Read Ebook: Buddhist birth stories; or Jataka tales Volume 1 by Fausb Ll V Viggo Editor Childers Robert C Sar Translator Davids T W Rhys Thomas William Rhys Translator

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Presentation of the First Monastery to the Buddha 131

THE BIRTH STORIES.

INDEX 339

INTRODUCTION.

It is well known that amongst the Buddhist Scriptures there is one book in which a large number of old stories, fables, and fairy tales, lie enshrined in an edifying commentary; and have thus been preserved for the study and amusement of later times. How this came about is not at present quite certain. The belief of orthodox Buddhists on the subject is this. The Buddha, as occasion arose, was accustomed throughout his long career to explain and comment on the events happening around him, by telling of similar events that had occurred in his own previous births. The experience, not of one lifetime only, but of many lives, was always present to his mind; and it was this experience he so often used to point a moral, or adorn a tale. The stories so told are said to have been reverently learnt and repeated by his disciples; and immediately after his death 550 of them were gathered together in one collection, called the Book of the 550 J?takas or Births; the commentary to which gives for each J?taka, or Birth Story, an account of the event in Gotama's life which led to his first telling that particular story. Both text and commentary were then handed down intact, and in the P?li language in which they were composed, to the time of the Council of Patna ; and they were carried in the following year to Ceylon by the great missionary Mahinda. There the commentary was translated into Si?halese, the Aryan dialect spoken in Ceylon; and was re-translated into its present form in the P?li language in the fifth century of our era. But the text of the J?taka stories themselves has been throughout preserved in its original P?li form.

Unfortunately this orthodox Buddhist belief as to the history of the Book of Birth Stories rests on a foundation of quicksand. The Buddhist belief, that most of their sacred books were in existence immediately after the Buddha's death, is not only not supported, but is contradicted by the evidence of those books themselves. It may be necessary to state what that belief is, in order to show the importance which the Buddhists attach to the book; but in order to estimate the value we ourselves should give it, it will be necessary by critical, and more roundabout methods, to endeavour to arrive at some more reliable conclusion. Such an investigation cannot, it is true, be completed until the whole series of the Buddhist Birth Stories shall have become accessible in the original P?li text, and the history of those stories shall have been traced in other sources. With the present inadequate information at our command, it is only possible to arrive at probabilities. But it is therefore the more fortunate that the course of the inquiry will lead to some highly interesting and instructive results.

To this resemblance much of the interest excited by the Buddhist Birth Stories is, very naturally, due. As, therefore, the stories translated in the body of this volume do not happen to contain among them any of those most generally known in England, I insert here one or two specimens which may at the same time afford some amusement, and also enable the reader to judge how far the alleged resemblances do actually exist.

It is absolutely essential for the correctness of such judgment that the stories should be presented exactly as they stand in the original. I am aware that a close and literal translation involves the disadvantage of presenting the stories in a style which will probably seem strange, and even wooden, to the modern reader. But it cannot be admitted that, for even purposes of comparison, it would be sufficient to reproduce the stories in a modern form which should aim at combining substantial accuracy with a pleasing dress.

The whole value of its evidence in this respect would be lost, if a translator, by slight additions in some places, slight omissions in others, and slight modifications here and there, should run the risk of conveying erroneous impressions of early Buddhist beliefs, and habits, and modes of thought. It is important, therefore, that the reader should understand, before reading the stories I intend to give, that while translating sentence by sentence, rather than word by word, I have never lost sight of the importance of retaining in the English version, as far as possible, not only the phraseology, but the style and spirit of the Buddhist story-teller.

The first specimen I propose to give is a half-moral half-comic story, which runs as follows.

The Ass in the Lion's Skin.

S?HA-CAMMA J?TAKA.

Once upon a time, while Brahma-datta was reigning in Ben?res, the future Buddha was born one of a peasant family; and when he grew up, he gained his living by tilling the ground.

At that time a hawker used to go from place to place, trafficking in goods carried by an ass. Now at each place he came to, when he took the pack down from the ass's back, he used to clothe him in a lion's skin, and turn him loose in the rice and barley-fields. And when the watchmen in the fields saw the ass, they dared not go near him, taking him for a lion.

So one day the hawker stopped in a village; and whilst he was getting his own breakfast cooked, he dressed the ass in a lion's skin, and turned him loose in a barley-field. The watchmen in the field dared not go up to him; but going home, they published the news. Then all the villagers came out with weapons in their hands; and blowing chanks, and beating drums, they went near the field and shouted. Terrified with the fear of death, the ass uttered a cry--the cry of an ass!

Ana when he knew him then to be an ass, the future Buddha pronounced the First Stanza:

"This is not a lion's roaring, Nor a tiger's, nor a panther's; Dressed in a lion's skin, 'Tis a wretched ass that roars!"

But when the villagers knew the creature to be an ass, they beat him till his bones broke; and, carrying off the lion's skin, went away. Then the hawker came; and seeing the ass fallen into so bad a plight, pronounced the Second Stanza:

"Long might the ass, Clad in a lion's skin, Have fed on the barley green. But he brayed! And that moment he came to ruin."

And even whilst he was yet speaking the ass died on the spot!

This story will doubtless sound familiar enough to English ears; for a similar tale is found in our modern collections of so-called 'AEsop's Fables.' Professor Benfey has further traced it in mediaeval French, German, Turkish, and Indian literature. But it may have been much older than any of these books; for the fable possibly gave rise to a proverb of which we find traces among the Greeks as early as the time of Plato. Lucian gives the fable in full, localizing it at Kum?, in South Italy, and Julien has given us a Chinese version in his 'Avad?nas.' Erasmus, in his work on proverbs, alludes to the fable; and so also does our own Shakespeare in 'King John.' It is worthy of mention that in one of the later story-books--in a Persian translation, that is, of the Hitopadesa--there is a version of our fable in which it is the vanity of the ass in trying to sing which leads to his disguise being discovered, and thus brings him to grief. But Professor Benfey has shown that this version is simply the rolling into one of the present tale and of another, also widely prevalent, where an ass by trying to sing earns for himself, not thanks, but blows. I shall hereafter attempt to draw some conclusions from the history of the story. But I would here point out that the fable could scarcely have originated in any country in which lions were not common; and that the J?taka story gives a reasonable explanation of the ass being dressed in the skin, instead of saying that he dressed himself in it, as is said in our 'AEsop's Fables.'

The reader will notice that the 'moral' of the tale is contained in two stanzas, one of which is put into the mouth of the Bodisat or future Buddha. This will be found to be the case in all the Birth Stories, save that the number of the stanzas differs, and that they are usually all spoken by the Bodisat. It should also be noticed that the identification of the peasant's son with the Bodisat, which is of so little importance to the story, is the only part of it which is essentially Buddhistic. Both these points will be of importance further on.

The introduction of the human element takes this story, perhaps, out of the class of fables in the most exact sense of that word. I therefore add a story containing a fable proper, where animals speak and act like men.

The Talkative Tortoise.

KACCHAPA J?TAKA.

Once upon a time, when Brahma-datta was reigning in Ben?res, the future Buddha was born in a minister's family; and when he grew up, he became the king's adviser in things temporal and spiritual.

Now this king was very talkative: while he was speaking, others had no opportunity for a word. And the future Buddha, wanting to cure this talkativeness of his, was constantly seeking for some means of doing so.

At that time there was living, in a pond in the Him?laya mountains, a tortoise. Two young ha?sas who came to feed there, made friends with him. And one day, when they had become very intimate with him, they said to the tortoise--

"Friend tortoise! the place where we live, at the Golden Cave on Mount Beautiful in the Him?laya country, is a delightful spot. Will you come there with us?"

"But how can I got there?"

"We can take you, if you can only hold your tongue, and will say nothing to anybody."

"O! that I can do. Take me with you."

"That's right," said they. And making the tortoise bite hold of a stick, they themselves took the two ends in their teeth, and flew up into the air.

Seeing him thus carried by the ha?sas, some villagers called out, "Two wild ducks are carrying a tortoise along on a stick!" Whereupon the tortoise wanted to say, "If my friends choose to carry me, what is that to you, you wretched slaves!" So just as the swift flight of the wild ducks had brought him over the king's palace in the city of Ben?res, he let go of the stick he was biting, and falling in the open courtyard, split in two! And there arose a universal cry, "A tortoise has fallen in the open courtyard, and has split in two!"

The king, taking the future Buddha, went to the place, surrounded by his courtiers; and looking at the tortoise, he asked the Bodisat, "Teacher! how comes he to be fallen here?"

The future Buddha thought to himself, "Long expecting, wishing to admonish the king, have I sought for some means of doing so. This tortoise must have made friends with the wild ducks; and they must have made him bite hold of the stick, and have flown up into the air to take him to the hills. But he, being unable to hold his tongue when he hears any one else talk, must have wanted to say something, and let go the stick; and so must have fallen down from the sky, and thus lost his life." And saying, "Truly, O king! those who are called chatter-boxes--people whose words have no end--come to grief like this," he uttered these Verses:

"Behold him then, O excellent by strength! And speak wise words, not out of season. You see how, by his talking overmuch, The tortoise fell into this wretched plight!"

The king saw that he was himself referred to, and said, "O Teacher! are you speaking of us?"

And the Bodisat spake openly, and said, "O great king! be it thou, or be it any other, whoever talks beyond measure meets with some mishap like this."

And the king henceforth refrained himself, and became a man of few words.

This story too is found also in Greek, Latin, Arabic, Persian, and in most European languages, though, strangely enough, it does not occur in our books of AEsop's Fables. But in the 'AEsop's Fables' is usually included a story of a tortoise who asked an eagle to teach him to fly; and being dropped, split into two! It is worthy of notice that in the Southern recension of the Pa?ca Tantra it is eagles, and not wild ducks or swans, who carry the tortoise; and there can, I think, be little doubt that the two fables are historically connected.

Another fable, very familiar to modern readers, is stated in the commentary to have been first related in ridicule of a kind of Mutual Admiration Society existing among the opponents of the Buddha. Hearing the monks talking about the foolish way in which Devadatta and Kok?lika went about among the people ascribing each to the other virtues which neither possessed, he is said to have told this tale.

The Jackal and the Crow.

JAMBU-KH?DAKA J?TAKA.

Long, long ago, when Brahma-datta was reigning in Ben?res, the Bodisat had come to life as a tree-god, dwelling in a certain grove of Jambu-trees.

Now a crow was sitting there one day on the branch of a Jambu-tree, eating the Jambu-fruits, when a jackal coming by, looked up and saw him.

"Ha!" thought he. "I'll flatter that fellow, and get some of those Jambus to eat." And thereupon he uttered this verse in his praise:

"Who may this be, whose rich and pleasant notes Proclaim him best of all the singing-birds? Warbling so sweetly on the Jambu-branch, Where like a peacock he sits firm and grand!"

Then the crow, to pay him back his compliments, replied in this second verse:

"'Tis a well-bred young gentleman, who understands To speak of gentlemen in terms polite! Good Sir!--whose shape and glossy coat reveal The tiger's offspring--eat of these, I pray!"

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