Jataka 455
Māti Posaka Jātaka
The Wise Eater
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
So many of these stories are simple and have a simple message. But this is what makes them so beautiful. In this story we have a kind and devoted elephant son who cares for his blind mother. And when he is kidnapped and taken to be the royal elephant for a King, the elephant refuses to eat, at which point the kind King not only returns him to his mother, he cares for both of them.
There is a small technical point to be made. If you are a monastic, you are not supposed to be taking care of your parents. But the Buddha defends the monk who is doing this, and uses it as an opportunity to teach a lesson about respect and kindness.
“Though far away.” The Master told this story while he was at Jetavana. It is about an elder who supported his mother. The circumstances of the event are like those of the Sāma Birth (Jātaka 540). On this occasion also the Master addressed the Saṇgha, saying, “Do not be angry, mendicants, with this man. There have been wise men of old who were born from the womb of animals. And being parted from their mothers, they refused to take food for seven days, pining away. And even when they were offered food fit for a king, they replied, ‘I will not eat without my mother.’ But when they once again saw their mother, they took food again.” And so saying, he told them this story from the past.
Once upon a time, when Brahmadatta reigned in Benares, the Bodhisatta was born as an elephant in the Himalaya Mountains. He was all white, a magnificent beast, and a herd of 80,000 elephants followed him. His mother was blind. He would give his elephants sweet wild fruit to take to her. But they did not give any of it to her. They ate all of it themselves. When he heard what was happening, he said, “I will leave the herd and care for my mother.” So one night, unknown to the other elephants, he took his mother with him and left for Mount Caṇḍoraṇa. There he settled his mother in a cave of the hills near by a lake, and he cared for her.
Now a certain forester who lived in Benares, lost his way. And being unable to get his bearings, he began to lament with a great noise. Hearing this noise, the Bodhisatta thought to himself, “There is a man in distress, and it is not proper that he should come to harm while I am here.” So he approached the man, but the man fled in fear. Seeing this, the elephant said to him, “Ho man! You have no need to fear me. Do not flee, but tell me why you walk about weeping?”
“My lord,” the man said, “I have lost my way, this seven days gone.”
The elephant said, “Fear not, O man, for I will show you the way back to the path of men.” Then he had the man sit on his back, he carried him out of the forest, and then he returned.
This wicked man decided to go into the city and tell the King. So he marked the trees, and he marked the hills, and then made his way to Benares. At that time the King’s state elephant had just died. The King made a proclamation by the beat of the drum: “If any man has seen an elephant fit and proper for the King’s riding, let him declare it!” Then this man went before the King and said, “I, my lord, have seen a splendid elephant. It is white all over and excellent. It is surely fit for the King’s riding. I will show the way. Just send the elephant trainers with me, and you will catch him.” The King agreed. He sent a forester and a great troop of followers with the man.
The man went with the forester. He found the Bodhisatta feeding in the lake. When the Bodhisatta saw the forester, he thought, “Some danger has doubtless come from that man. But I am very strong. I can scatter even a thousand elephants. I am able to destroy in anger all the beasts that carry the army of a whole kingdom. But if I give way to anger, my virtue will be marred. So today I will not be angry, not even if I am pierced with knives.” And with this resolve, he bowed his head and remained immovable.
The forester went down into the lotus lake, and seeing the beauty of the elephant, he said, “Come, my son!” Then seizing him by the trunk—and like a silver rope it was—he led him to Benares in seven days.
When the Bodhisatta’s mother found that her son was gone, she thought that he must have been caught by the King’s nobles. “And now,” she wailed, “all these trees will keep on growing, but he will be far away.” And she repeated two stanzas:
“Though far away this elephant should go,
Still olibane and kuṭaja will grow,
Grain, grass, and oleander, lilies white,
On sheltered spots the bluebells dark still blow.
“Somewhere that royal elephant must go,
Full fed by those whose breast and body show
Bedecked in gold, that King or Prince may ride
Fearless to triumph o’er the armored foe.”
(Olibane and kuṭaja are medicinal plants.)
Now the trainer, when he was still on his way, sent a message ahead to tell the King. The King ordered the city to be decorated. The trainer led the Bodhisatta into a stable all adorned and decked out with festoons and with garlands. And surrounding him with a screen of many colors, he sent word to the King. The King took all manner of fine food and had it given to the Bodhisatta. But he would not eat a bit of it. “Without my mother, I will eat nothing,” he said. The King begged him to eat, repeating the third stanza:
“Come, take a morsel, elephant, and never pine away.
There’s many a thing to serve your King that you will do one day.”
Hearing this, the Bodhisatta repeated the fourth stanza:
“No, she by Mount Caṇḍoraṇa, poor blind and wretched one,
Beats with a foot on some tree root, without her royal son.”
The King said the fifth stanza to ask his meaning:
“Who is by Mount Caṇḍoraṇa, what blind and wretched one,
Beats with a foot on some tree root, without her royal son?”
To which the other replied in the sixth stanza:
“My mother by Caṇḍoraṇa, ah blind, ah wretched one!
Beats with her foot on some tree root for lack of me, her son!”
And hearing this, the King set him free, reciting the seventh stanza:
“This mighty elephant, who feeds his mother, let go free,
And let him to his mother go, and to all his family.”
The eighth and ninth stanzas are those of the Buddha in his perfect wisdom:
“The elephant from prison freed, the beast set free from chain,
With words of consolation went back to the hills again.
“Then from the cool and limpid pool, where elephants do play,
He with his trunk drew water, and his mother he did spray.”
But the mother of the Bodhisatta thought it had begun to rain, and she repeated the tenth stanza, rebuking the rain:
“Who brings unseasonable rain—what evil deity?
For he is gone, my own, my son, who used to care for me.”
Figure: “Who brings unseasonable rain—what evil deity?”
Then the Bodhisatta repeated the eleventh stanza in order to reassure her:
“Rise mother! Why should you there lie? Your own, your son has come!
Vedeha, Kāsi’s glorious King, has sent me safely home.”
And she returned thanks to the King by repeating the last stanza:
“Long live that King! Long may he bring his realms prosperity,
Who freed that son who ever has shown so great respect to me!”
The King was pleased with the Bodhisatta’s kindness. He built a town not far from the lake, and he cared for the Bodhisatta and his mother. And when his mother died, the Bodhisatta performed her funeral rites, and then he went to a monastery called Karaṇḍaka. 500 wise ones lived in that place, and the King provided for them as well. The King had a stone image made in the figure of the Bodhisatta, and he paid great honor to it. And there, every year, all of the inhabitants of India gathered together to perform what was called the Elephant Festival.
When the Master ended this discourse, he taught the Four Noble Truths. At the conclusion of the teaching, the monk who supported his mother was established in the fruit of the First Path (stream-entry). Then the Master identified the birth: “At that time, Ānanda was the King, the lady Mahāmāyā was the mother elephant, and I was the elephant that fed his mother.”
(Mahāmāyā was the Buddha’s birth mother.)
