The Jatakas

by Sarah Shaw

  In the evening the monks assembled in their dhamma hall and discussed it all. ‘Just look at the attainment of forbearance and loving kindness in the Ten-Powered One! 7 When all kinds of crops withered and the pools dried up the fishes and tortoises were experiencing terrible suffering. But, in his great compassion, he decided to save all these beings from their misfortune: he put on a bathing cloth, stood at the top step of the Jetavana lotus pool, and in one moment he had got the rain god to send down so much rain it was as if it were a complete flood. And when he came back to his monastery, he freed everyone from torments not only of body, but of the mind too.’ [331] This is how their talk was going when the Teacher came out of his perfumed hut and went and joined them in the dhamma hall. ‘So,’ asked the Buddha, ‘Bhikkhus: what have you been talking about while you have been meeting together?’ They told him.

  ‘Well, bhikkhus. This is not the first time that the Thus-gone has caused rain to fall at a time of general crisis. Once, when he took rebirth as an animal, he was at that time the king of the fishes.’ And so he told this story of long ago:

  Story from the past

  Once upon a time, also in the kingdom of Kosala, and in this very spot, at Savatthi, there was a certain natural gully enclosed by a tangle of creepers, just where there is a lotus tank in the Jetavana Grove now. The Great Being took rebirth as a fish and dwelt there with a shoal of fellow fishes. And it happened that, just like now, there was a drought in the land, crops used by men withered up, the water evaporated in all the pools and water places, and the fishes and tortoises buried themselves in the silt. The trouble was that when the fishes had wriggled into the mud and hidden themselves in there, crows pecked them out with their spear-like beaks and ate them. The Great Being saw the destruction of his relatives and said, ‘Only I, and no other, have the power to release them from this suffering. I’ll make a declaration of truth. This will get the rain god to send down rain and I’ll set my relatives free from this misery and death.’ And so the great fish pushed apart the black mud, and, blackened like a bowl made from the finest dark wood smeared with collyrium, he opened his eyes, which were red like well-washed rubies, and gazed upon the sky. Then he gave a shout to Pajjunna the rain god, a king amongst the gods.

  ‘Sir! I am thoroughly miserable on my relatives’ account. How can it be that I, who have such virtue, experience terrible suffering just because you do not cause rain to fall? For even though I have been born in a condition where it is usual to eat your relatives, I have never, from childhood, eaten a fish, even the size of a grain of rice: no living being has lost his life because of me. By virtue of this truth send down rain, and release my relatives and family from suffering!’

  Saying this, he gave his orders to Pajjunna, just as a lord would to his servant, with the following verse: [332]

  1.‘Thunder, Pajjunna! Spoil the treasure for the crow! Just take away our grief, although you bring it to our foe!’

  And so, just as someone might give orders to a servant boy, the Bodhisatta made sure that Pajjuna sent a great rain over the entire kingdom of Kosala, and so relieved many beings from terrible suffering. And at the end of his life, he was reborn in accordance with his deeds.

  The Teacher said, ‘And so, bhikkhus, this is not the first time that the Thus-gone has caused rain to fall. Formerly I took rebirth as a fish and caused rain in just the same way.’ And when he had completed his teaching he identified the birth in this way: ‘At that time, the followers of the Buddha were the shoal of fishes, Ananda was Pajjunna, the god of rain, and I was the great king.’

  Notes

  1 See ‘Conduct of the Fish-King’, I.B. Horner, Basket of Conduct, pp. 41–2 (Cp III.10).

  2 ‘The Far Past’ (J I 23).

  3 See Bhikkhu Bodhi trans., ‘A Treatise on the Paramis’, p. 271.

  4 J III 499.

  5 Story 15. P. Khoroche trans., with foreword by W. Doniger, Once the Buddha was a Monkey (Chicago: CUP, 1989), pp. 134–8.

  6 This only happens when some notable act of virtue is occurring in the world of humans.

  7 An epithet for the Buddha, referring to his possession of ten powers, which include knowing how things are, knowing his own past lives and seeing the past lives of other beings (See Mahasihanada Sutta, no. 12, M I 69–71).

  {8}

  The hair-standing-on-end story

  Lomahamsa Jataka (94)

  Vol. I, 389–91

  Self-mortification, a feature of some Indian asceticism, was firmly rejected by Buddhism, as this story shows. 1 In his final life, before the enlightenment, Gotama spent several years in the company of those who practised torments of body and mind as a means of attaining liberation. These practices, thought by many ascetics at the time as the sort of ‘toughening up’ needed for a truly rigorous life leading to liberation, are gruesomely described in the Mahasaccaka Sutta. 2 After eating at times only one grain of rice a day and allowing himself to become tormented in body and spirit, Gotama eventually decides that such practices only reinforce fear and prevent the happiness of freedom from sense desires. In the end he discards them, takes food and decides upon a course of practice formulated in the first sermon as the middle way between the two extremes of sensory overindulgence and of self-torment. He delivers this teaching to the ascetics who had been his companions before the enlightenment. This sense of the need for balance in spiritual practice persists throughout his discourses. While he certainly allowed and accommodated certain austerities in the monastic order, such as eating only one meal a day or sleeping always in the open, he resisted attempts to make such strictures applicable to all monks, or even to apply them to himself. 3 He at no time sanctions harm to one’s own body or the kind of fasts sanctioned by Jainism. 4

  The story from the present here describes a follower of the Buddha who rejects ‘the middle way’ and embraces the path of self-torment. Sunakkhatta becomes annoyed with the Buddha’s lack of display of the psychic powers, criticizes him in terms which inadvertently praise him and becomes a follower of an ascetic called Kora, who has just been reborn in a bad destiny for his practice of self-mortification. A parallel is made with the Bodhisatta’s pursuit of the life of a naked ascetic. In the ‘story from the past’, set ninety-one aeons ago, the Bodhisatta is convinced that by seeking out discomfort he will find freedom from desire. At the moment of death, however, he recognizes that self-torment leads to a rebirth in hell and relinquishes his views. The curiously precise ‘ninety-one aeons ago’ is, incidentally, the time of another Buddha, Vipassi. The Bodhisatta, like Sunakkhatta, also had the option of following a good teacher at that time. 5 It is the only existence—and perhaps the fact that it is a far distant one also suggests deliberation—where the Bodhisatta features as a naked ascetic. Ninety-one aeons are also supposed to be the extent of a Buddha’s memory, perhaps another indication that he regarded it as far removed from his present experience. 6

  Despite the brevity of the tale there are some difficult and important issues that go right to the heart of Buddhist doctrine. It is by tradition linked to the cultivation of the tenth perfection, equanimity, though the association is not made within the tale. Equanimity, as mental state, a concomitant of meditation and as a perfection represents an area of doctrine which is sometimes misunderstood when Buddhism is interpreted in the modern world. It is considered in Buddhism to be the outcome of the purification of feeling, which transcends, but does not reject, happiness and pain. In this way, accompanied by healthy or skilful consciousness (kusala citta), it can be present in day-to-day life and is carefully differentiated from its manifestation in unskilful consciousness (akusala citta) as indifference or boredom. When equanimity is present, sense impressions, both good and bad, are received and registered without being allowed to pull the mind in many directions. So equanimity is not regarded as involving ‘detachment’ but rather ‘non-attachment’: one image used in the suttas compares some sense impressions received by a mind with equanimity to drops of water falling off a lotus
leaf. 7Equanimity may also be present in dealings with other beings. Buddhaghosa, the ancient commentator on meditation, stressing that it is not the same as indifference, compares it to the attitude of a mother to her son as he grows up and follows his own business. 8 In this aspect it may be developed as one of the divine abidings (brahmaviharas), of which the others are loving kindness, compassion and sympathetic joy. The meditator takes as his object other beings, regards them with equanimity and extends the object of his meditation to fill all directions until it becomes immeasurable. 9 This releases the mind from the sense sphere so that the meditator attains jhana—and a likely future rebirth in a Brahma heaven. Equanimity is also the principal factor in the fourth meditation, from which the higher knowledges (abhinnas) are developed. The image used to describe the bright mind of the meditator who has practised this meditation is that of a man sitting covered from head to foot with a pure white cloth, that leaves no part of his body unpervaded. 10 There is an underlying assumption that for the practice of the fourth jhana and the fourth divine abiding other factors, such as joy and happiness, associated with earlier jhanas, should be developed first.

  So can this story be associated with equanimity? Does it fulfil any of the criteria that would be expected of the last perfection? In the introduction to the Jatakas and the Cariyapitaka one life is described in which equanimity is said to have been developed, which is indeed called the Lomahamsa Jataka, the ‘hair-standing on-end story’.

  These other versions describe the Bodhisatta in that life living in a charnel ground, being balanced in feeling both when abused by children and receiving homage and offerings of food from others. 11 There are, however, all sorts of problems in linking the main part of Jataka 94 with these accounts. The Cariyapitaka version does not describe the Bodhisatta seeking out suffering deliberately, but practising equanimity when treated in various different ways, both good and bad, in a way that is true to other canonical and commentarial descriptions of the practice of equanimity. 12 The Jataka story, however, shows him seeking out self-mortification in a manner that is clearly not intended to be the true means to develop the perfection. The Bodhisatta acknowledges this in the verse: despite his austerities he has not eliminated longing. So while some sort of endurance is being developed by these extreme practices, they lead neither to freedom nor to real neutrality of feeling. Both in content and in the treatment of the events the two versions give us quite different ‘takes’ on austerities.

  The story seems to involve a profound examination of the tenth perfection, in a different way from the events described in the Basket of Conduct (Cariyapitaka). With his deliberate pursuit of suffering, the Bodhisatta practises a hardness that parodies equanimity and produces neither enlightenment nor wisdom. These are the kind of practices criticized constantly by the Buddha throughout his teaching career. As the image of his next rebirth arises, however, he is able to relinquish his false views. It is this willingness, in one moment, to let go of an entire lifetime of misguided ascetic practice, rather than the ability to withstand cold and heat, that gives the real testament to the development of this transformatory quality.

  For a very different slant on the last perfection see ‘The story of the tortoise’ (273).

  Story from the present

  ‘Scorched and frozen’

  The Teacher related this while staying in the Patika grove in Vesali about Sunakkhatta. 13 At that time Sunakkhatta was an attendant of the Teacher and was roaming the country with bowl and robe when he became taken with the doctrine of Kora the Ksatriya. He gave over the bowl and robe of the Ten-Powered One and became a householder under Kora the Ksatriya, at the time when that man had taken rebirth as a Kalakanjaka Asura. Sunakkhatta declared: ‘There is nothing superhuman in the teaching of the sage Gotama. He is not distinguished by truly noble knowledge and vision. The sage Gotama teaches a doctrine hammered out by arguments, connected to investigation and his own native wit. The purpose for which this teaching is given leads to the destruction of suffering.’ He spoke berating the Teacher while wandering in the three walls of Vesali. Now, the Venerable Sariputta was going on the alms round when he heard him making his slanders. When he returned from the alms round he reported this matter to the Exalted One. The Exalted One said, ‘Sariputta, Sunakkhatta is quick to anger and a stupid fellow. He spoke in this way out of anger. By saying in anger “this leads to the end of suffering” he unwittingly extolled my praise. For he is such a stupid fellow he does not know my special excellence. [390] There are in me, Sariputta, the six higher knowledges, this is my doctrine that is beyond that of men, the ten powers, and the four bases of confidences, knowledge of the four kinds of rebirth, and knowledge of the five kinds of rebirth after death: this is my teaching that is superhuman. 14Whoever should say of me, that he is endowed in this way with knowledge beyond the human, should abandon the statement that there is nothing superhuman in the teaching of the ascetic Gotama. He should abandon that state of mind for, not renouncing this view he is bound, as soon as can be, for the Niraya hell.’ Having described his own wise mind and the excellence of the teaching that is superhuman in this way, he added: ‘They say that Sunakkhatta, Sariputta, has confidence in the wrongful ascetic practices, that harm the body, of Kora the Ksatriya. As he placed trust in wrongful ascetic practices it meant that he did not place his trust in me. About ninety-one aeons ago I explored the wrongful ascetic practices of outsiders, wondering if they had any essence. I lived the four-limbed holy life. 15Yes, even I was an ascetic, practising extreme asceticism. Even I was miserable, practising extreme miseries. Even I was disgusted, practising extreme disgust. Even I was in seclusion, practising extreme seclusion!’ When he had said this, being asked by the elder, he narrated this story of long ago:

  Story from the past

  Once upon a time, about ninety-one aeons ago, the Bodhisatta decided he would investigate a form of asceticism outside Buddhist teaching. 16 He took the going-forth, the path of ascetic life, as an Ajivaka 17and became a naked ascetic, living in dirty mud, secluded, dwelling on his own. When he saw men he fled, as if he were a deer. He ate extremely filthy food, and lived off tiny fishes and cow dung and suchlike. In order to keep vigilant he dwelt in a certain forest in a terrifying thicket. When he stayed there in winter snow he passed nights during the coldest time of the year 18outside the thicket, sleeping in the open air, and at sunrise entered back into the thicket. So he spent the night wet in the snow in the open air and even in the day became wet with the drops of water that dripped within the thicket. In this way, day and night, he experienced the suffering of cold. In the last summer month he spent the day in the open air and entered the thicket by night. So during the day he was feverishly hot through the heat of the sun in the open air and at night time he found heat in the airless thicket. Sweat poured out of his body. And then he uttered this verse, which was new and had never been heard before,

  1. ‘Scorched and frozen he is alone in the terrifying woods. With no clothes, and sitting beside no fire: the sage is filled with longing.’

  [391] Practising the holy life, that has four limbs, the Bodhisatta, as he approached the time of death, saw the sign of hell. 19 ‘This undertaking really has been useless!’ he thought. At that very moment he broke away from his earlier theories and grasped right view. He was reborn then in a heaven realm.

  When the Teacher had given this talk he made the connection with the birth: ‘On that occasion I was the Ajivikan ascetic’.

  Notes

  1 See J. Bronkhorst, The Two Traditions of Meditation in Ancient India (Delhi: Motilal, 1993).

  2 Mahasaccaka Sutta, no. 36 (M I 237–51).

  3 See Mahasakuludayi Sutta, no. 77 (M II 1–22).

  4 For asceticism in Jainism and its relationship with Buddhism see Paul Dundas, The Jains (London: Routledge, 2002), pp. 140–3, 206–9.

  5 See D II 11–51.

  6 M I 483.

  7 Indriyabhavana Sutta, no. 152 (M III 300–2).

  8 See Path o
f Purification, 347 (Vism IX, 108).

  9 See, for instance, Anuruddha Sutta, no. 127 (M III 146–8).

  10 See, for instance, Maha Assapura Sutta, no. 39 (M I 277–8).

  11 ‘1. I lay down in a cemetery leaning against a skeleton. Crowds of rustic children approached me and displayed a great deal of derisive behaviour/ 2. Others, exultant, thrilled in mind, brought (me) offerings of many perfumes and garlands and a variety of food/ 3. Those who caused me anguish and those who gave me happiness—I was the same to them all; kindliness, anger did not exist/ 4. Having become balanced toward happiness and anguish, toward honours and reproaches, I was the same in all circumstances—this was my perfection of equanimity.’ I.B. Horner, Basket of Conduct, p. 48 (Cp III.15) and, for her comparison with the Jataka account, pp. viii–x.

  12 For instance: ‘Just as he would feel equanimity on seeing a person who is neither beloved nor unloved, so he pervades all beings with equanimity.’ Vibhanga, 275.

  13 Sunakkhatta seems to have been much taken with spurious teachers and transfers his allegiance on several occasions. Kora practised extreme asceticism and was reborn in a hell (see DPPN II 1206–7). The incident recounted here is described in Mahasihanada Sutta, no. 12 (M I 68).