Jataka 476
Javana Haṃsa Jātaka
The Swift Goose
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
Most of the Jātaka stories are somewhat lightweight. They are simple fables with simple messages. But this Jātaka touches on two very deep, substantial issues. The main theme is how fleeting and insubstantial this life is. We think of it as being so solid. As the Buddha said, “…in my omniscience I alarm the monastics by my teaching and show how transient life’s elements are.” In the Buddhist scheme of things time is infinite, and this very life is like an atom in the universe.”
Another interesting element to this story is spontaneous rebirth. This is rebirth without a mother or a father. According to the Buddha, spontaneous rebirth is fundamental to mundane (worldly) right view:
“There is what is given, what is offered, what is sacrificed. There are fruits and results of good and bad actions. There is this world and the next world. There is mother and father. There are spontaneously reborn beings; there are contemplatives and brahmans who, faring rightly and practicing rightly, proclaim this world and the next after having directly known and realized it for themselves.” — [MN 117.7]
“Come, Goose.” The Master told this story when he was at Jetavana. It is about the Daḷḥadhamma Suttanta, or the Parable of the Strong Men. The Blessed One said, “Suppose, monks, there are four archers. They stand at the four points of the compass. They are strong men, well trained and of great skill, perfect in archery. Then let a man come and say, ‘If these four archers, strong, well trained, and of great skill, perfect in archery, shoot arrows from the four points, I will catch those arrows as they are shot and before they touch the ground.’ Would you not agree, sure enough, that he must be a very swift man and the perfection of swiftness? Well, brothers, as great as the swiftness of such a man might be, as great as the swiftness of the sun and moon, there is something swifter. Great, I say, brothers, as the swiftness of such a man might be, as great as the swiftness of the sun and moon, and though the gods outfly the sun or moon in swiftness, there is something swifter than the gods. As great, brothers, as the swiftness of that man, yet more swiftly than the gods can go, the elements that make up life decay. Therefore, brothers, you must learn this. Be mindful. Truly I say this to you. This you must learn.” Two days after this teaching, they were talking about it in the Dharma Hall. “Brothers, the Master, in his own special province as Buddha, illustrating the nature of what makes up life, shows it to be transient and weak. And this strikes the monastics and unconverted alike with extreme trepidation. Oh, the might of a Buddha!” The Master entered and asked what they were discussing. They told him. He said, “It is no marvel, monks, if in my omniscience I alarm the monastics by my teaching and show how transient life’s elements are. Even I, when I was conceived by a goose without natural cause (spontaneous rebirth), showed the transient nature of the elements of life. And by my teaching, I alarmed the whole court of a king, together with the King of Benares himself.” So saying, he told them this story from the past.
Once upon a time, when Brahmadatta was the King in Benares, the Great Being was born as a swift goose. He lived on Mount Cittakūṭa with a flock of 90,000 other geese. One day he ate the wild rice that grew in a certain pool in the plains of India along with his flock. Then he flew through the air (and it was as though a golden mat were spread from end to end of the city of Benares), and he flew playfully to Cittakūṭa. Now the King of Benares saw him, and he said to his courtiers, “That bird must be a king, as I am.” He took a fancy to the bird. And taking garlands, perfumes, and unguents with him, he went looking for the Great Being. He also took with him all manner of music. When the Great Being saw him doing honor in this way, he asked the other geese, “When a King does such honor to me, what does he want?” “He wants to make friends with you, my lord.” “Well, let me be friends with the King,” he said. So he made friends with the King, and then he returned.
One day after this, when the King was in his park, he went to Lake Anotatta. The bird flew to the King. He had water on one wing and the powder of sandalwood on the other. He sprinkled the water on the King, and he dusted the powder on him. Then while the company looked on, he flew away with his flock to Cittakūṭa. From that time on the King used to long for the Great Being. He would linger, watching the way by which he came and think, “Today my friend will come.”
Now the two youngest geese that belonged to the flock of the Great Being made up their minds to have a race with the sun. So they asked leave of the Great Being to try this race with the sun. “My lads,” he said, “the sun’s speed is swift, and you will never be able to race with him. You will perish in the effort, so do not go.” They asked him a second time and a third time, but the Bodhisatta resisted them up to the third time they asked. But they stood firm, not knowing their own strength, and they were resolved to fly with the sun without telling the King. So before sunrise they took their places on the peak of the Mount Yugandhara (One of the seven great ranges that surround Mount Meru). The Great Being missed them and asked where they had gone. When he heard what had happened, he thought, “They will never be able to outfly the sun. They will perish in their venture. I will save their lives.” So he, too, went to the peak of Yugandhara, and he sat down beside them. When the sun rose over the horizon, the young geese rose and darted forward along with the sun. The Great Being flew forward with them. The youngest one flew through the morning, but then he grew faint. He felt as if a fire had been kindled in the joints of his wings. Then he called to the Great Being, “Brother, I can’t do it!” “Fear not,” the Great Being said. “I will save you.” And hoisting him onto his outspread wings, he comforted him and carried him to Mount Cittakūṭa. There he placed him in the midst of the geese. Then he flew off, and catching up to the sun, he flew along with the other goose. That goose flew with the sun until near midday. Then he grew faint and felt as though a fire had been kindled in the joints of his wings. Calling out to the Great Being, he cried, “Brother, I cannot do it!” The Great Being comforted him the same way. Then hoisting him on his outspread wings, he carried him to Cittakūṭa.
At that moment the sun was directly overhead. The Great Being thought, “Today I will test the sun’s strength.” He darted back with one swoop, perching himself on Yugandhara. Then, rising with one swoop, he overtook the sun. And flying now in front, now behind, he thought to himself, “For me to fly with the sun is pointless. It is mere folly. What is the sun to me? I will go to Benares, and there I will give my comrade the King a message of righteousness and truth.” Then turning, before the sun had moved from the middle of the sky, he traversed the whole world from end to end. Then slowing his speed, he traveled from end to end the whole of India. He came at last to Benares. The whole city, twelve leagues in size, was as if it were under the bird’s shadow (the bird circled so fast over it as to give the appearance of a canopy). There was not a crack or a crevice in the shadow. Then as the speed slackened by degrees, holes and crevices appeared in the sky. The Great Being continued to slow down. He came down from the air and landed in front of a window. “My friend has come!” cried the King in great joy. And getting a golden seat for the bird to perch on, he said, “Come in, friend, and sit here,” and he recited the first stanza:
“Come, noble goose, come sit you here. Dear is your sight to me.
Now you are master of the place. Choose anything you see.”
The Great Being perched on the golden seat. The King anointed him under the wings with perfumes a hundred times refined, nay, a thousand times. He gave him sweet rice and sugared water in a golden dish. Then he talked to him in a voice of honey: “Good friend, you have come alone. From where did you come just now?” The bird told him the whole matter. Then the King said to him, “Friend, show me, too, your swiftness against the sun.” “O mighty King, that swiftness cannot be seen.” “Then show me something like it.” “Very well, O King, I will show you something like it. Summon your archers who can shoot swift as lightning.”
The King sent for them. The Great Being chose four of these, and with them he went down from the palace into the courtyard. There he ordered a stone column to be set up in the ground. Then he had a bell bound around his own neck. Then he perched on the top of the stone pillar, and placing the four archers looking away from the pillar towards the four points, said, “O King, let these four men shoot four arrows at the same moment in four different directions. I will catch these arrows before they touch the ground and lay them at the men’s feet. You will know when I have gone after the arrows by the tinkling of this bell, but it will not be possible to see me.” Then at the same moment the men shot the four arrows. He caught them and laid them at the men’s feet and was seen to be sitting on the pillar. “Did you see my speed, O King?” he asked. Then he went on: “That speed, O great King, is not my swiftest nor my middle speed. It is my slowest of the slow, and this will show you how swift I am.”
Then the King asked him, “Well, friend, is there any speed swifter than yours?” “There is, my friend. Swifter than my swiftest speed a hundredfold, a thousandfold, nay a hundred thousandfold, is the decay of the elements of life in living beings. They crumble away, so they are destroyed.” In this way he made clear how the world of form crumbles away, being destroyed moment by moment.
Figure: “Swifter than my swiftest speed… is the decay of the elements of life in living beings.”
When the King heard this, he was in fear of death. He could not keep his senses, but fell in a faint. The multitude were in despair. They sprinkled the King’s face with water and brought him around. Then the Great Being said to him, “O great King, fear not, but remember death. Walk in righteousness, give alms and do good, be mindful.” Then the King answered and said, “My lord, I cannot live without a wise teacher like you. Do not return to Mount Cittakūṭa. Stay here, instruct me, be my teacher!” And he put this request in two stanzas:
“By hearing of the loved one love is fed,
By sight the craving for the lost falls dead.
Since sight and hearing makes men glad and dear,
With sight of you let me be favored.
“Dear is your voice, and dearer far your presence when I see,
Then since I love the sight of you, O goose, come live with me!”
The Bodhisatta said:
“Ever would I live with you, in the honor thus conferred,
But you might say in wine one day—'Broil me that royal bird!’”
“No,” said the King. “Then I will never touch wine or strong drink.” And he made this promise in the following stanza:
“Accursed be both food and drink I should love more than thee,
And I will taste no drop nor sup while you shall stay with me!”
After this the Bodhisatta recited six stanzas:
“The cry of jackals or of birds is understood with ease,
Yes, but the word of men, O King, is darker far than these!
“A man may think, ‘this is my friend, my comrade, of my kin,’
But friendship goes, and often hate and enmity begin.
“Who has your heart, is near to you, with you, where e’er he be,
But who lives with you, and your heart estranged, afar is he.
“Who in your house of kindly heart shall be
Is kindly still though far across the sea.
Who in your house shall hostile be of heart,
Hostile he is though ocean-wide apart.
“Your foes, O lord of chariots! Though near you, are afar,
But, fosterer of your realm! The good in heart close linked are.
“Who stay too long, find oftentimes that friend is changed to foe,
Then lest I lose your friendship, I will take my leave, and go.”
Then the King said to him:
“Though I with folded hands beseech, you will not give me ear,
You spare no word for us, to whom your service would be dear.
I crave one favor: come again and pay a visit here.”
Then the Bodhisatta said:
“If nothing comes to snap our life, O King! if you and I
Still live, O fosterer of your folk! perhaps I’ll to here fly.
And we may see each other yet, as days and nights go by.”
With this address to the King, the Great Being departed to Cittakūṭa.
When the Master had ended this discourse, he said, “So, companions, long ago, even when I was born as one of the animals, I showed the frailty of all life’s elements and declared the Dharma.” So saying, he identified the birth: “At that time Ānanda was the King, Moggallāna was the youngest bird, Sāriputta was the second bird, the Buddha’s followers were all the geese of the flock, and I was the swift goose.”
