Jataka 182
Saṃgāmāvacara Jātaka
Engaged in Conflict
as told by Eric Van Horn
originally translated by William Henry Denham Rouse, Cambridge University
originally edited by Professor Edward Byles Cowell, Cambridge University
The story-in-the-present is a very famous one from the Pāli Canon. It is about the Buddha’s step-brother, Nanda.
This story shows the Buddhist notion of a healthy sense of shame. Shame can be used in a positive way. It keeps us from behaving in harmful and unskillful ways.
This is another tale where the story-in-the-present rings true but the actually Jātaka does not. The story-in-the-present is straight from the Pāli Canon. But the Jātaka itself presents the elephant as a hero even though it is making war on another king’s city. That does not sound like something of which the Buddha would approve. However, it is from a previous life when even the Buddha was a work-in-progress.
“Oh Elephant, you are a hero.” The Master told this story while he was staying at Jetavana. It is about the Elder Nanda.
The Master, on his first return to Kapilavatthu (the Buddha’s hometown), had ordained his younger brother Prince Nanda into the Saṇgha, after which he returned to Sāvatthi. Now Venerable Nanda, as he was leaving his home, saw the lovely Janapadakalyāṇī looking out of a window with her hair half combed. She said, “Why, Prince Nanda is off to be with the Master! Come back soon, dear lord!” Upon hearing this, he grew downcast and despondent, yellower and yellower, and the veins stood knotted over his skin.
When the Master learned of this he thought, “What if I can establish Nanda as an arahant?” He went to Nanda’s cell and sat on the seat which was offered him.
“Well, Nanda,” he asked, “are you content with our teaching?”
“Sir,” replied Nanda, "I am in love with Janapadakalyāṇī, and I am not content.’
“Have you been on a pilgrimage to the Himalaya, Nanda?’
“No, sir, not yet.”
“Then we will go.”
“But, sir, I have no miraculous powers. How can I go?”
“I will take you, Nanda.” So saying, the Master took him by the hand and flew through the air.
On the way they passed over a burned field. There, on the charred stump of a tree, with her nose and tail half gone, her hair scorched off, nothing but skin and all covered with blood, sat a female monkey.
“Do you see that monkey, Nanda?” the Master asked.
“Yes, Sir.”
“Take a good look at her,” he said. Then he pointed out, stretching over 300 kilometers, the uplands of Manosilā, the seven great lakes, Anotatta and the rest, the five great rivers, the whole Himalaya highlands, with the magnificent hills named of Gold, of Silver, and of Gems, and hundreds of other lovely spots. Then he asked, “Nanda, have you ever seen the realm of the Thirty-three Gods?”
“No, sir, never,” was the reply.
“Come along, Nanda,” he said, “and I will show you the realm of the Thirty-three Gods.”
Then he went with Nanda to the Yellowstone Throne (the throne of the god “Sakka”) and had him sit on it. Sakka, the King of the gods in two heavens, came with his host of gods. He greeted them and sat down on one side.
His handmaids numbered 25 million. There were 500 nymphs with doves’ feet. They all came and greeted them, then they sat down on one side. The Master had Nanda look at these 500 nymphs again and again.
“Nanda” he said, “do you see these dove-footed nymphs?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, who is prettier, they or Janapadakalyāṇī?”
“Oh, sir! As that wretched ape was in comparison with Janapadakalyāṇī, so is she compared with these!”
“Well, Nanda, what are you going to do?”
“How is it possible, sir, to win these nymphs?”
“By living as a recluse, sir,” the Master said, “one may win these nymphs.”
The boy said, “If the Blessed One pledges his word that the life of a recluse will win these nymphs, then I will lead the life of a recluse.”
“Agreed, Nanda, I pledge my word.”
“Well, Sir,” he said, “Let’s not waste any time. Let us be off, and I will become a recluse.”
The Master brought him to Jetavana back again, and Nanda began to follow the life of a recluse.
The Master told Sāriputta, the Captain of the Faith, about the promise to his younger brother about the nymphs in the realm of the Thirty-three Gods. In turn, Sāriputta told the story to Elder Mahāmoggallāna, to Elder Mahākassapa, to Elder Anuruddha, to Elder Ānanda, and so on. Eighty great disciples in all learned of the Buddha’s pledge to Nanda. And then, one after another, the story spread to the entire Saṇgha.
The Captain of the Faith, Elder Sāriputta, asked Elder Nanda, “Is it true, as I hear, friend, that you have the Buddha’s pledge that you will win the nymphs of the gods in the heaven of the Thirty-three by living the life as a recluse? Then,” he went on, “isn’t it true that your holy life is bound up with women and lust? If you live this life just for the sake of women, what is the difference between you and a common laborer for hire?”
Hearing this doused all the fire in him and made him ashamed of himself. In the same way all of the 80 chief disciples and all the rest of the Saṇgha made him feel ashamed.
“I have been wrong,” he thought. In shame and remorse, he gathered up his courage and set to work cultivating his spiritual insight. Soon he became an arahant.
He went to the Master and said, “Sir, I release the Blessed One from his promise.”
The Master said, “If you have become an arahant, Nanda, I am released from my promise.”
When the monastics heard of this, they began to talk about it in the Dharma Hall. “How suggestible the Elder Nanda is, to be sure! Why, friend, one word of advice awakened his sense of shame. At once he began to live as a recluse and now he is an arahant!”
The Master entered the hall and asked what they were discussing. They told him. “Monastics,” he said, "Nanda was just as serene in former days as he is now,” and then he told them this story from the past.
Once upon a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta was born as an elephant trainer’s son. When he grew up, he was carefully taught all that pertains to the training of elephants. He was in the service of a king who was an enemy to the king of Benares. He trained his king’s elephant of state to perfection.
The king determined to capture Benares. Mounting his state elephant, he led a mighty army against Benares and laid siege to it. Then he sent a letter to the king of the city. It said, “Fight or yield.” The king chose to fight. Walls and gates, towers and battlements were manned with a great army, and he defied the enemy.
The hostile king armed his state elephant and clad himself in armor. He took a sharp prod in his hand and drove his beast toward the city. “Now,” he said, “I’ll storm this city, kill my enemy, and get his realm into my control.”
But then he saw the defenders. They threw boiling mud and shot stones from their catapults. All kinds of missiles rained down on them. The elephant was scared out of his wits and would not go near the city.
Then the trainer ran up crying to the elephant, “A hero like you is quite at home on the battle-field! In such a place it is disgraceful to turn tail!” And to encourage his elephant, he uttered these two verses:
“O Elephant, you the hero, whose home is in the field,
There stands the gate before you now, why do you turn and yield?
“Make haste! Break through the iron bar, and beat the pillars down!
Crash through the gates, made strong for war, and enter in the town!”
The elephant listened. One word of advice was enough to turn him. Winding his trunk about the shafts of the pillars, he tore them up like so many toadstools. He beat against the gateway, broke down the bars, and forcing his way through he entered the city and won it for his king.
Figure: The Elephant Attacks the City!
When the Master finished this discourse, he identified the birth: “In those days Nanda was the elephant, Ānanda was the king, and I was the trainer.”
