Jataka 215
Kaccapa Jātaka
The Tortoise
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 Buddha’s teaching, restraint is a quality to be developed. It is the antidote to passion, especially sense desire and craving. But it is not about suppressing emotions. It is about using mindfulness, wisdom, and calm to see into the dangers in sensual passion and using wisdom and insight to abandon it. In the Dhammapada the Buddha says:
Good is restraint in the body; good is restraint in speech; good is restraint in thought. Restraint everywhere is good. The monk restrained in every way is freed from all suffering. – [Dhp 361]
And in this story, the Buddha uses the example of a tortoise - whose inability to use restraint in speech leads to his demise - to teach this lesson to an overly talkative king.
“The tortoise must speak.” The Master told this story while he was staying in Jetavana. It is about Kokālika (a disciple of Devadatta). The circumstances which gave rise to it will be set forth under the Mahātakkāri Birth (actually the “Takkāri Jātaka,” which is number 481). Here the Master said, “This is not the only time, monks, that Kokālika has brought about his ruin by talking. It was just the same before.” And then he told this story from the past.
Once upon a time when Brahmadatta was the King of Benares, the Bodhisatta was born to a member of the King’s court. When he grew up, he became the King’s adviser in all things worldly and spiritual. But this King was very talkative. And when he talked there was no chance for anyone else to get in a word edgewise. Meanwhile the Bodhisatta, wishing to put a stop to his excessive talking, kept looking for an opportunity to do so.
Now in a certain pond in the region of the Himalaya Mountains there lived a tortoise. Two young wild geese who were searching for food struck up an acquaintance with him, and bye and bye they became close friends. One day the geese said to him, “Friend tortoise, we have a lovely home in the Himalaya Mountains. It is on a plateau of Mount Cittakūta in a cave of gold! Will you come with us?”
“Why,” said he, “how will I get there?”
“Oh, we will take you, if only you can keep your mouth shut and say not a word about this to anyone.”
“Yes, I can do that,” he said. “Take me along!”
So they had the tortoise hold a stick between his teeth and they each took hold of one of the ends. Then they sprang up into the air.
The geese flew swiftly into the space above the palace of the King at Benares. The village children saw them and exclaimed, “There are two geese carrying a tortoise by a stick!”
The tortoise cried out, “Well, and if my friends do carry me, what is that to you, you wretches?” And in order to speak he had let go of the stick that was between his teeth. He fell into the open courtyard and split in two.
Figure: He Had to Let Go...
What an uproar there was! “A tortoise has fallen in the courtyard and broken in two!” they cried. The King, with the Bodhisatta and his entire court, came out into the courtyard. When they saw the tortoise the King asked the Bodhisatta, “Wise sir, what made this creature fall?”
“Now is my time!” the Bodhisatta thought. “For a long while I have been wishing to admonish the King, and I have waited for my opportunity. There can be no doubt that the tortoise and the geese became friends. The geese must have meant to carry him to the Himalaya Mountains. They made him hold a stick between his teeth and then lifted him into the air. Then he must have heard some remark and wanted to reply. And not being able to keep his mouth shut he must have let go. So he must have fallen from the sky and thus come to his death.”
So he addressed the King, “Oh King, those who talk too much, those who put no restraint on their speaking, always come to misfortune like this,” and he uttered the following verses:
“The tortoise needs must speak aloud,
Although between his teeth
A stick he bit, yet, spite of it,
He spoke, and fell beneath.
“And now, oh mighty master, mark it well.
See you speak wisely, see you speak in season.
To death the tortoise fell —
He talked too much — that was the reason.”
“He is talking about me!” the King thought to himself, and he asked the Bodhisatta if that was so.
“Be it you, oh great King or be it someone else,” he replied, “whoever talks too much comes by some misery of this kind.” And so he made his meaning clear. And from then on the King used restraint in his speech and became a man of few words.
This discourse ended, the Master identified the birth: “Kokālika was the tortoise, the two famous elders (Sāriputta and Moggallāna) were the wild geese, Ānanda was the King, and I was his wise adviser.”
