The Jātaka:
or
Stories of the Buddha's Former Births
Volume III
Book 4: Catukanipāta
No. 329
Kālabāhu-Jātaka
Translated from the Pāli by
H.T. Francis, M.A., Sometime Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, and
R.A. Neil, M.A., Fellow of Pembroke College
Under the Editorship of Professor E. B. Cowell
Published 1969 For the Pāli Text Society.
First Published by The Cambridge University Press in 1895
This work is in the Public Domain. The Pali Text Society owns the copyright."
"Once we enjoyed," etc. — This was a story told by the Master while dwelling in the Bamboo Grove, with regard to Devadatta's loss of gains and honour. For when Devadatta had unreasonably conceived a grudge against the Buddha and suborned a band of archers to slay him, his offence became known by the letting loose of the elephant Nālāgiri.[1] Then men took away his office and the rations provided for him, and the king ceased to regard him. And having lost his source of gains and honour, he went about living on what he begged in noble families. The Brethren started a discussion in the Hall of Truth, how that Devadatta thought to get gain and honour, but when he had got it he could not keep it. The Master came and inquired what was the subject the Brethren sat in conclave to discuss, and on being told what it was he said, "Not only now, Brethren, but formerly too, Devadatta was deprived of gains and honour." And he then told them an old-world legend.
Once upon a time when Dhanaiñjaya was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta became a parrot named Rādha. He was a well-grown bird with perfectly-formed limbs. And his younger brother was called Poṭṭhapāda. A certain fowler trapped these two birds and brought them as a present to the king of Benares. The king put the pair in a golden cage [98] and took care of them and gave them honey and parched corn to eat in a golden dish and sugar-water to drink. Great attention was paid them, and they attained to the highest degree of profit and honour. Then a certain forester brought a big black monkey, called Kālabāhu, as a present to the king, and from the fact of his coming later than the parrots, he received still greater gain and respect, while that paid to the parrots fell off. The Bodhisatta through his possession of Buddha qualities said not a word, but his younger brother, from the absence of these qualities being unable to put up with the honour paid to the monkey, said, "Brother, formerly in this royal house men gave us savoury food, but now we get nothing, and they offer it all to the monkey Kālabāhu. As we receive neither gain nor honour in this place from the king, what are we to do? Come, let us go and live in the forest." And as he talked with him, he uttered the first stanza:
Once we enjoyed of food abundant store,
This monkey now has what was ours before.
Come, Rādha, let us to the forest hie;
Such scurvy treatment what can justify?
Rādha, on hearing this, replied in the second stanza:
Gain and loss and praise and blame,
Pleasure, pain, dishonour, fame,
All as transient states conceive —
Why should Poṭṭhapāda grieve?
[99] On hearing this, Poṭṭhapāda was unable to get rid of his grudge against the monkey and repeated the third stanza:
Rādha, wisest bird alive,
Sure thou knowest things to come,
This vile creature who shall drive
From the court to his old home?
Rādha, on hearing this, uttered the fourth stanza:
Oft will his puckered face and moving ears
The royal children fill with foolish fears:
Soon Kālabāhu through some impish freak,
Far far away his food will have to seek.
In a very short time the monkey by shaking his ears and the like tricks before the young princes terrified them. In their alarm they made an outcry. The king asked what it meant, and hearing the cause, said, "Drive him away." So he had the monkey driven away, and the parrots were restored to their former condition of gain and honour.
[100] The Master here ended his lesson and identified the Birth: — "At that time Devadatta was Kālabāhu, Ānanda was Poṭṭhapāda, and I myself was Rādha."
[1] See vol. ii. p. 140, and p. 168.
