Jataka 295
Anta Jātaka
Extreme Flattery
as told by Eric Van Horn
originally translated by William Henry Denham Rouse, Cambridge University
originally edited by Professor Edward Byles Cowell, Cambridge University
Here is another condemnation of flattery, and—of course—it is another opportunity to take a shot at Devadatta!
“Like to a bull.” This is another story told by the Master in the same place and about the same people. The circumstances are the same as before (Jātaka 294).
Once upon a time, when Brahmadatta was the King of Benares, the Bodhisatta became the spirit of a castor oil tree that stood in the approach to a village. An old ox died in that village, and they dragged the carcass out and threw it down in the grove of some trees by the village gate. A jackal came and began to eat its flesh. Then came a crow who perched on a tree. When she saw the jackal, she wondered if she could get some of this carcass to eat by using flattery. And so she repeated the first stanza:
“Like to a bull your body seems to be,
Like to a lion your activity.
O king of beasts! All glory be to thee!
Please don’t forget to leave a bit for me.”
On hearing this the Jackal repeated the second stanza:
“They that of gentle birth and breeding be
Know how to praise the gentle worthily,
O crow, whose throat is like the peacock’s neck,
Come down from off the tree and take a peck!”
The tree spirit, on seeing this, repeated the third stanza:
“The lowest of all beasts the jackal is,
The crow is lowest of all birds likewise,
The castor oil of trees the lowest tree,
And now these lowest things are here all three!”
Figure: Embarrassed by flattery
When the Master had ended this discourse he identified the birth: “At that time Devadatta was the jackal, Kokālika was the crow, and I was the tree spirit.”
