Jataka 399
Gijjha Jātaka
The Vulture
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 touching little story in which a hunter shows compassion for a vulture who cares for his parents.
“How will the old folks?” The Master told this story when he was living at Jetavana. It is about a monk who supported his mother.
Once upon a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta was born as a vulture. When he grew up, he put his parents—now old and dim of eye—in a vulture’s cave. He fed them by bringing the flesh of cows and the like.
At the time there was a hunter who laid snares for vultures all around a Benares cemetery. One day the Bodhisatta was looking for flesh. He went to the cemetery and caught his foot in the snares. He did not think of himself but only thought of his old parents. “How will my parents live now? I think they will die, not knowing that I have been caught, helpless and destitute, while they waste away in that hill cave.” And so lamenting, he spoke the first stanza:
How will the old folks manage now within the mountain cave?
For I am fastened in a snare, cruel Nilīya’s slave.
(It is unclear who Nilīya was.)
The hunter, hearing him lament, spoke the second stanza. The vulture spoke the third, and so on alternately:
Vulture, what strange laments of yours are these my ears that reach?
I never heard or saw a bird that uttered human speech.
I tend my aged parents within a mountain cave,
How will the old folks manage now that I’ve become your slave?
Carrion a vulture sights across a hundred leagues of land,
Why do you fail to see a snare and net so close at hand?
When ruin comes upon a man, and fates his death demand,
He fails to see a snare or net although so close at hand.
Go, tend your aged parents within their mountain cave,
Go, visit them in peace, you have from me the leave you crave.
O hunter, happiness be yours, with all your kith and kin,
I’ll tend my aged parents their mountain cave within.
Figure: “What strange laments of yours are these?”
Then the Bodhisatta, freed from the fear of death, joyfully gave thanks. And speaking a final stanza, he took his mouthful of meat and went away and gave it to his parents.
After the lesson, the Master taught the Four Noble Truths. After the teaching, the monk attained stream-entry. Then the Master identified the Birth: “At that time, the hunter was Channa, the parents were the King family, and I was the vulture king.”
(Channa was the Buddha’s charioteer when he was a lay person, and Channa later ordained as a monk.)
