Jataka 270
Ulūka Jātaka
The Owl
as told by Eric Van Horn
originally translated by William Henry Denham Rouse, Cambridge University
originally edited by Professor Edward Byles Cowell, Cambridge University
You never know what you are going to learn from these stories. Apparently, since the beginning of time, crows and owls have had ill feelings towards one another. Who knew?!
“The owl is king.” The Master told this story while living at Jetavana. It is about a quarrel between crows and owls.
At the period in question, the crows used to eat owls during the day, and at night, the owls flew about, killing the crows by nipping off their heads as they slept.
There was a certain monk who lived in a cell on the outskirts of Jetavana. When the time came for sweeping, there were a lot of crows’ heads that had dropped from a tree that needed to be thrown away. There were enough to fill seven or eight pots. He mentioned this to the Saṇgha. The monks began to talk about it in the Dharma Hall. “Friend, this venerable monk finds so many crows’ heads to throw away every day in the place where he lives!” The Master came in and asked what they were discussing as they sat together. They told him. They went on to ask how long the crows and owls had been fighting each other. The Master replied, “Since the time of the first age of the world.” And then he told them this story from the past.
Once upon a time, the people who lived in the first cycle of the world gathered together. They selected a certain man to be their king. He was handsome, auspicious, commanding, and altogether perfect. The quadrupeds also gathered. They chose the lion to be their king. And the fish in the ocean chose a fish named Ānanda.
Then all the birds in the Himalayas assembled on a flat rock, crying, “Among men there is a king, and among the beasts, and the fish have one too. But among us birds we have no king. We should not live in anarchy. We, too, should choose a king. Let us choose someone fit to be the king of the birds!”
They searched about for such a bird, and they settled on the owl. “Here is the bird we like,” they said. And a bird made the proclamation three times to all that there would be a vote taken on this matter. After patiently hearing this announcement twice, on the third time up rose a crow who cried out, “Stay now! If that is what he looks like when he is being consecrated king, what will he look like when he is angry? If he only looks at us in anger, we shall be scattered like sesame seeds thrown on a hot plate. I don't want to make this fellow king!” And expanding upon this declaration he uttered the first stanza:
“The owl is king, you say, o'er all bird-kind,
With your permission, may I speak my mind?”
The birds repeated the second stanza, granting him leave to speak:
“You have our leave, sir, so it be good and right,
For other birds are young, and wise, and bright.”
Thus permitted, he repeated the third stanza:
“I like not (with all deference be it said)
To have the owl anointed as our head.
Look at his face! if this good humor be,
What will he do when he looks angrily?”
Figure: “Look at his face!”
Then he flew up into the air, cawing out “I don't like it! I don't like it!” The owl rose and pursued him. And from then on those two nursed animosity towards one another. And the birds chose a golden goose to be their king, and then they flew off.
When the Master ended this discourse, he taught the Four Noble Truths, and then he identified the Birth: “At that time, I was the wild goose who was chosen to be king.”
