Jataka 446
Takkaḷa Jātaka
The Wise Boy
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 lovely twist in this story is that a young boy admonishes both of his parents and prevents them from doing a terrible misdeed.
“No bulbs are here.” The Master told this story at Jetavana. It is about a layman who supported his father.
This man—we learn—was re-born into a needy family. After his mother’s death, he used to rise up early in the morning and prepare the tooth-twigs and water for cleansing the mouth. Then—by working for hire or ploughing in the fields—he used to procure rice gruel. And in this way he fed his father in a manner suiting his station in life.
One day his father said to him, “My son, whatever work is to be done indoors and out you do by yourself. Let me find you a wife, and she can do the household work for you.” “Father,” he said, “if someone else comes into the house, they will bring no peace of mind for me or for you. Pray do not dream of such a thing! While you live, I will support you, and when you pass away, I will know what to do.”
But the father sent for a woman to be his wife much against his son’s wishes. And she looked after her husband and his father. But she was an untrustworthy person. Now her husband was pleased with her for attending to his father. Whatever he could find to please her, he brought and gave to her. Then she would present it to her father-in-law. But there came a time when the woman thought, “Whatever my husband gets, he gives to me, but he gives nothing to his father. It is clear that he cares nothing for his father. I must find some way of setting the old man at odds with my husband, and then I will get him out of the house.”
So from that time on she began to make the water too cold or too hot for him, and she salted the food too much or not at all, and she served the rice all hard or else soaking wet, and in this way she did all she could to provoke him. Then, when he grew angry, she scolded him: “Who can wait on an old creature like this!” she said, and she stirred up strife in the household. She would spit all over the ground, and then stir up her husband—"Look there!” she would say. “That’s your father’s doing! I am constantly begging him not to do this and that, and he only gets angry. Either your father must leave this house, or I will!” Then the husband answered, “Lady, you are young, and you can live wherever you want. But my father is an old man. If you don’t like him, you can leave this house.” This frightened her. She fell at the old man’s feet and begged his pardon. She promised not to mistreat him anymore and began to care for him as before.
The worthy layman was so worried at first by these disturbances that he stopped visiting the Master to hear his discourses. But when she started behaving herself again, he went. The Master asked why he had not been to hear his teaching for the past seven or eight days. The man told him what had happened. “This time,” the Master said, “you refused to listen to her and to turn out your father. But in former times you did as she asked. You took him to a cemetery and dug a pit for him. At the time when you were about to kill him, I was a seven-year-old, and by recounting the goodness of parents, I held you back from patricide. At that time you listened to me, and by tending to your father while he lived, you became destined for heaven. I admonished you then and warned you not to forsake him when you should be reborn into another life. For this reason you have now refused to do as the woman asked, and your father has not been killed.” So saying, at the man’s request, he told him this story from the past.
Once upon a time, when Brahmadatta was the King of Benares, there was an only son named Vasiṭṭhaka in a family of a certain village of Kāsi. This man supported his parents, and after his mother’s death, he supported his father as has been described in the introduction. But there is this difference. When the woman said, “Look there! That is your father’s doing! I am constantly begging him not to do this and that, and he only gets angry! My lord, your father is fierce and violent. He is forever picking quarrels. A decrepit old man like that, tormented with disease, is bound to die soon, and I can’t live in the same house with him. He will die by himself before many days are over. Take him to a cemetery, dig a pit, and throw him in and break his head with the shovel. And when he is dead, shovel the earth on top of him and leave him there.” He said, “Wife, killing a man is a serious matter. How can I do that?” “I will tell you a way,” she said. “Go on, then.” “Well, my lord, at the break of day, go to the place where your father sleeps. Tell him very loudly so that all may hear that a debtor of his is in a certain village. Say that you went and he would not pay you, and that if he dies, the man will never pay at all. And say that you will both drive there together in the morning. Then at the appointed time get up, harness the animals onto the cart, and take him to the cemetery. When you get there, bury him in a pit and make a noise as if you have been robbed. Then wound and wash your head, and return.” “Yes, that plan will do,” Vasiṭṭhaka said. He agreed to her proposal and got the cart ready for the journey.
Now the man had a son, a lad of seven years, and he was wise and clever. The boy overheard what his mother said. “My mother,” he thought, “is a wicked woman. She is trying to persuade my father to murder his father. I will prevent my father from committing this murder.” He ran quickly and lay down beside his grandfather. Vasiṭṭhaka, at the time suggested by the wife, prepared the cart. “Come, father, let us get that debt!” he said. He placed his father in the cart. But the boy got in first. Vasiṭṭhaka could not prevent him, so he took him to the cemetery with them. Then, placing his father and his son together in a remote spot with the cart, he got down, took the shovel and basket, and began to dig a square hole in a spot where he was hidden from them. The boy got down and followed him, and acting as though he was ignorant about what was going to happen, he started a conversation by repeating the first stanza:
“No bulbs are here, no herbs for cooking meat,
No catmint, nor no other plant to eat.
Then father, why this pit, if need be none,
Delve in Death’s acre in the woods alone?”
Then his father answered by repeating the second stanza:
“Your grandfather, son, is weak and old,
Oppressed by pain from ailments manifold.
I will bury him in a pit today,
In such a life I could not wish him stay.”
Hearing this, the boy answered by repeating a half-stanza:
“You have done wickedly in wishing this,
And for the deed, a cruel deed it is.”
With these words, he took the spade from his father’s hands, and began to dig another pit nearby.
His father approaching him and asked why he dug that pit. He replied by finishing the third stanza:
“I, too, when you are aged, father mine,
Will treat my father as you do treat thine.
Following the custom of the family
Deep in a pit I, too, will bury thee."
To this the father replied by repeating the fourth stanza:
“What a harsh saying for a boy to say,
And to upbraid a father in this way!
To think that my own son should rail at me,
And to his truest friend unkind should be!”
When the father had spoken, the wise boy recited three stanzas, one by way of answer, and two as a holy hymn:
“I am not harsh, my father, nor unkind,
No, I regard you with a friendly mind.
But this you do, this act of woe, your son
Will have no strength to undo again, once done.
“Whoso, Vasiṭṭha, hurts with ill intent
His mother or his father, innocent,
He, when the body is dissolved, shall be
In hell for his next life undoubtedly.
“Whoso with meat and drink, Vasiṭṭha, shall
His mother or his father feed withal,
He, when the body is dissolved, shall be
In heaven for his next life undoubtedly.”
The father, after hearing his son’s discourse, repeated the eighth stanza:
“You are no heartless ingrate, son, I see,
But kindly-hearted, O my son, to me.
Twas in obedience to your mother’s word
I thought to do this horrid deed abhorred.”
When he heard this the lad said, “Father, when someone does a wrong and they are not rebuked, they commit the same misdeeds again and again. You must admonish my mother so that she will never again do a deed such as this.” And he repeated the ninth stanza:
“That wife of yours, that ill-conditioned dame,
My mother, she that brought me forth—that same,
Let us from out our dwelling far expel,
Lest she work other woe on you as well.”
Hearing the words of his wise son, Vasiṭṭhaka was pleased. He said, “Let us go, my son!” and he seated himself in the cart with his son and father.
Now the wicked woman, too, was happy at heart, for she thought that this ill-luck was out of the house now. She plastered the place with wet cow dung and cooked a pot of rice porridge. But as she sat watching the road by which they would return, she saw them coming. “There he is, back with old ill-luck again!” she thought angrily. “Fie, good-for-nothing!” she cried, “what, you bring back the ill-luck you took away with you!” Vasiṭṭhaka did not say a word but simply unyoked the cart.
Then he said, “Wretch, what is that you say?” He gave her a sound beating, then he threw her head over heels out of doors, telling her to never darken his door again. Then he bathed his father and his son and took a bath himself. The three of them ate the rice porridge. The wicked woman lived for a few days in another house.
Then the son said to his father, “Father, despite all this my mother does not understand her misconduct. Now let us try to provoke her. You say that in a certain village a niece of yours lives who will attend on your father and your son and you and that you will go and fetch her. Then take flowers and perfumes, get into your cart, and ride about the country all day. Return in the evening.” And this he did. The women in the neighbor’s family told his wife, “Have you heard? They say that your husband has gone to get another wife?” “Ah, then I am undone!” she said, “and there is no place for me left!” But she went to her son. She fell at his feet, crying—“Save me! I have no other refuge! From now on I will tend to your father and grandfather as I would tend a beautiful shrine! Welcome me back into this house once more!” “Yes, mother,” replied the lad. “If you no longer act as you did, I will. Be of good cheer!” And when his father arrived home, he repeated the tenth stanza:
“That wife of yours, that ill-conditioned dame,
My mother, she that brought me forth,—that same,—
Like a tamed elephant, in full control,
Let her return again, misguided soul.”
Figure: “Save me! I have no other refuge!”
This he said to his father. Then he went and summoned his mother. Now reconciled to her husband and her husband’s father, she had learned her lesson. And now imbued with righteousness, she watched over her husband and his father and her son. And these two steadfastly followed their son’s advice. They gave alms and did good deeds and became destined to join the hosts of heaven.
The Master, having ended this discourse, taught the Four Noble Truths. At the conclusion of the teaching, the dutiful son was established in the fruit of the First Path (stream-entry). Then the Master identified the birth: “At that time the father and son and daughter-in-law were the same as they are now, and I was the wise boy.”
