Jataka 475
Phandana Jātaka
The Conflict
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
Somewhat serendipitously, as I edit this story, it is Christmas. It is the time of year in which we wish for peace. This is a story about peace, or rather, what happens when there is no peace. And you don’t have to be a Buddhist to know that when two people set out to destroy each other, they will probably both be successful. “If you seek revenge, you should dig two graves.”
“O man, who stand.” The Master told this story on the bank of the Rohiṇī river. It is about a family quarrel. The circumstances will be described at large under the Kuṇāla Birth (Jātaka 536). On this occasion the Master addressed himself to the kinsmen, O King, and said:
Once upon a time, when Brahmadatta was King of Benares, there stood outside the city a village of carpenters. In it was a brahmin carpenter. He gained his livelihood by bringing wood from the forest and making carts.
At that time there was a great plassey (phandana) tree in the region of the Himalaya. A black lion used to go and lie at its root when he was hunting for food. One day a wind struck the tree. A dry branch fell and landed on his shoulder. The blow gave him great pain. Quickly he leaped up from fear and sprang away. Then—turning—he looked back on his path. And seeing nothing, he thought, “There is no other lion or tiger, nor anything in pursuit. Well, I think the deity of that tree cannot abide with my lying there. I will find out if this is so.” So thinking, he grew angry and struck the tree. He cried, “I do not eat a leaf on your tree. I do not break a single branch. You can put up with other creatures lying here, but you cannot put up with me! What is wrong with me? Wait a few days, and I will tear you out root and branch. I will chop you up piecemeal!” In this way he rebuked the deity of the tree, and then he went away in search of a man.
At that time the aforementioned brahmin carpenter, along with two or three other men, arrived in a wagon to that neighborhood in order to get wood for his cartwright trade. He left his wagon in a certain spot, and then with an axe and hatchet in hand, he went searching for trees. He happened to come near this plassey tree. The lion—seeing him—went and stood under the tree, for he thought, “today I must see the back of my enemy!” But the wright looked this way and that, then he ran away from the neighborhood of the tree. “I will speak to him before he gets quite away,” thought the lion, and he repeated the first stanza:
“O man, who stands with axe in hand, within this woodland haunt,
Come tell me true, I ask of you, what tree is it you want?”
“Lo, a miracle!” the man said on hearing this address. “I swear, I never yet saw a beast that could talk like a man. Of course he will know what kinds of wood are good for the cartwright. I’ll ask him.” So thinking, he repeated the second stanza:
“Up hill, down dale, along the plain, a king you range the wood,
Come tell me true, I ask of you—what tree for wheels is good?”
The lion listened and said to himself, “Now I will gain my heart’s desire!” Then he repeated the third stanza:
“Not sál, acacia, not mare’s-ear, much less a shrub is good,
There is a tree they call plassey, and there’s your best wheel-wood.”
(A “mare’s ear” is the Vatica Robusta, commonly called a “sal tree.” Why it is mentioned twice in this line is not clear.)
The man was pleased to hear this. He thought, “A happy day it was that brought me into the woodland. Here’s a creature in the shape of a beast to tell me what wood is good for the wheelwright! Hey, but that is so fine!” So he questioned the lion in the fourth stanza:
“What is the fashion of the leaves, what sort the trunk to see,
Come tell me true, I ask of you, that I may know that tree?”
In reply the Lion repeated two stanzas:
“This is the tree whose branch you see droop, bend, but never break.
This is the plassey, on whose roots my standing-place I take.
“For spoke or felloe, pole of car, or wheel, or any part,
This plassey tree will do for you in making of a cart.”
(A “felloe” is the outer rim of a wheel to which the spokes are attached.)
After this declaration, the lion stepped aside with joy in his heart. The wright began to fell the tree. Then the tree deity thought, “I never dropped anything on that beast. He fell into a rage, and now he is trying to destroy my home, and I too, shall, be destroyed. I must find some way of destroying his majesty.” So assuming the shape of a woodman, he went up to the wright and said to him, “Ho man! A fine tree you have there! What will you do with it when it is down?”
“Make a cart wheel.”
“What! Has anyone told you that tree is good for a cart?”
“Yes, a black lion.”
“Very good. Well said, black lion. You can make a fine cart out of that tree, so says he. But I tell you that if you peel off the skin from a black lion’s neck and put it around the outer edge of the wheel like a sheath of iron—just a strip four fingers wide—the wheel will be very strong, and you will gain a great deal by it.”
“But where can I get the skin of a black lion?”
“How stupid you are! The tree stands fast in the forest. It won’t run away. You go and find the lion who told you about this tree. Ask him in what part of the tree you are to cut and bring him here. Then while he suspects nothing and points out this place or that, wait until he sticks his jaw out. Then hit him as he speaks with your sharpest axe. Kill him, take the skin, eat the best of the flesh. Then you can fell the tree at your leisure.” In this way he indulged his wrath.
To explain this matter, the Master repeated the following stanzas:
“Thus did at once the plassey tree his will and wish make clear,
‘I, too, a message have to tell, O Bhāradvāja, hear!’
“’From shoulder of the king of beasts cut off four inches wide,
And put it round the wheel, for so more strong it will abide.’
“So in a flash the plassey tree, indulging in his ire,
On lions born and those unborn brought down destruction dire.”
The cartwright, hearing the tree deity's instructions, cried out, “Ah, this is a lucky day for me!” He killed the lion, cut down the tree, and away he went.
The Master explained the matter by reciting:
“Thus plassey tree contends with beast, and beast with tree contends,
So each with mutual dispute to death the other sends.
“So among men, where’er a feud or quarrel does arise,
They, as the beast and tree did now, cut capers peacock-wise.
“This I tell you, that all is well those times you are at one,
Be of one mind, and quarrel not, as beast and tree have done.
“Learn peace with all men. This the wise all praise, and who obtains
Right peace and righteousness, he sure will final peace attain.”
(“Peacock-wise” means that men expose themselves in a quarrel as peacocks expose their privy parts.)
Figure: “Be of one mind, and quarrel not, as beast and tree have done.”
When they heard the discourse of the King, they were reconciled.
The Master, having brought this discourse to an end, identified the birth: “At that time, I was the deity who lived in that wood and saw the whole business.”
