Jataka 327
Kākāti Jātaka
The Story of Kākāti
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 curious tale that reads more like something from Indian mythology than a Buddhist story. In it a Garuḍa (a heavenly bird) King steals a human King’s Queen. The King then instructs one of his musicians to go find her. The musician finds her by hiding in the Garuḍa’s feathers when it flies to where the Queen is kept. But in a twist of fate, the musician has an affair with the Queen. When the Garuḍa King discovers the deceit, he returns the Queen to her King.
“Fragrant odors.” The Master told this story while he was living at Jetavana. It is about a certain monk who regretted having ordained. On this occasion the Master asked the monk if it were true that he was discontented. He replied, “Yes, holy sir,” and the Master asked him the reason why. The monk replied, “Because of sensual desire.” The Master said, “A woman cannot be guarded. There is no keeping her safe. Sages of old placed a woman in mid-ocean in a palace by the Simbalī Lake but still failed to preserve her honor.” (Simbali Lake is on the mythical Mount Meru. The Garuḍas live around it.) Then he told them this story from the past.
Once upon a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta was reborn as the son of the King by his Queen Consort. And when he had grown up, at his father’s death he assumed rule. Kākāti was his chief Queen. She was as lovely as an Apsara (one of the celestial singers and dancers who, together with the gandhabbas, or celestial musicians, inhabit the heaven of the god Indra, the lord of the heavens). The old form of the legend will be found in the Kunāḷa Birth (Jātaka536). Here is a brief summary of it.
Now at this time a certain Garuḍa King arrived disguised as a man. He played at dice with the King of Benares. He fell in love with the chief Queen Kākāti. He carried her off to the dwelling place of the Garuḍas and lived happily with her. The King missed her, and he told a musician named Naṭakuvera to go in search of her.
He found the Garuḍa King lying on a bed of eraka grass (a hard dune grass) in a certain lake. And just as the Garuḍa was about to leave, he climbed into the royal bird’s feathers. In this way he traveled to the dwelling place of the Garuḍas. There he enjoyed the lady’s favors, and again seating himself on the bird’s wing, he returned home.
When the time came for the Garuḍa to play at dice with the King, the minstrel took his lute and went up to the gaming board. He stood before the King, and in the form of a song gave utterance to the first stanza:
Fragrant odors round me playing
Breath of fair Kākāti’s love,
From her distant home conveying
Thoughts my inmost soul to move.
On hearing this the Garuḍa responded in a second stanza:
Sea and Kebuk stream defying
Did you reach my island home?
Over seven oceans flying
To the Simbal grove did come?
(Kebuk stream may refer to an actual stream in Nepal. A “Simbal” tree is a cottonwood tree.)
Naṭakuvera, on hearing this, uttered the third stanza:
’Twas through all your space defying
I was borne to Simbal grove,
And o’er seas and rivers flying
’Twas through you I found my love.
Figure: “‘Twas through all your space defying…”
Then the Garuḍa King replied in the fourth stanza:
Out upon the foolish blunder,
Oh how foolish I have been!
Lovers best were kept asunder,
Lo! I’ve served as go-between.
So the Garuḍa brought the Queen and gave her back to the King of Benares, and he did not go there anymore.
The Master, his lesson ended, taught the Four Noble Truths. At the conclusion of the teaching the discontented monk attained stream entry. Then the Master identified the birth: “At that time the discontented monk was Naṭakuvera, and I was the King.”
