Jataka 331
Kokālika Jātaka
The Story of Kokālika
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
The subject of this story is being overly talkative. This is the same theme as Jātaka 215.
“They that with inappropriate speech.” The Master told this story while he was at Jetavana. It is about Kokālika. The introductory story is told in full in the Takkārika Birth (Jātaka 481).
Once upon a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta was his valued minister. Now the King was very talkative. The Bodhisatta thought, “I will put an end to his talkativeness,” and he went about looking for an appropriate way in which to do this.
So one day the King went to his garden and sat down on the royal slab of stone. Above his head was a mango tree, and there in a crow’s nest a black cuckoo had laid her egg and flown off. The female crow watched over that cuckoo’s egg. By and bye a young cuckoo came out from the shell. The crow thought it was her own offspring. She took care of it, bringing food for it in her beak. The young bird—while still unfledged—uttered a cuckoo cry prematurely. The crow thought, “This young bird even now utters a strange note. What will it do when it is older?” And so she killed it by pecking it with her beak. She threw it out of the nest, and it fell at the King’s feet.
The King asked the Bodhisatta, “What is the meaning of this, my friend?” The Bodhisatta thought, “I have been looking for a way to teach the King a lesson, and now I have one.” So he said, “Garrulous folk, great King, who talk too much when it is inappropriate, meet with a fate like this. This young cuckoo, sire, being fostered by the crow, while yet unfledged, uttered a premature cry. So the crow knew it was not her offspring. She killed it by pecking it with her beak and threw it out of the nest. All those that are too talkative when it is inappropriate, be they men or beasts, suffer the same fate.” And with these words he recited these stanzas:
They that with speech inopportune offend
Like the young cuckoo meet untimely end.
Nor deadly poison, nor sharp-whetted sword
Is half so fatal as ill-spoken word.
The sage his measured words discreetly guides,
Nor rashly to his second self confides.
Before he speaks will prudent counsel take,
His foes to trap, as Garuḍa the snake.
Figure: The talkative King and his poor minister
The King, after hearing the holy teaching of the Bodhisatta, afterwards became more measured in his words. This increased the glory of the Bodhisatta even more.
The Master, having brought his lesson to an end, identified the birth: “Kokālika in those days was the young cuckoo, and I was the wise minister.”
