Jataka 312
Kassapamandiya Jātaka
Kassapa’s Stupidity
as told by Eric Van Horn
originally translated by H.T. Francis and R.A. Neil, Cambridge University
originally edited by Professor Edward Byles Cowell, Cambridge University
This story took a turn that I did not expect. There are many stories in the Pāli Canon about the importance of respecting elders. But in this story an elder is admonished for not being more tolerant of the impatience of youth.
“Should foolish youth.” The Master told this story while he was residing at Jetavana. It is about an aged monk. A young nobleman at Sāvatthi, tradition says, from a sense of the evil consequences of sense desires received ordination at the hands of the Master. And by devotion to the rite by which samadhi may be attained, in no long time he became an arahant. By and bye on the death of his mother, he admitted his father and younger brother to the Saṇgha, and they took up residence at Jetavana.
At the opening of the rainy season, hearing of a village retreat where the necessary robes were to be easily obtained, all three of them spent the rains retreat there. When it ended they returned to Jetavana. The young monk, when they came to a spot not far from Jetavana, told the novice monk to accompany the old man gently, while he pushed on ahead to Jetavana to get their cell ready.
The old monk walked slowly on. The novice repeatedly butted him, as it were, with his head, and dragged him along by force, crying, “Come on, Master.” The elder said, “You are pulling me along against my will,” and he turned around and went back to the place from which they had started. As they continued their quarreling, the sun went down and darkness set in. Meanwhile the young monk swept out the hut, set water in the pots, and—not seeing them coming—he took a torch and went to meet them. When he saw them coming, he asked what made them so late. The old man told him. So he had them rest and brought them slowly on their way.
Now on that day he had not found time to pay his respects to the Buddha. So on the next day, when he had come to pay his respects to Buddha, after he had saluted him and taken his seat, the Master asked, “When did you arrive?” “Yesterday, sir.” “You came yesterday and pay your respects to me only today?” “Yes, sir,” he answered, and he explained the reason why. The Master rebuked the elder: “Not only now does he act like this. Of old he did just the same. Now it is you that are annoyed by him. Formerly he annoyed wise men.” And at the young monk’s request he told them this story from the past.
Once upon a time when Brahmadatta reigned in Benares, the Bodhisatta was reborn into a brahmin family in a town of the Kāsi country. When he had grown up, his mother died. And after due performance of her funeral rites, at the end of six weeks he gave away all the money that was in the house in alms. And taking his father and younger brother with him, he put on the bark garment of another sāmaṇera, and adopted the religious life of a recluse in the Himālaya country. And there he lived in a pleasant grove, supporting himself by foraging in the fields and living on roots and wild fruits.
Now in the Himālaya, during the rainy season, when the rains are incessant, it is impossible to dig up any bulbs or roots or to get any wild fruits. The leaves begin to fall. The recluses for the most part come down from the Himālayas and take up their residence in the company of people. And at this time the Bodhisatta, after living here with his father and younger brother, as soon as the Himālaya country began to blossom again and bear fruit, took his two companions and returned to his hermitage in the Himālayas. And at sunset, when they were not far from his hut, he left them, saying, “You can come on slowly while I go forward and set the hermitage in order.”
Now the young recluse—moving on slowly with his father—kept butting him in the waist with his head. The old man said, “I do not like the way in which you are taking me home.” So he turned around and went back to the place from which they had started. And while they were quarrelling, darkness set in. But the Bodhisatta, as soon as he had swept out his hut of leaves and got some water ready, took a torch and returned back. And when he found them he asked why they had taken such a long time. And the boy recluse told him what his father had done. But the Bodhisatta brought them quietly home, and—having stowed safely away all the Buddhist requisites—he gave his father a bath and washed and anointed his feet and shampooed his back. Then he set out a pan of charcoal, and when his father had recovered from his fatigue, he sat near him and said, “Father, young boys are just like earthen vessels, they are broken in a moment, and when they are broken, it is impossible to mend them again. Old men should bear with them patiently when they are abusive.” And in admonition of his father Kassapa, he repeated these stanzas:
Should foolish youth in word or deed offend,
’Tis wisdom’s part long-suffering to display.
Quarrels of good men find a speedy end,
Fools part asunder, like untempered clay.
Men wise to learn, of their own wrongs aware,
Friendship can prove, that suffers no decay,
Such are a brother’s burden strong to bear,
And strife of neighbors skillful to allay.
Figure: Admonishing the falther’s impatience
In this way the Bodhisatta admonished his father. And he from that time forward he exercised self-restraint.
The Master, having brought his lesson to an end, identified the birth: “At that time the old monk was the father recluse, the novice was the boy recluse, and I was the son who admonished his father.”
