Jataka 118
Vaṭṭaka Jātaka
The Quail
as told by Eric Van Horn
originally translated by Robert Chalmers, B.A., of Oriel College, Oxford University
originally edited by Professor Edward Byles Cowell, Cambridge University
This is a story about resolve or determination. In the story in the present, a young man is unjustly accused of harming a young woman. He makes a resolution that if he is able to escape his sentence that he will ordain as a member of the Buddha’s Saṇgha. He carries through on his resolution which is an important aspect of the story.
In the Jātaka itself, a captured quail makes a resolution not to eat. In this way his captor is unable to sell him. This enables him to eventually escape. In both cases we see intelligence, wisdom, and determination working together in the same way that they do when properly following the Buddha’s path.
“The thoughtless man.” The Master told this story while at Jetavana. It is about the son of the Treasurer in Chief. This Chief Treasurer was a very rich man in Sāvatthi. His wife gave birth to a righteous being from the realm of Brahma, and he grew up to be as lovely as Brahma.
Now one day when the Kattikā festival (Kattikā is the last month of the rainy season) had been proclaimed in Sāvatthi, the whole city rejoiced in the festivities. The righteous man’s companions, who were the sons of other rich men, all had wives. But the Chief Treasurer’s son had lived so long in the Brahma Realm that he no longer had any sense desire. His companions plotted together to get him a sweetheart and make him celebrate the feast with them. So they went to him and said, “Dear friend, it is the great feast of Kattikā. Can’t we get a sweetheart for you too and celebrate together?”
Without his knowledge his friends found a charming girl and dressed her in fine clothes. They left her at his house and told her to make her way up to his chamber. But when she entered the room, she did not get a single look or word from the young man. Annoyed at this slight to her beauty, she used all of her charm and flirtations, smiling in order to show her pretty teeth. But the sight of her teeth just made him think of bones. At the thought of bones, the girl’s whole body appeared to him as nothing but a chain of bones. He gave her some money and told her to leave. But as she was leaving the house a nobleman saw her in the street. He gave her a present to accompany him home.
At the end of seven days the festival was over. The girl’s mother, seeing her daughter did not come back, went to the young man’s friends and asked where she was. They in turn asked the young man where she was. He told them that he had paid her and sent her away as soon as he saw her.
The girl’s mother insisted on having her daughter returned to her. She brought the young man before the King and asked that the King look into the matter. In answer to the King’s questions, the young man admitted that the girl had been passed along to him. But he said that he did not know where she was and that he had no way to produce her. Then the King said, “If he fails to produce the girl, execute him.”
So they tied his hands behind his back and took him away to be executed. The whole city was in an uproar at the news. With hands laid on their breasts the people followed after him lamenting, “What does this mean, sir? You are suffering unjustly.”
Then the young man thought, “All this sorrow has happened to me because I am living a lay life. If I can only escape this danger, I will give up the world and become a monk in the Saṇgha of the great Gotama, the All-Enlightened One.”
Meanwhile the girl heard the uproar and asked what was going on. Being told, she ran swiftly out, crying, “Stand aside, sirs! Let me pass! Let the King’s men see me.” As soon as she showed herself, she was handed over to her mother by the King’s men. They set the young man free and went on their way.
Surrounded by his friends, the son of the Chief Treasurer went down to the river and bathed. After he returned home, he ate breakfast and told his parents about his resolution to give up the world. Then taking cloth for his monk’s robe, and followed by a great crowd, he sought out the Master. With due salutation he asked to be ordained into the Saṇgha. He became a novice first, and later he was fully ordained. He meditated on the idea of saṃsara (the endless rounds of rebirth) until he gained insight (presumably stream-entry), and not long afterwards he became an Arhat.
Now one day in the Dharma Hall the monks were talking about his virtues. They recalled how in his hour of danger he recognized the excellence of the Dharma and wisely resolved to give up the world for its sake. As a result he won the highest fruit which is Arhatship. As they talked, the Master entered. He asked what they were discussing. They told him the topic of their conversation. He told them that, like the son of the Chief Treasurer, the wise of former times made a resolution in their hour of peril. In doing so they were able to escape death. He then told this story of the past.
Once upon a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Ḅenares, the Bodhisatta was born as a quail. Now in those days there was a quail catcher who used to catch many of these birds in the forest and take them home to fatten. When they were fat, he would sell them to people. This was how he made a living.
One day he caught the Bodhisatta and brought him home with a number of other quails. The Bodhisatta thought to himself, “If I eat and drink what he gives me, I will be sold. But if I don’t eat it, I will get so thin that people will notice it and pass me over. Then I will be safe. This, then, is what I must do.”
So he fasted and fasted until he got so thin that he was nothing but skin and bone. No one would buy him at any price. Having sold every one of his birds except the Bodhisatta, the bird catcher took the Bodhisatta out of the cage and put him on the palms of his hands to see what was wrong with the bird. When the man was not watching, the Bodhisatta spread his wings and flew off into the forest.
Figure: The Quail Makes His Escape!
Seeing him return the other quails asked where he had been for so long. He told them he had been caught by a bird catcher. They asked him how he had escaped. He told them how he resolved not to eat or drink anything that the bird catcher gave to him. So saying, he uttered this stanza:
The thoughtless man reaps no profit.
But see the fruit of my thinking.
I am free from death and bondage.
In this way the Bodhisatta told them what he had done.
His lesson ended, the Master identified the birth by saying, “I was the quail that escaped death in those days.”
