Jataka 322
Daddabha Jātaka
The Dreadful Sound
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
I am not quite sure what the practice of self-torture has to do with the story of the hare, but this is a cute story anyway.
“From the spot where.” The Master told this story while he was living at Jetavana. It is about some ascetics who practiced self-torture. These ascetics, they say, made their beds on thorns in various places near Jetavana. They suffered the five-fold forms of fire penance (They lit fires on their four sides and stood in the middle on one leg. The sun, which is the fifth fire, scorching them from above.) They practiced false asceticism of many different kinds. Now a number of the monks, after going on their alms rounds in Sāvatthi, saw these ascetics while on their way back to Jetavana. The ascetics were practicing their austerities. The monks went and asked the Master, “Is there, sir, any virtue in these dissenting priests in taking on these practices?” The Master said, “There is no virtue, monks, nor any special merit in it. When it is examined and tested, it is like a path over a dunghill, or like the noise the hare heard.” “We do not know, sir, what that noise was. Tell us, holy sir.” So at their request he told them this story from the past.
Once upon a time when Brahmadatta reigned in Benares, the Bodhisatta was reborn as a young lion. And when fully grown he lived in a wood. At this time there was a grove of palms mixed with vilva trees (also “bilva” or “wilva,” associated with the Shiva, the god of destruction) near the Western Ocean.
A certain hare lived there beneath a palm sapling at the foot of a vilva tree. One day this hare lay down beneath the young palm tree after feeding. And the thought struck him, “If the earth should be destroyed, what will become of me?” And at this very moment a ripe vilva fruit fell on a palm leaf. At the sound of it, the hare thought, “This solid earth is collapsing!” he started to flee without so much as looking behind him.
Another hare saw him scampering off frightened to death, and he asked the cause of his panic flight. “Please, don’t ask me!” he said. The other hare cried, “Pray, sir, what is it?” and kept running after him. Then the hare stopped for a moment, and without looking back he said, “The earth here is collapsing.” And at this the second hare ran after the other. And so first one and then another hare caught sight of him running, and they joined in the chase until 100,000 hares all took flight together.
Next they were seen by a deer, a boar, an elk, a buffalo, a wild ox, a rhinoceros, a tiger, a lion and an elephant. And when they asked what it meant and were told that the earth was collapsing, they, too, took flight. So by degrees this host of animals extended to a length of six kilometers (about four miles).
When the Bodhisatta saw this headlong flight of the animals and heard the cause of it was that the earth was collapsing, he thought, “The earth is not coming to an end. Surely it must be some sound that they misunderstood. And if I don’t do something, they will all die. I will save their lives.” So with the speed of a lion he ran before them to the foot of a mountain, and he roared his lion roar three times. They were terribly frightened by the lion and stopped running, huddling all together. The lion went in among them and asked why they were running away.
“The earth is collapsing,” they answered.
“Who saw it collapsing?" he said.
"The elephants know all about it,” they replied.
He asked the elephants. “We don't know,” they said, “the lions know.”
But the lions said, “We don't know, the tigers know.”
The tigers said, “The rhinoceroses know.”
The rhinoceroses said, “The wild oxen know.”
The wild oxen, “the buffaloes.”
The buffaloes, “the elks.”
The elks, “the boars.”
The boars, “the deer.”
The deer said, "We don’t know, the hares know.”
When the hares were questioned, they pointed to one particular hare and said, “This one told us.”
So the Bodhisatta asked, "Is it true, sir, that the earth is collapsing?”
“Yes, sir, I saw it,” said the hare.
“Where,” he asked, “were you living when you saw it?”
“Near the ocean, sir, in a grove of palms mixed with vilva trees. For as I was lying beneath the shade of a palm sapling at the foot of a vilva tree, I thought, “If this earth should collapse, where will I go?” And at that very moment I heard the sound of the collapsing of the earth, and I fled.”
The lion thought, “A ripe vilva fruit must have fallen on a palm leaf and made a ‘thud,’ and this hare jumped to the conclusion that the earth was coming to an end and ran away. I will discover the truth.”
So he reassured the herd of animals and said, “I will take the hare and go find out whether the earth is coming to an end or not. Until I return, you stay here.”
Then placing the hare on his back, he sprang forward with the speed of a lion, and putting the hare down in the palm grove, he said “Come, show us the place you meant.”
“I dare not, my lord,” said the hare.
“Come, don’t be afraid,” said the lion.
The hare was too afraid to go near the vilva tree. He stood far off and cried, “Over there, sir, is the place of the dreadful sound.” And so saying, he repeated the first stanza:
From the spot where I did dwell
Issued forth a fearful “thud.”
What it was I could not tell,
Nor what caused it understood.
After hearing what the hare said, the lion went to the foot of the vilva tree. He saw the spot where the hare had been lying beneath the shade of the palm tree. He also saw the ripe vilva fruit that had fallen on the palm leaf. And having seen that the earth had not broken up, he placed the hare on his back, and with the speed of a lion went back to the herd of beasts.
Figure: The source of the dreadful sound!
Then he told them the whole story. He said, “Don't be afraid.” And having reassured the herd of beasts, he let them go.
Truly, if it had not been for the Bodhisatta at that time, all the beasts would have rushed into the sea and died. It was all because of the Bodhisatta that they escaped death.
Alarmed at sound of fallen fruit
A hare once ran away,
The other beasts all followed suit
Moved by that hare’s dismay.
They hastened not to view the scene,
But lent a willing ear
To idle gossip, and were clean,
Distraught with foolish fear.
They who to wisdom’s calm delight
And virtue’s heights attain,
Though ill example should invite,
Such panic fear disdain.
These three stanzas were inspired by Perfect Wisdom.
The Master, having ended his lesson, identified the birth: “At that time I was the lion.”
