Jataka 324
Cammasāṭaka Jātaka
The Leather Coat
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 is a cautionary tale about a belligerent ram. Don’t let this happen to you.
“The kindly beast.” The Master told this story while he was living at Jetavana. It is about a spiritual seeker who wore a leather jacket. Both his upper and under garment, it is said, were of leather. One day when he was leaving the monastery, he went on his alms rounds in Sāvatthi. He came to the battle ground of the rams. A ram saw him and drew back, desiring to butt him. The seeker thought, “He is doing this as an act of respect for me,” and he did not draw back. The ram came at him with a rush. He struck him on the thigh and he fell to the ground, dead.
This case of mistaken respect was spread abroad in the Saṇgha of the monks. They discussed the matter in the Dharma Hall, as to how the leather-coated seeker fancied he was being saluted and met with his death. The Master came and asked about the subject of their discussion. On being told what it was said, “Not now only, monks, but in the past, too, this wanderer imagined he was being saluted and so came by his death.” And he then he told them this story from the past.
Once upon a time the Bodhisatta was born into a merchant family, and he plied that trade. At that time a certain religious seeker, clad in a leather garment, was going on his rounds for alms. He came to the rams’ fighting ground. And on seeing a ram falling back before him, he thought he did this as a mark of respect. So he did not pull back. “In the whole world,” he thought, “this ram alone recognizes my merits.” So he raised his joined hands in respectful salutation and repeated the first stanza:
The kindly beast obeisance makes before
The high-caste brahmin versed in holy lore.
Good honest creature thou,
Famous above all other beasts, I vow!
At this moment a wise merchant was sitting in his store. He attempted to restrain the seeker by uttering the second stanza:
Brahmin, be not so rash this beast to trust,
Else will he haste to lay you in the dust,
For this the ram falls back,
To gain an impetus for his attack.
While this wise merchant was still speaking, the ram came on at full speed. He struck the seeker on the thigh, knocked him down. He was overcome with the pain, and as he lay there groaning, the Master, to explain the incident, uttered to the third stanza:
With broken leg and bowl for alms upset,
His damaged fortune he will sore regret.
Let him not weep with outstretched arms in vain,
Haste to the rescue, where the priest is slain.
Figure: Forever the butt of jokes…
Then the seeker repeated the fourth stanza:
Thus all that honor to the unworthy pay,
Share the same fate that I have met today.
Prone in the dust by butting ram laid low
To foolish confidence my death I owe.
Thus lamenting, he then and there came to his death.
The Master, his lesson ended, then identified the birth: “The man in the leather coat of today was the same then as now. And I was the wise merchant.”
