Jataka 325
Godha Jātaka
The Lizard
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 is nearly identical to Jātaka 138, although Jātaka 138 has more detail.
“One that plays.” The Master told this story while he was living at Jetavana. It is about a certain cheating rogue. The introductory story has been already given in full. But on this occasion they brought the monk to the Master and exposed him, saying, “Holy sir, this brother is a scoundrel.” The Master said, “Not now only, but formerly he also was a scoundrel.” And then he told them this story from the past.
Once upon a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta was reborn as a young lizard. And when he grew up and was lusty and strong, he lived in a forest. A certain wicked ascetic built a hut of leaves and took up his residence near him. The Bodhisatta, in ranging about for food, saw this hut of leaves and thought to himself, “This hut must certainly belong to some holy ascetic.” He went there, and after saluting the holy man, he returned to his own place of living.
Now one day this false ascetic ate some savory food that had been prepared in the house of one of his benefactors. He asked what kind of meat it was. On hearing that it was lizard flesh, he became such a slave to his love of it that he thought, “I will kill this lizard that keeps coming to my hermitage, and I will cook him to my taste and eat him.” So he took some ghee, curds, condiments, and the like, and he went with a club concealed under his yellow robe. Then he sat perfectly still at the door of his hut, waiting for the Bodhisatta to come, as quiet as quiet could be.
And when the Bodhisatta saw this depraved fellow he thought, “This wretch must have been eating the flesh of my kinsfolk. I will put him to the test.” So he stood to the leeward of him, and once he smelled him he knew that he had been eating the flesh of a lizard. So without getting too near to him, he turned back and made off.
The ascetic saw he was running away, so he threw his club at him. The club missed the lizard’s body, but it just nipped the tip of his tail. The ascetic said, “Be off with you. I missed you.” The Bodhisatta said, “Yes, you have missed me, but you will not miss the fourfold states of suffering” (birth, old age, sickness, and death).
Figure: The false ascetic
Then he ran off and disappeared into an ant-hill which stood at the end of the walking path. And putting out his head, he addressed the ascetic in these two stanzas:
One that plays the ascetic role
Should exhibit self-control.
You did hurl your stick at me,
False ascetic you must be.
Matted locks and robe of skin
Serve to cloke some secret sin.
Fool! to cleanse for outward show,
Leaving what is foul below.
The ascetic, on hearing this, replied in a third stanza:
Go now, lizard, hasten back,
Oil and salt I do not lack,
Pepper, too, I would suggest
May to boiled rice add a zest.
The Bodhisatta, on hearing this, uttered the fourth stanza:
I will hide me snug and warm
Amid the anthill’s myriad swarm.
Cease your talk of salt and oil,
And from pepper I recoil.
Moreover he threatened him and said, “Fie! False ascetic. If you continue to live here, I will have you seized as a thief by the people who live in my feeding ground, and I will have you destroyed. So make haste and be off.” Then the false ascetic fled from that place.
The Master, his lesson ended, identified the birth: “At that time the rogue of a monk was the false ascetic, but I was the noble lizard.”
