Jataka 335
Jambuka Jātaka
The Jackal (again!)
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 might be called “Know your limits,” or “Stay in your own lane.”
“Jackal beware.” The Master told this story while dwelling in the Bamboo Grove (Veluvana). It is about the attempt of Devadatta to imitate the Buddha. The incident that gave rise to the story has been told in full before (Jātaka 204). Here is a short summary of it.
When the Master asked Sāriputta what Devadatta did when he saw him, the Elder replied, “Sir, in imitating you he put a fan in my hand and lay down, and then Kokālika struck him on the breast with his knee. And so in imitating you, he got into trouble.” The Master said, “This happened to Devadatta before,” and being pressed by the Elder, he told this story from the past.
Once upon a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta was born as a young lion. He lived in a cave in the Himālaya Mountains. One day—after killing a buffalo and eating of its flesh—he took a drink of water and then returned home. A jackal saw him, and being unable to escape, he lay down on his belly.
The lion said, “What is the meaning of this, Mr. Jackal?”
“Sir,” he said, “I want be your servant.”
The lion said, “Well, come on then.” He took him to the place where he lived. Every day he brought the jackal meat and fed him. When the jackal had grown fat on the lion’s leftover meat, a feeling of pride grew in him. So he drew near to the lion and said, “My lord, I am a burden to you. You constantly bring me meat and feed me. Today, you remain here. I will go and kill an elephant, and after eating my fill, I will bring some meat to you.” The lion said, “Friend jackal, do not let this seem like a good idea to you. You are not born from a species that feeds on the flesh of the elephants that it kills. I will kill an elephant and bring its flesh to you. The elephant surely has a large body. Do not undertake what is contrary to your nature, but listen to my words.” And then he spoke the first stanza:
Jackal, beware!
His tusks are long.
One of your puny race
Would scarcely dare
So huge and strong
A beast as this to face.
But even though he was warned by the lion, the jackal went out from the cave. Three times he uttered the cry of a jackal. And looking out from the base of the mountain, he saw a black elephant moving below. Thinking that he would leap on his head, he sprang up, and turning over in the air, he fell at the elephant’s feet. The elephant lifted up his forefoot and planted it on the jackal’s head, smashing his skull to pieces. The jackal lay there groaning, and the elephant went off trumpeting.
Figure: A little too cocky
The Bodhisatta came and stood at the top of the precipice. He saw how the jackal had met his death and said, “Through his pride this jackal was killed,” and he uttered three stanzas:
A jackal once assumed the lion’s pride,
And elephant as equal foe defied.
Prone on the earth, while groans his bosom rent,
He learned the rash encounter to repent.
Who thus should challenge one of peerless fame,
Nor mark the vigor of his well-knit frame,
Shares the sad fate that on the jackal came.
But who the measure of his own power knows,
And nice discretion in his language shows,
True to his duty lives and triumphs over his foes.
In this way the Bodhisatta declared in these stanzas the duties that are properly done in this world.
The Master, having ended his lesson, identified the birth: “At that time Devadatta was the jackal, and I was the lion.”
