Jataka 137
Babbu Jātaka
The Cats
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
Cats seem to be a favorite target for villains in folk stories. I’m guessing that the kinds of people who make up these stories must be dog people.
This is an interesting story with some unique twists. Four monks were cats in a previous life. Our heroin’s mother is so polite that her daughter loses her husband over the mother’s generosity and kindness. And it is a cautionary tale to monastics who take advantage of their lay supporters.
“Give food to one cat.” This story was told by the Master while he was at Jetavana. It is about the precept respecting Kāṇā's mother. She was a lay follower at Sāvatthi known only as “Kāṇā's mother.” She had taken the Precepts and was following the Noble Eightfold Path.
Her daughter Kāṇā (“one-eyed”) was married to a man of the same rank in another village. While on an errand to her mother’s village, she went to see her. A few days went by, and her husband sent a messenger to say he wanted her to come back. The girl asked her mother whether she should go, and the mother said she could not go back empty-handed after such a long absence, so she set about making a cake. Just then a monk on his alms round showed up. The mother sat him down to the cake she had just baked. After he left he told another monk, who arrived just in time to get the second cake that she baked for the daughter to take home with her. That monk told a third monk, and the third told a fourth, and so each fresh cake was taken by another monk.
The result of this was that the daughter did not start on her way home. The husband sent a second and a third messenger after her. And the message he sent by the third was that if his wife did not come back, he would get another wife. And each message had exactly the same result. So the husband took another wife, and when she heard the news, his former wife started to cry.
Knowing all this, the Master put on his robes early in the morning and went with his alms bowl to the house of Kāṇā's mother. He sat down on the seat set for him. Then he asked why the daughter was crying. When he was told what had happened, he spoke words of consolation to the mother. Then he got up and went back to the Monastery.
Now the monks came to know how Kāṇā had been stopped three times from going back to her husband because of the action of the four monks. One day they met in the Dharma Hall and began to discuss the matter. The Master came into the Dharma Hall and asked what they were discussing. When they told him he said, “Monks, do not think that this is the first time those four monks have brought sorrow on Kāṇā's mother by eating her food. They did so in days gone by as well.” So saying he told this story of the past.
Once upon a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta was born as a stonecutter. He grew up to became an expert in working with stone.
Now in the Kāsi country (one of the 16 political entities of the Buddha’s time) there lived a very rich merchant who had amassed 400 million coins of gold. And when his wife died, her love of money was so strong that she was reborn as a mouse, and she lived over the treasure. Subsequently, one by one the whole family died, including the merchant himself. The village became deserted and forlorn. At the time of our story the Bodhisatta was quarrying and shaping stones on the site of this deserted village, and the mouse used to see him often as she ran about to find food.
Eventually she fell in love with him. She thought how the secret of all her vast wealth would die with her. She came up with an idea about how she could enjoy it with him. So one day she went to the Bodhisatta with a coin in her mouth. Seeing this, he spoke to her kindly, and said, “Mother, why have you brought me this coin?”
“It is for you to use for yourself, and to buy meat for me as well, my son.”
So inclined, he took the money and spent half of it on meat which he brought to the mouse. She went off and ate to her heart’s content. And this went on, the mouse giving the Bodhisatta a coin every day, and he in return supplying her with meat. But it happened that one day the mouse was caught by a cat.
“Don't kill me,” the mouse said.
“Why not?” the cat said. “I’m as hungry as can be, and I really must kill you to satisfy my hunger.”
“First, tell me whether you’re always hungry, or if you are only hungry today.”
“Oh, I am hungry every day.”
“Well then, if this is so, I can get you meat every day. Just let me go.”
“Make sure that you do,” the cat said and let the mouse go.
Because of this the mouse had to divide the supplies of meat she got from the Bodhisatta into two portions. She gave one half to the cat and kept the other for herself.
Now, as luck would have it, the same mouse was caught another day by a second cat, and she had to buy her freedom on the same terms. So now the daily food was divided into three portions. And when a third cat caught the mouse and the same arrangement was made, the supply was divided into four portions. And later a fourth cat caught her, and the food had to be divided among five. The mouse, reduced to such little food, grew so thin as to be nothing but skin and bone. The Bodhisatta saw how emaciated his friend had become and asked the reason for this. Then the mouse told him everything that had happened.
“Why didn't you tell me all this before?” the Bodhisatta said. “Cheer up. I will help you out of your troubles.”
So he took a block of the purest crystal. He scooped out a cavity in it and made the mouse get inside. “Now stay there,” he said, “and whenever anyone comes by, fiercely threaten and lash out at them.”
So the mouse crept into the crystal cell and waited. Up came one of the cats and demanded his meat. “Away, vile feline,” the mouse said. “Why should I help you? Go home and eat your kittens!”
Infuriated at these words, and never suspecting that the mouse was inside the crystal, the cat sprang at the mouse to eat her up. He sprang with such fury that he broke the walls of his chest and its eyes stared from its head. So that cat died and its carcass tumbled down out of sight. And the same fate came to all four cats.
Figure: An Ill-Advised Attack
After that the grateful mouse brought the Bodhisatta two or three coins instead of one as before, and in time she thus gave him the whole of the hoard. In unbroken friendship the two lived together, until their lives ended and they passed away to fare according to their karma.
The story told, the Buddha uttered this stanza:
Give food to one cat, a second appears.
A third and fourth succeed in fruitful line.
— Witness the four that by the crystal died.
His lesson ended, the Master identified the birth by saying, “These four monks were the four cats of those days. Kāṇā's mother was the mouse, and I was the stonecutter.”
