Jataka 196
Valāhassa Jātaka
The Cunning Beasts
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 the Parinibbāna Sutta the Buddha tells his followers – just before his death – that he has left nothing out of his teachings. If people follow his instructions, they will be free from suffering and the rounds of rebirth. This is a recurring theme in the Jātaka literature. The Buddha’s Dharma is like a road map. If you follow it, you will arrive at the final destination.
“They who will neglect.” The Master told this story while he was at Jetavana. It is about a monk who had become a backslider.
When the Master asked him if it was really true that he was a backslider, the monk replied that it was true. When he was asked why he replied that his passion had been aroused by seeing a beautifully dressed woman. Then the Master said to him, “Brother, men can be tempted by a woman’s figure and voice, scents, perfumes, and touch, and by their seductiveness and flirtations. In this way men fall into their power. There are temptresses who - as soon as they know a man is under her spell - will ruin them, character, wealth, and all. This gives them the name of “she-goblins.” In days gone by a group of she-goblins tempted a caravan of traders. They got power over them, and afterwards - as soon as they found a different group of men - they killed every one in the first group. They devoured them, crunching them in their teeth while the blood ran down over both cheeks.” And then he told this story of the past.
Once upon a time, a town of goblins called Sirīsavatthu on the island of Sri Lanka. It was populated by she-goblins. Whenever a ship wrecked there, the she-goblins got dressed, took rice and other food, trains of slaves and their children on their hips, and went to greet the merchants. In order to make them think that theirs was a city of human beings, they created the illusion of men plowing and tending herds of cattle, dogs, and the like. They would invite the merchants to eat the rice and other food that they brought.
The unsuspecting merchants would eat all that was offered. When they had eaten and drunk, they rested. The goblins would engage them in conversation, asking, “Where do you live? Where do you come from? Where are you going, and what brought you here?”
“We were shipwrecked here,” they would reply.
“Very well, noble sirs,” the she-goblins would respond. “It has been three years since our own husbands set off on a ship. They must have perished. You are merchants too. We will be your wives.”
Thus they would lead them astray by their cunning and tricks until they could get them into the goblin city. Any men who had been previously caught were bound with magic chains and cast into a house of torment. And if they could not find any shipwrecked men where they lived, they would scour the coast as far as the river Kalyāṇi on one side and the island of Nāgadīpa on the other. This was their way.
Now it happened that once 500 shipwrecked traders were cast ashore near the city of these she-goblins. The goblins came up to them and lured them into their trap until they were able to get them into the city. Those who they had previously caught were bound with magic chains and cast into the house of torment. Then the chief goblin took up with the chief man. The others paired off with the rest of the men until the 500 she-goblins were matched with the 500 traders, and they made the men their husbands.
One night when her man was asleep, the chief she-goblin went to the house of torment. She killed some of the men and ate them. The other she-goblins did likewise. When the eldest goblin returned from the feast her body was cold. The eldest merchant embraced her and quickly realized that she was a goblin. “All 500 of them must be goblins!” he thought to himself, “we must get out of here!”
So early in the morning when he went to wash his face, he spoke to the other merchants. “These are goblins not human beings! As soon as they can find more shipwrecked men they will make them their husbands and eat us. Come, let us escape!”
250 of the men replied, “We cannot leave them. Go if you want, but we will not run away.”
But the chief trader with the remaining 250 men - who were ready to obey him - ran away in fear of the goblins.
Now at that time, the Bodhisatta had been reborn as a flying horse. (There is a pillar in the Indian city of Mathura there is an image of a flying horse with people clinging to it. It may be referring to this scene.) The horse was white all over. It had a beak like a crow and hair like muñja grass (a particularly lush type of grass). It had the supernatural power of being able to fly through the air.
The horse flew through the air from the Himalaya Mountains until he got to Sri Lanka. There he passed over the ponds and tanks of the island. He ate the rice that grew wild there. As he passed over the island on his journey he called out three times in a human voice filled with compassion, “Who wants to go home? Who wants to go home?”
“The traders heard his cry and shouted, “We want to go home, master!” They put their hands together and raised them respectfully to their foreheads. “Then climb up on my back,” the Bodhisatta said.
Figure: “We want to go home!”
Some of them climbed up, some grabbed hold of his tail, and some remained standing with a respectful salute. Then the Bodhisatta took up even those who stood still saluting him. He took all of them – all 250 of them - back to their own country. There he set them down each in his own home. Then he went back to his own home in the Himalaya.
And the she-goblins, when other men came to that place, killed the 250 men who had remained behind, and then they ate them.
The Master now said, addressing the monastics, “These traders perished by falling into the hands of she-goblins. But the others obeyed the advice of the good horse. They all returned safely home again. In the same way those who neglect the advice of the Buddhas, monks and nuns, laymen and laywomen, come to great misery in the four hells. There they are punished under the five fetters. (The first of the ten fetters – also called “the lower fetters.” They are 1) belief in a permanent self, 2) skeptical doubt, 3) attachment to rites and rituals, 4) sense desire and 5) ill will.) But those who heed such advice come to the three kinds of fortunate birth (humans, god, and demi-gods), the six heavens of sense (the heavenly realms), the twenty worlds of Brahma (the “Brahma” heavenly realms). And reaching the state of imperishable Nirvana they attain great blessedness.” Then, becoming perfectly blissful (jhāna), he recited the following verses:
“They who neglect the Buddha when he tells them what to do,
As the goblins ate the merchants, likewise they shall perish too.
“They who listen to the Buddha when he tells them what to do,
As the bird-horse saved the merchants, they shall win salvation too.”
When the Master ended this discourse, he taught the Four Noble Truths, at the conclusion of which the backsliding monk entered on the Fruit of the First Path (stream-entry), and many others entered on the Fruit of the First, Second (once returner), Third (non-returner) or Fourth (arahant). Then the Master identified the birth: “The Buddha’s followers were the 250 merchants who followed the advice of the horse, and I was the horse.”
