Jataka 174
Dūbhiya-makkaṭa Jātaka
The Ungrateful Monkey
as told by Eric Van Horn
originally translated by William Henry Denham Rouse, Cambridge University
originally edited by Professor Edward Byles Cowell, Cambridge University
This is a story about ingratitude.
In the Buddha’s teaching, gratitude is a quality to be cultivated. There are a number of discourses in the Aṇguttara Nikāya about gratitude or the lack thereof..
Gratitude and generosity are linked together. Someone who is grateful is also generous. You may know people who – no matter how little they have – are grateful for what they do have and are always willing to share what little they may have. Then there are those who – no matter how much they have – are never satisfied and who share little or nothing. That is an extremely effective way to suffer!
“Plenty of water." The Master told this story while he was at Veḷuvana (the Bamboo Forest Monastery in Rājagaha). It is about Devadatta. One day the monks happened to be talking in the Dharma Hall about Devadatta’s ingratitude and treachery to his friends when the Master came in. “Not just this one time, monks, has Devadatta been ungrateful and treacherous to his own friends. He was just the same before.” Then he told them this story from the past.
Once upon a time, when Brahmadatta was the King of Benares, the Bodhisatta was born into a brahmin family in a Kāsi village. When he came of age, he married and settled down.
Now in those days there was a deep well by the highway in Kāsi-land, but there was no way to get down to it. The people who passed by the well, in order to gain merit, would draw water from it using a long rope and a bucket. Then they would fill a trough for the animals, giving the animals water to drink. All around the well there was a mighty forest where a group of monkeys lived.
It so happened that for two or three days no one drew water from the well, and the animals could get nothing to drink. A monkey who was tormented with thirst walked up and down near the well looking for water.
Now the Bodhisatta came that way on an errand. He drew water for himself, drank it, and washed his hands. Then he noticed our monkey. Seeing how thirsty he was, the Bodhisatta drew water from the well and filled the trough for him. Then he sat down under a tree to see what the creature would do.
The monkey drank, sat down near to the Bodhisatta, and made a grimacing face in order to frighten the him. “Ah, you bad monkey!” he said, “when you were thirsty and miserable, I gave you plenty of water, and now you make frightful faces at me. Well, well, help a rascal and you waste your time.” And he repeated the first stanza:
“Plenty of water did I give to you
When you were chafing, hot, and thirsty too.
Now full of mischief you sit chattering,
With wicked people best have nothing to do.”
Figure: The Ungrateful Monkey!
Then this spiteful monkey replied, “I suppose you think that’s all I can do. Now I'll drop something on your head before I go.” Then, repeating the second stanza, he went on:
“A well-conducted monkey who did ever hear or see
I leave my droppings on your head, for such my manners be.”
As soon as he heard this the Bodhisatta got up to go. But at the very instant this monkey, from the branch where he sat, dropped his feces like a garland upon his head. Then he ran off into the forest shrieking. The Bodhisatta washed himself clean and went his way.
When the Master had ended this discourse he said, “It is not only now that Devadatta is like this, but in former days as well he would not acknowledge a kindness that I showed him.” Then he identified the birth: “Devadatta was the monkey then, and I was the brahmin.”
