Jataka 237
Sāketa Jātaka
The Story of Sākata
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 lovely story about redemption and karma. It begins by telling us about a highly accomplished monk. But he is small in stature and looks like a boy novice because of his behavior in a previous life. He, in turn, is bullied by some unsuspecting monks. Thus we see both sides of karma. On one hand, no matter how egregious someone’s behavior, it is always possible to awaken. On the other hand, you can’t just run away and hide from it.
“Geese, herons, elephants.” The Master told this story while he was at Jetavana. It is about Lakuṇṭaka the venerable and good.
Now this venerable Lakuṇṭaka, we learn, was well known in the faith of the Buddha. He was a famous man, speaking sweet words, a honeyed preacher of keen discernment with his passions perfectly subdued. But in stature he was the smallest of all the eighty Elders. He was no bigger than a young novice, like a dwarf kept for amusement.
One day, he went to the gate of Jetavana to salute the Buddha, and thirty monks from the country arrived at the gate on their way to salute the Buddha as well. When they saw the Elder they thought he must be some young novice. They teased him by pulling the corner of his robe. They pinched his hands, held his head, tweaked his nose, got him by the ears and shook him and handled him very rudely. Then, after putting aside their bowl and robe, they visited the Master and saluted him.
They said to him, “Sir, we understand that you have an Elder who goes by the name of Lakuṇṭaka the Good, a honeyed preacher. Where is he?”
“Do you want to see him?” the Master asked.
“Yes, Sir.”
“He is the man you saw by the gate. You yanked his robe and treated him rudely before you came here.”
“Why, sir,” they asked, “how is it that a man devoted to the Dharma, full of high aspirations, a true disciple, how is it he is so diminutive?”
“It is because of his unskillful past actions,” the Master answered, and at their request he told them this story of the past.
Once upon a time, when King Brahmadatta reigned in Benares, the Bodhisatta was reborn as “Sakka,” king of the gods. (Sakka is the ruler of the Tāvatiṃsa heaven, the “heaven of the thirty-three gods.” Sakka is called “Indra” in the Vedic texts.)
Now Brahmadatta could not stand looking at anything that was old or decrepit, whether it was an elephant, a horse, an ox, or what not. And he was a prankster, and whenever he saw any such being, he would chase them away. He even had old carts broken up. If he saw old women, he sent for them and beat them on the belly. Then he stood them up and frightened them. He forced old men to roll about and play on the ground like tumblers. If he did not see any old men but heard that there was a greybeard in some town, he sent for him and played his game with them.
Because of this the people - for very shame - sent their parents outside the boundaries of the kingdom. No longer could the people tend to or care for their parents. The King’s friends were as vicious as he was. As these malicious men died, they filled up the four worlds of unhappiness (hell realm, animal realm, hungry ghost realm, birth among the asuras/titans/fallen spirits). As a result the company of the gods grew fewer and fewer.
Sakka saw that there were no newcomers among the gods, and he thought about what to do. At last he hit upon a plan. “I will humble him,” Sakka thought. So he took on the form of an old man, and placing two jars of buttermilk in a crazy old wagon, he yoked to it a pair of old oxen and set out on a feast day.
Now Brahmadatta was mounted on a beautifully adorned elephant. He was making a solemn procession about the richly decorated city. And Sakka, wearing nothing but rags, drove his cart and went off to meet the King.
When the King saw the old cart, he shouted, “Away with that cart, you!” But his people answered, “Where is it, my lord? We cannot see any cart!” for Sakka used his power so that no one but the King could see it. And going up to the King repeatedly, Sakka, still driving his cart, smashed one of the jars on the King’s head. Sakka made him turn around, and then he smashed the other jar in the same way. The buttermilk trickled down on either side of his head. Thus the King was plagued and tormented and made miserable by Sakka’s doings.
When Sakka saw his anguish, he made the cart disappear and took his proper form again. Poised in mid-air with a thunderbolt in hand, he rebuked him: “Oh wicked and unrighteous King! Won’t you become old yourself? Will not age plague you as well? Yet you sport and mock and spite those who are old! It is through you alone and these actions of yours that men die every day and fill up the four worlds of unhappiness and that people cannot care for their parents! If you do not stop this, I will split your head open with my thunderbolt. Go, and do not do this anymore.”
Figure: “You sport and mock and spite those who are old!”
With this rebuke he declared the worth of parents and the advantage of respecting old age. After this discourse he went off to his own realm. And from that time on the King never even thought of doing anything like he had done before.
This story ended, the Master, becoming perfectly serene, recited these two couplets:
“Geese, herons, elephants, and spotted deer
Though all unlike, alike the lion fear.
Even so, a child is great if he is clever,
Fools may be big, but great they can be never.”
When this discourse ended, the Master declared the Four Noble Truths, at the conclusion of which some of those monks entered on the First Path (stream-entry), some on the Second (once-returner), and some on the Fourth (arahant). Then the Master identified the birth: “The excellent Lakuṇṭaka was the King in the story, the one who made people the butt for his jests and then became a butt himself, while I was Sakka.”
