Jataka 298
Udumbara Jātaka
The Fig Tree
as told by Eric Van Horn
originally translated by William Henry Denham Rouse, Cambridge University
originally edited by Professor Edward Byles Cowell, Cambridge University
There are many stories like this one in the Jātaka Tales. In this story we have a clear villain and a clear good being. But when the story of the good being is known, there is no intervention even though conceivably the Buddha could have. This is because in the Buddha’s Dharma consequences are left to the law of karma, and it is an opportunity for someone being harmed to practice good will and patience.
“Ripe are the figs.” The Master told this story at Jetavana. It is about a certain monk who had built a hermitage in which to live at a certain village on the frontier. This delightful dwelling stood on a flat rock. It was a little well swept spot. It had enough water to make it pleasant. There was a village close by in which to accept alms. There were friendly people to give food.
A fellow monk arrived at this place while on his travels. The elder who lived in it did the duties of a host to the new arrival. On the next day he took him along with him for his rounds. The people gave him food and invited him to visit them again next day. After the newcomer had been there for a few days, he contemplated how he could get the monk to leave and gain possession of the hermitage.
Once when the newcomer was waiting upon the elder, he asked him, “Have you ever visited the Buddha, friend?”
“Why no, sir. There is no one here to look after my hut, or I would have gone before.”
“Oh, I will look after it while you are gone to visit the Buddha,” said the newcomer. And so the owner left after instructing the villagers to take care of the holy brother until his return.
But the newcomer proceeded to bite his host in the back. He told the villagers about all sorts of faults that the monk had. Meanwhile the monk visited his Master. But when he returned, the newcomer refused to allow him back into his hut. He found another place in which to live, and in the next day he went on his alms rounds in the village. But the villagers would not give him any food.
He was very discouraged, and decided to go back to Jetavana. There he told the monks what had happened. They began to discuss the matter in their Dharma Hall. “Friend, a brother has turned this monk out of his hermitage and taken it for himself!” The Master came in and wanted to know what they were discussing as they sat there. They told him. He said, “Brothers, this is not the first time that this man turned the other out of his dwelling.” And he told them this story from the past.
Once upon a time, when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta became a tree spirit in the woods. At that time during the rainy season rain used to pour down seven days at a stretch. A certain small red-faced monkey lived in a rock cave sheltered from the rain. One day he was sitting at the mouth of it. He was dry and quite happy. As he sat there, a big black-faced monkey, who was wet through and through and perishing with cold, saw him. “How can I get that fellow out and live in his cave?” he wondered. Puffing out his belly and acting as though he had eaten a good meal, he stopped in front of the red-faced monkey and repeated the first stanza:
“Ripe are the figs, the banyans good,
And ready for the monkey’s food.
Come along with me and eat!
Why should you for hunger fret?”
Redface believed all this. He longed to have all this fruit to eat. So he went off. He looked everywhere but he could not find fruit anywhere. Then he came went back and there was Blackface sitting inside his cave! He determined to outwit him. So stopping in front of the cave he repeated the second stanza:
“Happy he who honor pays
To his elders full of days.
Just as happy I feel now
After all that fruit, I vow!”
The big monkey listened and repeated the third stanza:
“When like meets like, then comes the tug of war,
A monkey scents a monkey’s tricks afar.
Even a young one were too sharp by half,
But old birds never can be caught with chaff.”
Figure: The bully
And so Redface made off.
When the Master ended this discourse, he summed up the birth tale: “At that time the owner of the hut was the little monkey, the interloper was the big black monkey, and I was the tree spirit.”
