Jataka 280
Puta Dūsaka Jātaka
The Pottle Destroyer
as told by Eric Van Horn
originally translated by William Henry Denham Rouse, Cambridge University
originally edited by Professor Edward Byles Cowell, Cambridge University
Another in the bad monkey series. They really need to get a better agent.
Note that “pottle” is an archaic term that means a vessel that holds two quarts.
“No doubt the king.” The Master told this story while he was at Jetavana. It is about someone who destroyed pottles. At Sāvatthi, we learn, a certain courtier invited the Buddha and his company for a meal. He had them sit in his park. As he was distributing food to them he said, “Let those who wish to walk about the park, do so.” And so the monks walked around the park.
At that time the gardener climbed up a tree which had leaves on it, and he said, taking hold of some of the large leaves, “This will do for flowers, this one for fruit.” And fashioning them into pottles, he dropped them to the foot of the tree. His little son destroyed each one as soon as it fell. The monks told this to the Master. “Brothers,” said the Master, “this is not the first time that this lad has destroyed pottles. He did the same before.” And he told them this story from the past.
Once upon a time, when Brahmadatta was the King of Benares, the Bodhisatta was born into a family there. When he grew up and was living in the world as a householder, he went into a park where a number of monkeys lived. The gardener was throwing down his pottles as we have described, and the chief of the monkeys was destroying them as they fell. The Bodhisatta, addressing him, said, “As the gardener drops his pottles, the monkey thinks he is trying to please him by tearing them up,” and he repeated the first stanza:
“No doubt the king of beasts is clever
In pottle-making. He would never
Destroy what’s made with so much bother,
Unless he meant to make another.”
On hearing this the monkey repeated the second stanza:
“Neither my father nor my mother
Nor I myself could make another.
What others make, we tear to bits,
The proper way of monkeys, this is!"
And the Bodhisatta responded with the third:
“If this is proper monkey nature,
What's the bad way of such a creature!
Be off, it does not matter whether
You’re proper or improper, both together!”
And with these words of blame he departed.
Figure: Proper monkey nature?!
When the Master had ended this discourse, he identified the birth: “At that time the monkey was the boy who has been destroying the pottles, and I was the wise man.”
