The Jatakas

by Sarah Shaw

  9 The kahapana is a punched coin, usually silver (I am grateful to Dr Shailendra Bhandaraka, Keeper of Coins, Oriental Collection, the Ashmolean Museum, for discussion about this).

  10 The subject of this clause, sekho, refers to anyone who has not yet reached arahatship but has attained one of the stages of path. Such a person would have eliminated doubt, but would still need to work on other defilements. For apacayena, see DP I 161.

  11 There appear to be eighteen here; the dissatisfaction of women must have been perceived as a single item, with a threefold manifestation.

  12 The idea is that the heavens have a Ganga too, though it is also the case that any river can be called ‘Ganga’. The Buddha speaks in this way in the story from the present in Jataka 1.

  13 See PED 446 and J 1 319.

  14 Following a variant reading in a Burmese manuscript (Bd), I have taken vetanan, ‘wages’, here, rather than vedanam, ‘feeling’, which is given in the PTS edition.

  15 I have changed brahme to brahma, following a Burmese manuscript (Bd).

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  The story of the monkey king

  Mahakapi Jataka (407)

  Vol. III, 369–75

  The selfless monkey has always been a great favourite throughout South-East Asia. It is shown at Ajanta, Bharhut and in bas-relief on a first-century BCE gateway to the stupa at Sanchi. 1 It features as one of the Jatakamala stories, though with some differences that highlight the simple directness of the Pali version of the tale. In the later and more ornately sophisticated Sanskrit collection, the Bodhisatta is described with greatly idealized hyperbole. He leaps up into a mountain peak from his tree, performs his act of heroism with the king and the entire court as his audience and makes nothing as ‘human’ as a miscalculation in his assessment of the distance across the river. He falls short simply because the chasm is just such a great distance, even for the Bodhisatta. 2 The Pali version, as for other stories told in the two collections, shows the Bodhisatta, while still an animal, as much more like a real ‘person’, a figure sympathetic to a modern reader in that he is liable to mistakes of various kinds, such as, in this case, simply misjudging the distance. One similarity between the two versions is interesting: the Bodhisatta ties the creeper to his legs, as in the older verse portion of the Pali tale. The prose part of the story, unlike the verses, puts the creeper around the waist.

  Story from the present

  ‘You have made yourself a bridge’

  While staying at the Jetavana Grove the Teacher told this story about acting for the benefit of relatives. The occasion will appear in the Bhaddasala Jataka. 3 At that time they started up a discussion in the dhamma hall: ‘Friend, the Fully Awakened Buddha behaves well to his relatives.’ [270] The Teacher came and asked them what they had been talking about while sitting together. When they told him he said, ‘It is not just now, but before too, that the Thus-gone behaved well to relatives,’ and he told this story of long ago.

  Story from the past

  Once upon a time in Varanasi, when Brahmadatta was king, the Bodhisatta took rebirth in the womb of a monkey and when he reached maturity was of good height and breadth and had stamina and vigour. He lived in the Himalayan regions with a retinue of eighty thousand monkeys. There, upon the banks of the Ganga, there was a mango tree, though some say it was a fig tree, which had branches and forks, gave a deep shade, had thick leaves and had grown up like a mountain peak. Its sweet fruits, which had a heavenly smell and flavour, were as big as water jars. 4 From one branch the fruits fell to the ground, from another into the water of the Ganga, and from two branches fruits fell into the middle, to the roots of the tree. The Bodhisatta took the troop of monkeys there to eat the fruits and thought, ‘At some time danger will come to us because the fruit is falling into the water.’ So at blossom time he got them to eat the flowers or nip them in the bud so that not one fruit, even the size of a chickpea, would be left remaining from the branch over the water. Despite this one ripe fruit, hidden by an ants’ nest, did fall into the water, unseen by the eighty thousand monkeys. The king of Varanasi, who was amusing himself playing in the water, had had nets put upstream and downstream: the fruit stuck fast to the upstream net. When the king had enjoyed a day of play and it was time to go in the evening, the fishermen drew in the net, saw the fruit and, not recognizing it, showed it to the king.

  The king asked, ‘What is this fruit?’ ‘We do not know, sire.’ ‘Who will know?’ ‘The foresters, sire,’ they said. He had the foresters summoned and, hearing from them that it was a mango, he cut it with a knife and had the foresters eat it first and he ate it afterwards and gave some to his ladies [371] and to his ministers. The taste of the ripe fruit remained, suffusing his entire body. Captivated by desire for the taste he asked the foresters the location of the tree and they told him that it was on the banks of the river in the Himalayan region. He had a quantity of boats strung to one another and sailed upstream on the route explained by the foresters. The exact number of days it took has not been related, but in due course he reached the place and the foresters said, ‘Sire, this is the tree’. The king stopped the boats and with a crowd of followers went on foot. He had a couch arranged at the roots of the tree, ate the ripe fruit and, after enjoying the various excellent flavours, went to sleep. They put a guard in each direction and lit a fire.

  When they had fallen asleep the Great Being arrived in the middle of the night with his troop. Eighty thousand monkeys moved from branch to branch and ate the mangoes. The king woke up and, seeing the tribe of monkeys, roused his men and had them call the archers. ‘Surround these fruit-eating monkeys so that they do not escape and kill them. Tomorrow we’ll eat monkey flesh as well as mangoes.’ The archers obeyed, surrounded the tree and stood with arrows ready. The monkeys saw them and, terrified with the fear of death, as they could not escape, went up to the Great Being. ‘Sire, archers stand surrounding the tree saying they are going to kill the monkeys who are running away! What are we going to do?’ And they stood shaking. The Bodhisatta said, ‘Do not be afraid, I’ll save your lives’. Reassuring the tribe of monkeys, he got up onto a high branch that was growing straight and from there went along a branch that stretched towards the Ganga. From the tip of the branch he leapt a distance of a hundred lengths of a bow and landed on a bush on the bank of the river. ‘This will be the spot that is as far as I have reached,’ he said and marked out a space [372]. Then he cut a single cane creeper at the root, stripped it, and said, ‘This end will be bound to the root and this will go into the air’. He decided upon two places and did not take into account the attachment to his own waist. Then he took that creeper and tied one end to the fixed tree on the riverbank and the other end to his own waist and, with the speed of a thundercloud ripped by the wind, jumped a hundred bows’ length to the spot. Because he had not reckoned on the bit that was bound to his waist he could not reach the tree and grabbed tight onto a mango branch with both hands. Then he gave a sign to the tribe of monkeys: ‘Quickly, get to safety by treading on my back and climbing down the cane creeper.’ The eighty thousand monkeys paid homage to the Great Being and, asking his forgiveness, went there.

  Now Devadatta, who was a monkey and among their number thought, ‘This really is my chance to see the back of my enemy!’ Climbing to a higher branch he stirred up his resolution and jumped onto the monkey king’s back. The Great Being’s heart broke and a terrible pain arose in him. But Devadatta, who had caused such terrible pain, got away. The Great Being was alone. The king, who was not asleep, had seen everything that was going on with the monkeys and the Great Being. He thought, ‘This animal has not given any reckoning to his own life and has brought the troop to safety,’ and lay down. At daybreak, as he was very pleased with the Great Being, he thought, ‘It is just not right that this monkey king should be killed. I’ll bring him down by some means and look after him.’ He had the boat steered down the Ganga and had a temporary platform tied to it, then gently brought the Great Being down. He ha
d him clothed with a yellow robe, had him washed with Ganga water and induced him to drink sugared water. He had his body cleaned and anointed with oil that had been refined a thousand times. Then he put an oiled hide on the couch and laid the Great Being down there, while he, the king, sat on a low seat and spoke the first verse:

  1. [373] ‘You have made yourself a bridge so that anyone can pass to safety.

  What are you to them and they to you, great monkey?’

  When he heard this the Bodhisatta gave advice to the king and spoke the remaining verses: 2. ‘I, O king, have been a lord and chief to them,

  when they were grief-stricken and fearful because of you, victorious one.

  3. I leapt a hundred bows’ length when I had bound the creeper firmly to my hind legs.

  4. As if thrust by a thundercloud torn by the wind I reached the tree.

  But I, coming short of it, held on to a branch by the finger tips.

  5. And while I was stretched out by the creeper and the branch,

  the branch-living animals went to safety, walking along together on foot.

  6. Bondage does not torment me; death will not torment me.

  I have brought happiness to those whom I have ruled. 5

  7. Take these examples as illustrations, O king.

  For a king, there is the kingdom, the vehicles, the army and the city:

  the wise warrior seeks for the happiness of all of these.’

  In this way the Great Being gave advice to the king, instructed him and died. The king had his ministers summoned, ‘Perform honours to the body of the monkey king as if he were a king!’ And he told his ladies, ‘Go to the funeral ground in red clothes and dishevelled hair, with torches in your hands and make a retinue for the monkey king!’ The ministers made a funeral pyre with a hundred waggon-loads of wood. When everything had been done for the Great Being according to royal custom, they took his skull and brought it to the king. The king had a shrine built at his funeral ground, had lights lit there and made offerings of incense and garlands of flowers. He had the skull adorned with gold and placed it in front on the tip of a spear. Honouring it with incense and garlands he went to Varanasi and had it put at the palace gate. He had the city decorated and paid homage to the skull for seven days. Then, taking it as a relic, he had a shrine built and he honoured it with incense and garlands for the rest of his life. Established in the Bodhisatta’s teaching, he was generous and performed auspicious actions, ruling the kingdom in accordance with dhamma, so that he had his next birth in a heaven realm.

  The Teacher gave this talk, revealed the truths and made the connections with the birth: ‘At that time Ananda was the king, the Buddha’s followers were the troop of monkeys and I was the monkey king.’

  Notes

  1 Winternitz notes the similarity with a Cymric legend in the Mabinogian in which a king makes himself into a bridge, but there is no evidence of any cross-influence (Winternitz, A History of Indian Literature, p. 146, n. 4).

  2 Story 27. See Khoroche, Once the Buddha Was a Monkey, pp. 244–52.

  3 Jataka 465. The story from the present for this tale, many pages, long, tells of a king who did not support the monks and, wondering why they were not his friends, hopes to marry a Sakyan girl, from the family into which the Buddha had been reborn, to remedy the situation. The Sakyans, torn between desire to appease the king and their reluctance to send one of their own to him, trick him into accepting a daughter whose father was indeed a Sakyan, Mahanama, but whose mother had been a slave. The child of this union is slighted by the Sakyans for his birth and, after many twists and turns, becomes king himself and decides to avenge his humiliation. On three occasions the Buddha mollifies the new king, but in the end realizes that the Sakyans cannot escape their kamma: the king kills them all. The Buddha cites this story as an instance of his attempts to protect his own family.

  4 I have used the word kumbha, ‘a jar’, here, as does the modern Burmese version (VRI).

  5 This and the next verse pose some difficulties: even with the commentary’s help is not easy to translate, though the interpretation has been based upon it.

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  The story of the swift goose

  Javanahamsa Jataka (476)

  Vol. IV, 211–18

  Throughout India and South-East Asia the goose, rather like the Western swan, is a symbol of spiritual aspiration and meditation. The god Brahma is shown mounted on a goose and lines of geese are engraved in moonstones set at the doors of Sri Lankan temples as emblems of the Brahma heavens. There are several Jataka stories involving geese, the most famous being the story of Dhatarattha depicted at Ajanta (told in Jatakas 502, 533 and 534). The story chosen here is little known but has been selected for its particularly Buddhist subject matter and its suggestion of the influence of abhidhamma philosophy, at least in the narrative portions of the text. It involves the use of speed, as revealed in the magnificent display of the Bodhisatta as a goose, which is then turned to dramatic effect by the goose’s dhamma talk that describes the great rapidity of the breakdown of conditioned things. According to the abhidhamma, the sign of anicca, or impermanence, may be discerned in all consciousness and matter. In the early abhidhamma system, consciousness is said to arise in an uninterrupted flow of infinitesimal moments coloured by the characteristics of the state of mind present at the time. Continuity from one moment to the next is provided by the relationship between states of mind in thought processes, by the association of these with the arising of material form and by the predisposition of mind to follow certain patterns in accordance with kamma that affect both mind and matter. For the human, choice exists all the time in the decision as to whether, for instance, to practise generosity and to live in accordance with the path, an intention leading to fortunate rebirths, or to cultivate unwholesome states of mind which lead, at death, to unfortunate rebirths. Matter is likewise involved in a dynamic movement of constant change, influenced by mind. Comparatively speaking, a moment of material form endures for slightly longer than a moment of mind, but that too is made up of endlessly changing entities, separate from, yet closely dependent upon, consciousness in their arising and ceasing. In anticipation of the theories of modern physics, this rate of change is also so rapid that it cannot even be perceived by the naked eye. It is a curious feature of Jataka stories that we do find from time to time quite precise formulations of abhidhamma philosophy couched in technical terms, suggesting that this kind of analysis may have had a more popular appeal than is now supposed. Is it possible that the same group of monks who committed the abhidhamma to memory recited the Jatakas, and influenced their evolution? We simply do not know. This story uses little technical language, but the rapidity of decay attributed to the arising and ceasing of the constituents of life make it one of the few Jatakas where the story itself seems shaped by contact with abhidhamma, or at any rate ideas associated with it.

  Story from the present

  ‘Fly down right here, goose’

  While living in the Jetavana Grove the Teacher told this story about the ‘Strong Teaching sutta’. 1The Exalted One said, ‘It is just as if, bhikkhus, four good strong men, well trained in archery, dextrous and skilled in their craft, should stand in the four directions. A man might come along and say, “If these four good strong men, well trained in archery, dextrous and skilled in their craft, [212] release arrows from the four directions, I will go and catch them before they reach the ground. Would you not think, bhikkhus, that this was a very swift man, endowed with the greatest speed?’ ‘Say no more: it is so, sir.’ ‘So much, bhikkhus, as the speed of that man is fast, so much as that of the sun and moon is fast, so much as the gods run even in front of the sun and the moon; yet there is something, bhikkhus, which is faster in this than the gods: the constituents of life decay faster than these. Therefore, bhikkhus, you should train yourselves in this way: be vigilant; this is the way you should train yourselves, bhikkhus.’ On the second day after the day when this teaching was given they talked
about this in the dhamma hall. ‘Sir, the Teacher, standing himself in the particular sphere of the Buddha, makes clear the fleeting, weak constituents of life in these beings, and brings fear in abundance to ordinary men and monks. This indeed is the power of a Buddha.’ The Teacher arrived and asked them what they were talking about. When they told him he said, ‘It is no wonder, bhikkhus, that having attained such omniscience in these matters I have shown the fleeting nature of the constituents of life and, having stirred the monks, given the teaching. For in times past, even when I took a spontaneous rebirth as a goose, 2 I showed the fleeting nature of the constituents of life. Arousing the whole of the royal court, starting with the king of Varanasi, I delivered the teaching.’ Saying this, he narrated this story of long ago.

  Story from the past

  Once upon a time in Varanasi, during the reign of Brahmadatta, the Teacher took rebirth as a swift goose, and lived surrounded by a flock of ninety thousand geese in Cittak uta. One day he went with his flock to the plains of Jambudipa and ate the wild rice growing in a certain pool. Then he flew up into the sky back to Cittak utawith his great retinue in a leisured way as if in sport and as if stretching out a golden mat that extended the whole distance of length of the city of Varanasi. And then the king of Varanasi saw him and said to his ministers, ‘This one must surely be a king, just like me.’ Conceiving an affection for him he took flowers, garlands and ointments and looked out for the Great Being, causing all kinds of musical instruments to be played. When the Great Being saw the homage that was being paid he asked his flock, ‘When a king pays such homage what does he expect?’ They replied, ‘He wants to be friends with you.’ ‘Then let the king be friends with me!’ he said, and he went back and made friends with the king.