Jataka 189
Sīhacamma Jātaka
The Lion Skin
as told by Eric Van Horn
originally translated by William Henry Denham Rouse, Cambridge University
originally edited by Professor Edward Byles Cowell, Cambridge University
In this story our old friend Kokālika is frightened, and in so doing uses poor judgment that leads to his demise!
“Neither lion, nor tiger I see.” This story, like the last, is about Kokālika. It was told by the Master while he was at Jetavana. This time he wanted to chant. The Master, on hearing of it, told the following story.
Once upon a time, when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta was born into a farmer’s family. When he grew up he earned his living by cultivating the land.
At the same time there was a merchant who used to go about selling goods. He had a donkey who carried them around for him. Wherever he went, he took his bundle off of the donkey, threw a lionskin over him, and then turned him loose in the rice and barley fields. When the watchmen saw the animal, they thought he was a lion and so dared not come near him.
One day this trader stopped at a certain village, and while his breakfast was being cooked, he turned the donkey loose in a barley field with the lionskin on. The watchman thought it was a lion. He dared not go near him, and he fled home and sounded the alarm. All the villagers armed themselves and hurried to the field, shouting and blowing on horns and beating drums. The donkey was frightened out of his wits and gave a loud hee-haw! Then the Bodhisatta, seeing that it was a donkey, repeated the first stanza:
“Neither lion nor tiger I see,
Not even a leopard is he.
But a donkey - the wretched old hack!
With a lionskin over his back!”
As soon as the villagers learned that it was only a donkey, they battered him until they broke his bones, and then they went off with the lionskin. When the merchant appeared and found that his donkey had been beaten, he repeated the second stanza:
“The donkey, if he had been wise,
Might long the green barley have eaten,
A lionskin was his disguise,
But he gave a hee-haw and got beaten!”
Figure: The Lionskin Disguise Discovered
As he was in the act of uttering these words, the donkey died. The merchant left him and went on his way.
After this discourse was ended, the Master identified the birth: “At that time Kokālika was the ass, and I was the wise farmer.”
