Jataka 389
Suvaṇṇakakkaṭa Jātaka
The Golden Crab
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
In the last few stories we have had a series of animals who behave in virtuous ways. In this story we have some of both. Our hero is a gold crab. But the Bodhisatta is attacked by an evil snake and an equally evil crow. Fortunately for the Bodhisatta, the crab is wise and skillful, and he outwits the snake and crow.
“Gold-clawed creature.” The Master told this story while he was living at the Bamboo Grove. It is about how Ānanda gave his life for the Bodhisatta. The occasion is told in the Khaṇḍahāla Jātaka (Jātaka 542) about the hiring of bowmen, and in the Cullahaṃsa Jātaka (Jātaka 533) about the roar of the elephant Dhanapāla. (Dhanapāli was also known as “Nalagairi.” This was the elephant that Devadatta tried to use to kill the Buddha.) Then they began a discussion in the Dharma Hall. “Sirs, did the Elder Ānanda, Guardian of the Dharma, who attained all the wisdom possible to one still under discipline, give his life for the Perfect Buddha when Dhanapāla came?” The Master arrived and was told the subject of their discussion. He said, “Brothers, in former times Ānanda gave up his life for me.” And so he told them this story from the past.
Once upon a time, there was a brahmin village called Sālindiya on the east side of Rājagaha. The Bodhisatta was born there into a brahmin farmer’s family. When he grew up, he settled down and worked a farm of a thousand karīsas (about 8,000 acres) in a district of Magadha to the northeast of the village.
One day he went to the field with his men. He gave them orders to plough, and then he went to a great pool at the end of the field to wash his face. In that pool there lived a crab of golden hue. It was beautiful and charming. The Bodhisatta—having chewed his toothpick—went down into the pool. When he was washing his mouth, the crab came near to him. He lifted up the crab and laid it onto his outer garment. And after doing his work in the field, he put the crab back again into the pool and went home.
From that time on, whenever he went to the field, he always went to that pool first. He would lay the crab in his outer garment and then go about his work. So a strong feeling of goodwill arose between them. The Bodhisatta went to the field regularly.
Now in his eyes you could see the five moral Precepts and the three refuges. This made them very radiant. There was a female crow in a nest on a palm in a corner of the field. When she saw his eyes, she wanted to eat them. She said to the male crow, “Husband, I have a longing.” “A longing for what?” “I want to eat the eyes of a certain brahmin.” “Your longing is a bad one. Who will be able to get them for you!” “I know that you can’t. But in the anthill near our tree there lives a black snake. Wait for him. He will bite the brahmin and kill him, then you will tear out his eyes and bring them to me.” He agreed, and he sought out the black snake.
By the time that the seed sown by the Bodhisatta was sprouting, the crab had grown very large. One day the snake said to the crow, “Friend, you are always waiting for me. What can I do for you?” “Sir, my wife longs for the eyes of the master of this field. I have been waiting on you in hopes of getting his eyes through your favor.” The snake said, “Well, that is not difficult. You will get them.”
On the next day the snake lay waiting for the brahmin’s arrival. He hid in the grass by the boundary of the field. The Bodhisatta arrived by the pool, and—washing his mouth—he felt affection for the crab. Embracing it, he laid it in his outer garment, and then he went to the field. The snake saw him come. He rushing forward and bit him in the flesh of the calf. And having made him fall on the spot, he fled back to his anthill.
The fall of the Bodhisatta, the spring of the golden crab from the garment, and the perching of the crow on the Bodhisatta’s breast occurred almost simultaneously. The crow stuck his beak into the Bodhisatta’s eyes. The crab thought, “It was because of this crow that danger has come to my friend. If I seize him, the snake will return.” So he seized the crow by the neck with its claw firmly, as if in a vice. The crow became weary, and then the crab loosened his grip a little. This allowed the crow to call out to the snake. “Friend, why do you forsake me and run away? This crab troubles me. Come help me or I will die.” And then he spoke the first stanza:
Gold-clawed creature with projecting eyes,
Pool-bred, hairless, clad in bony shell,
He has caught me. Hear my woeful cries!
Why do you leave a friend that loves you well?
The snake heard him. He made its hood large and went to help the crow.
The Master then explained the case in his Perfect Wisdom, speaking the second stanza:
The snake fell on the crab at once. His friend he'd not forsake.
Puffing his mighty hood he came, but the crab turned on the snake.
The crab grew weary, and so he loosened his grip a little more. The snake thought, “Crabs do not eat crows or snakes. Why does he seize us?” In confusion, he spoke the third stanza:
’Tis not for the sake of food
Crabs would seize a snake or crow.
Tell me, you whose eyes protrude,
Why you take and grip us so?
Hearing him, the crab explained the reason in two stanzas:
This man took me from the pool,
Great the kindness he has done,
If he dies, my grief is full,
Serpent, he and I are one.
Seeing I have grown so great
All would kill me willingly,
Fat and sweet and delicate,
Crows at sight would injure me!
Figure: The Loyal crab
Hearing him, the snake thought, “I must trick him by some means and free myself and the crow.” So in order to trick him he spoke the sixth stanza:
If you have seized us only for his sake,
I’ll take the poison from him. Let him rise.
Quick! From the crow and me your pincers take,
Till then the poison’s sinking deep, he dies.
When he heard this the crab thought, “This one wants me to let them go so they can run away. He does not know my skill. I will loosen my claw so that the snake can move, but I will not free the crow.” Then he spoke the seventh stanza:
I’ll free the snake, but not the crow.
The crow shall be a hostage bound.
Never shall I let him go
Till my friend be safe and sound.
So saying he loosened his claw to let the snake go. The snake took away the poison so that the Bodhisatta’s body was free from it. He rose up looking well, and he stood in his natural hue. The crab thought, “If these two are left alive, there will be no safety for my friend. I will kill them.” And he crushed both their heads like lotus buds with his claws and took their lives. After that the female crow fled from that place. The Bodhisatta spiked the snake’s body with a stick and threw it on a bush. Then he let the golden crab go free in the pool, bathed himself, and then returned to Sālindiya. And from that time on, the friendship between him and the crab was even greater than before.
The lesson ended, the Master taught the Four Noble Truths, and identifying the birth, he spoke the last stanza:
“Māra, was the dusky serpent, Devadatta was the crow,
Good Ānanda was the crab, and I the brahmin long ago.”
At the end of the teaching, many attained stream-entry as well as higher attainments. The female crow was Cińcamānavikā, though this is not mentioned in the last stanza.
(Cińcamānavikā was employed by heretics to discredit the Buddha. Māra is the devil, more or less, in the Buddhist cosmology. And of course, Devadatta is the former monk who tried to kill the Buddha.)
