Jataka 342
Vānara Jātaka
The Monkey
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 essentially the same story as Jātaka 208.
I don’t know what the average intelligence of a crocodile is, but this one won’t be invited to Mensa meetings any time soon.
“Have I from water.” The Master told this story when he was living in the Bamboo Grove (Veluvana). It is about concerning Devadatta going to kill the Buddha. The incident that led to the story has been already given in detail.
Once upon a time when Brahmadatta reigned in Benares, the Bodhisatta came to life as a young monkey in the Himālaya region. When he was fully grown, he lived on the banks of the Ganges. Now a certain female crocodile in the Ganges conceived a longing for the flesh of the Bodhisatta’s heart. She told this to her husband. He thought, “I will kill the Bodhisatta by plunging him in the water, and I will take his heart’s flesh and give it to my wife.” So he said to the Bodhisatta, “Come, my friend. We will go and eat wild fruits on a certain island.”
“How shall I get there?” he said.
“I will put you on my back and bring you there,” answered the crocodile.
Innocent of the crocodile’s purpose, he jumped on his back and sat there. The crocodile after swimming a little way began to dive. Then the monkey said, “Why, sir, do you plunge me into the water?”
“I am going to kill you,” said the crocodile, “and give your heart’s flesh to my wife.”
“Foolish fellow,” he said. “Do you suppose my heart is inside me?”
“Then where have you put it?” asked the crocodile.
“Don’t you see it hanging there on that fig tree?”
“I see it,” said the crocodile. “But will you give it me?”
“Yes, I will,” said the monkey.
Then the foolish crocodile took the monkey and swam to the foot of the fig tree on the river bank. The Bodhisatta sprang from the crocodile’s back. Then he perched on the fig tree and repeated these stanzas:
Have I from water, fish, to dry land passed
Only to fall into your power at last?
Of bread fruit and rose apples I am sick,
And rather figs than yonder mangoes pick.
He that to great occasion fails to rise
’Neath foeman’s feet in sorrow prostrate lies.
One prompt a crisis in his fate to know
Needs never dread oppression from his foe.
Figure: The foolish crocodile
Thus did the Bodhisatta in these four stanzas tell how to succeed in worldly affairs, and then he disappeared into the thicket of trees.
The Master, having brought his lesson to an end, identified the birth: “At that time Devadatta was the crocodile, and I was the monkey.”
