painful delivery, is chanted to this day in Buddhist countries for women in labour. See also R.F. Gombrich, How Buddhism Began, pp. 135–64.
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The story of the fish
Maccha Jataka (75)
Vol. I, 329–32
The fable of a truthful fish is characteristic of the shorter Jatakas, which often involve an animal rebirth, contain one verse that summarizes or caps the drama and start with a frequently lengthy story from the present that provides a parallel to the one from the past. This is usually overtly Buddhist, whereas the tale from the past is a folk tale, perhaps adapted from others of that kind, with heroic or noble elements that are not necessarily described in Buddhist terminology. The ‘present’ stories in the very long Jatakas are often terse, providing the barest introduction to the subject of the main tale. In this tale the present story is a straightforward parallel of the events of the earlier life, though, as is often the case, the doctrinal implications and metaphoric meaning of the main story are anticipated and explored with didactic intent: it describes how the Buddha relieves sufferings not just of the body but the mind as well.
The story concerns the power of truth or truthfulness (sacca), the seventh perfection, and the Basket of Conduct takes it as an example of that—though the monks discuss its present counterpart as an example of forbearance (khanti) and loving kindness (metta). 1 In the introduction to the Jatakas the Bodhisatta-to-be is told to cultivate truthfulness, ‘just as the healing star, Venus, is balanced for gods and men in all times and seasons and does not deviate from her course’. 2This gives us some sense of what truthfulness means in practice in a Buddhist context: it is not just a statement of what is not false but also a steady and even inspiring quality, indicative of reliability and excellence of character. It is understood that all bad states in the end arise from a kind of dishonesty. 3 According to popular supposition the Bodhisatta cannot tell a lie. In one rebirth, the Harita Jataka (431), the Bodhisatta, after years of ascetic practice, horrifies himself by succumbing repeatedly to lustful passion through an affair with a beautiful woman. When confronted with gossip about this he immediately confesses his sin to the king, her husband. As the narrative comments, a Bodhisatta might lapse in other ways but cannot say what is not true, for this would be a violation of reality that would prevent him from obtaining wisdom. 4 The power of truthfulness in general is evinced by the convention of Jatakas and early Buddhist literature generally that a formal declaration of what is true, usually with regard to one’s own virtue, can have a magical efficacy in averting harm or danger to oneself and others. The Bodhisatta also makes one in Jataka 20, as does the barren queen in Jataka 538. The story of the fish king has always been popular, particularly as a tale told to children, and features as one of the Jatakamala stories. 5 He is depicted in cave 17 at Ajanta.
Story from the present
‘Thunder Pajjunna!’
When he was staying at the Jetavana Grove, the Teacher told this story about the time when he caused rain to fall. For it is said that the god sent no rain in the kingdom of Kosala, so that the crops withered and all the ponds and lakes dried up everywhere: the water even dried up in the lotus pond at the gateway to the Jetavana Grove. Fishes and tortoises buried themselves in the silt and lay there, but crows and hawks came and pecked at them again and again with their spear-like beaks while they wriggled, and then ate them up. The Teacher saw the ruin of all the fishes and tortoises and, with his heart stirred by great compassion, exclaimed, ‘Today I must get the rain god to send down rain’. [330] So at daybreak the Buddha saw to his bodily needs and waited for the right time for the alms round. Then, with all the poise proper to the Buddha, surrounded by his company of monks, he went to Savatthi to beg for food. After he had eaten his meal he returned from Savatthi back to the monastery and, stopping by the lotus pond at Jetavana, spoke to Ananda: ‘Ananda, bring me a cloth for bathing. I am going to wash in the lotus pool at Jetavana.’ ‘But sir,’ replied Ananda, ‘the water has dried up in the lotus pool here and only the silt at the bottom is left.’
‘Ananda, the power of the Buddha is very great. Please bring me a cloth for bathing.’ So the elder brought it. The Teacher dressed himself, arranging one end over one side and covering his body with the other. ‘Now,’ he said, standing at the steps of the pool, ‘I shall bathe in the lotus pool at Jetavana.’ At that moment Lord Sakka, king of the Heaven of the Thirty-Three Gods, saw that his throne of golden stone had become hot. 6 ‘What can this be?’ he
thought, and observing what the cause was, he called upon the great god of the rains: ‘Sir, the Teacher is standing on the highest step of the lotus pool at Jetavana, and has announced his intention to bathe. You had better send rain quickly over the whole kingdom of Kosala.’ ‘Certainly,’ agreed the god.
And sure enough, covering himself with one rain cloud as one garment and another as an outer robe, he chanted a thunder song and leapt into the direction of the eastern world system. And in the east he raised a single rain cloud as large as a threshing floor, which grew and grew until it was the size of a hundred clouds, and then a thousand. Then, facing downwards, he gave forth roaring thunder and lightning, until finally, as if pouring water from a jug, he had covered the entire kingdom of Kosala with one flood of rain. The downpour was so unbroken that in one moment the entire Jetavana lotus tank was filled and the water came right up to the top step. At this the Teacher did bathe in the tank, and when he emerged he put on his saffron robes, arranging one robe over his body and putting his Thus-gone’s outer robe so that it went over one shoulder. Then, accompanied by his retinue of monks, he went to his own private meditation hut, which was perfumed by the smell of fresh flowers. He sat down at the place that was specially prepared for the Buddha and when the monks had performed the correct duties, he gave them an inspiring talk from the highest, jewelled step and sent them away. After this he entered into the perfumed hut and lay down on his right side, in the lion posture.