Takkāriya Jātaka

Once upon a time, when Brahmadatta was the King of Benares, his chaplain was tawny-brown, and he had lost all his teeth. His wife had an affair with another brahmin. This man looked just like the other. The chaplain tried time and time again to restrain his wife, but he could not. Then he thought, “I cannot kill this my enemy with my own hands, but I must come up with some plan to kill him.”

So he went before the King. He said, “O King, your city is the greatest city in all of India, and you are the greatest King. But even though you are the greatest King, the southern gate of the city is unlucky, and it is poorly constructed.” “Well now, my teacher, what should we do?” “You must bring good luck to it and set it right.” “How should we do this?” “We must pull down the old door, get new and lucky timbers, perform a sacrifice to the beings that guard the city, and set up the new gate on a lucky conjunction of the stars.” “Do so, then,” said the King.

At that time, the Bodhisatta was a young man named Takkāriya. He was studying under this man.

Now the chaplain ordered that the old gate be pulled down, and a new one was prepared. When that was done, he went and said to the King, “The gate is ready, my lord. Tomorrow is an auspicious conjunction. Before the day is over, we must perform the sacrifice and set up the new gate.” “Very well, my teacher. And what is necessary for this ritual?” “My lord, a great gate is possessed and guarded by great spirits. A brahmin, tawny-brown and toothless, of pure blood on both sides, must be killed. His flesh and blood must be offered in worship. His body must be laid beneath, and the gate raised up on it. This will bring luck to you and your city.” “Very well, my teacher, have such a brahmin slain, and set the gate up on him.”

The chaplain was delighted. “Tomorrow,” he said, “I will see the back of my enemy!” Full of energy he returned to his home. But he could not keep a still tongue in his head. He said to his wife, “Ah, you foul hag, with whom will you take your pleasure now? Tomorrow I will kill your lover and make a sacrifice of him!” “Why would you kill an innocent man?” “The King has commanded me to slay and sacrifice a tawny-brown brahmin, and to set up the city gate on him. Your lover is tawny-brown, and I mean to kill him for the sacrifice.”

So she sent her paramour a message, saying, “They say the King wants to kill a tawny-brown brahmin in sacrifice. If you want to save your life, flee away at once, and take with you anyone who looks like you.” So the man did. The news spread all over the city, and all those in the city who were tawny-brown fled away.

The chaplain, unaware of his enemy’s flight, went early on the next morning to the King. He said, “My lord, there is a tawny-brown brahmin to be found in a certain place. Have him taken.” The King sent some men for him, but they saw no one. And returning they informed the King that he had fled away. “Search elsewhere,” said the King. They searched all over the city, but they found no one. “Search quickly!” said the King. “My lord,” they replied, “except for your chaplain, there is no one else like that.” “A chaplain,” he said, “cannot be killed. “What do you want to do, my lord? According to the chaplain, if the gate is not set up today, the city will be in danger. When the chaplain explained the matter, he said that if we let this day go by, the auspicious moment will not come again until the end of a year. The city would be without a gate for a year. What a chance for our enemies! Let us kill someone and perform the sacrifice with some other wise brahmin. Then we can set up the gate.” “But is there another wise brahmin like my teacher?” “There is, my lord, his pupil. He is a young man named Takkāriya. Make him your chaplain and do the lucky ceremony.”

The King sent for him and paid honor to him. The King made him chaplain and commanded him to do as had been prescribed. The young man went to the gate with a great crowd following behind. In the King’s name they bound and brought the chaplain. The Great Being caused a pit to be dug in the place where the gate was to be set up and a tent to be placed over it. Along with his teacher, he entered into the tent. The teacher saw the pit, and seeing no escape, he said to the Great Being, “My aim had succeeded. Fool that I was, I could not keep a still tongue, but hastily I told that wicked woman. I have slain myself with my own weapon.” Then he recited the first stanza:

“I spoke in folly, as a frog might call

Upon a snake in the forest, so I fall

Into this pit, Takkāriyā. How true,

Words spoken out of season one must rue!”

Then the other addressing him, recited this stanza:

“The man who out of season speaks, will go

Like this to ruin, lamentation, woe.

Here you should blame yourself, now you must have

This delved pit, my teacher, for your grave.”

To these words he added, “O teacher, not only you, but many others as well have come to misery because he did not watch his words.” So saying, he told him a story of the past to prove it.

Once upon a time, they say, there lived a courtesan in Benares named Kālī, and she had a brother named Tuṇḍila. In one day Kālī earned a thousand gold coins. Now Tuṇḍila was a debaucher, a drunkard, and a gambler. But she gave him money, and whatever he got, he wasted. No matter what she tried, she could not restrain him. One day he was beaten at gambling, and he lost the very clothes in which he was dressed. Wrapping a rag of loin cloth around him, he returned to his sister’s house. But she had given a command to her servants that if Tuṇḍila should come to the house, they were to give him nothing. Instead they should take him by the throat and throw him out. And so they did.

He stood by the threshold and moaned.

Now a certain rich merchant’s son, who used to give Kālī 1,000 gold coins, happened to see him on that day. And he said, “Why are you weeping, Tuṇḍila?” “Master,” he said, “I was beaten at dice, and so I went to my sister for help. But she had the servants take me by the throat and throw me out.” “Well, stay here,” the rich man said, “and I will speak to your sister.”

He entered the house and said, “Your brother stands waiting, wearing only a rag of loin cloth. Why don’t you give him something to wear?” “Indeed,” she replied, “I will give him nothing. If you are fond of him, give it to him yourself.”

Now in that house of poor reputation, the custom was this. Out of every 1,000 gold coins received, 500 were for the woman, 500 were for clothing, perfumes and garlands. The men who visited that house received garments in which to dress themselves. They stayed the night there. Then on the next day they removed their garments, put on those they had brought, and went on their ways.

On this occasion the merchant’s son put on the garments provided for him, and he gave his own clothes to Tuṇḍila. Tuṇḍila put them on, and with loud shouts he hastened back to the tavern. But Kālī gave an order to her servants that when the young man left on the next day, they should take away his clothes. Accordingly, when he came back, they should run up from this side and that, like so many robbers, and took the clothes off of him. They should strip him naked, saying, “Now, young sir, be off!” And in this way they got rid of him.

Off he went naked. The people ridiculed him, and he was ashamed. He lamented, saying, “It is my own doing, because I could not keep watch over my speech!” To make this clear, the Great Being recited the third stanza:

“Why ask of Tuṇḍila how he should fare

At Kālikā his sister’s hands? Now see!

My clothes are gone, naked am I and bare,

’Tis monstrous like what happened late to me.”

Another person related this story. Because of the carelessness of goat herds, two billy goats started fighting on a pasture at Benares. As they were hard at it, a certain bird thought to himself, “These two will crack their horns and die if I do not restrain them.” So he tried to stop them by calling out, “Uncle, don’t fight!” But he heard not a word back from them. In the midst of the battle, mounting first on the back, then on the head, he tried to stop them, but he could do nothing. At last he cried, “Fight, then, but kill me first!” and he placed himself between the two goats. But they still went on butting away at each other. The bird was crushed as if by a rock, and he came to destruction by his own act. To explain this other tale the Great Being repeated the fourth stanza:

“Between two fighting rams a birdy flew,

Though in the fray he had no part nor share.

The two rams’ heads did crush him then and there.

He in his fate was monstrous like to you!”

In yet another story there was a tal tree (palmyra palm) by which the cowherds set great store. The people of Benares saw a man climb up the tree to gather fruit. As he was throwing down the fruit, a black snake came out of an anthill and began to ascend the tree. Those who stood below tried to drive him off by striking him with sticks and other things, but they could not. Then they called out to the man, “A snake is climbing the tree!” and in terror he uttered a loud cry. Those who stood below seized a stout cloth by its four corners and told him to leap into the cloth. He let himself drop, and he fell in the middle of the cloth between the four of them. He feel as swiftly as the wind, and the men could not hold him. They crashed their four heads together. It broke them, and so they all died. To explain this story the Great Being recited the fifth stanza:

“Four men, to save a fellow from his fate,

Held the four corners of a cloth below.

They all fell dead, each with a broken pate.

These men were monstrous like to you, I know.”

Others again tell this story. Some goat thieves who lived at Benares stole a she-goat one night. Determined to make a meal in the forest and to prevent her bleating, they muffled her snout and tied her up in a bamboo clump. On the next day, on their way to kill her, they forgot a knife. “Now we’ll kill the goat and cook her,” they said. “Bring the knife here!” But nobody had one. “Without a knife,” they said, "we cannot eat the beast, even if we kill her. Let her go! This is due to some merit of hers.” So they let her go.

Now it happened that a worker in bamboos, who had been there gathering a bundle of them, left a basket maker’s knife there hidden among the leaves. He intended to use it when he returned. But the goat, thinking herself to be free, began playing about under the bamboo clump. And kicking with her hind legs, she caused the knife to drop. The thieves heard the sound of the falling knife, and going to find out what had happened, they discovered it to their great delight. Then they killed the goat and ate her flesh. Then to explain how this she-goat was killed by her own act, the Great Being recited the sixth stanza:

“A she-goat, in a bamboo thicket bound,

Frisking about, herself a knife had found.

With that same knife they cut the creature’s throat.

It strikes me you are monstrous like that goat.”

After recounting this, he explained, “They who are moderate of speech, by watching their words have often been freed from the fate of death.” And then he told this story about fairies.

A hunter, we are told, lived in Benares near the region of the Himalaya Mountains. By some means he captured a brace of supernatural beings, a nymph and her husband. He took them and presented them to the King. The King had never seen such beings before. “Hunter,” he said, “what kind of creatures are these?” The man said, “My lord, these can sing with a honey-voice. They dance delightfully. No men can dance or sing as they can.”

The King bestowed a great reward on the hunter. Then he commanded the fairies to sing and dance. But they thought, “If we are not able to convey the full sense of our song, the song will be a failure. Then they will abuse and hurt us. We must not tell the truth.” So out of fear they neither sang nor danced even though the King begged them again and again. At last the King grew angry. He said, “Kill these creatures. Cook them and serve them up to me.” He delivered this command in the seventh stanza:

“No gods are these nor heaven’s musicianers,

Beasts brought by one who fain would fill his purse.

So for my supper let them cook me one,

And one for breakfast by the morrow’s sun.”

Then the fairy thought to herself, “Now the King is angry. Without doubt he will kill us. Now it is time to speak. “And immediately she recited a stanza:

“A hundred thousand ditties all sung wrong

All are not worth a bit of one good song.

To sing ill is a crime, and this is why

(Not out of folly) fairy would not try.”

The King, pleased with the fairy, at once recited a stanza:

“She that has spoken, let her go, that she

The Himalaya hill again may see,

But let them take and kill the other one,

And for tomorrow’s breakfast have him done.”

But the other fairy thought, “If I hold my tongue, surely the King will kill me. Now is the time to speak.” And then he recited another stanza:

“The cows depend upon the clouds, and men upon the cows,

And I, O King! Depend on you, on me this wife of now.

Let one, before he seek the hills, the other’s fate divine.”

When he said this, he repeated a couple of stanzas to make it clear that they had been silent not from unwillingness to obey the King’s word, but because they saw that speaking might be a mistake.

“O monarch! Other peoples, other ways,

‘Tis very hard to keep you clear of blame.

The very thing which for the one wins praise,

Another finds reproof for just the same.

"Someone there is who each man foolish finds,

Each by imagination different still.

All different, many men and many minds,

No universal law is one man’s will.”

The King replied, “He speaks the truth. This is a wise fairy.” Being greatly pleased, he recited the last stanza:

“Silent they were, the fairy and his mate,

And he who now did utter speech for fear,

Unhurt, free, happy, let him go his gait.

This is the speech brings good, as oft we hear.”

Then the King placed the two fairies in a golden cage, and sending for the huntsman, had him set them free in the same place where he had caught them.

The Great Being added, “See, my teacher! In this manner the fairies were mindful of their words, and by speaking at the right time, they were set free for speaking well. But by speaking unskillfully, you have come to great misery.” Then after giving him this lesson, he comforted him, saying, “Fear not, my teacher. I will save your life.” “Is there indeed a way,” his teacher asked. “How can you save me?” He replied, “It is not yet the proper conjunction of the planets.”

He let the day go by, and in the middle watch of the night, he brought out a dead goat. “Go when you will, brahmin, and live,” he said. Then he let him go, and no one was the wiser. And he performed the sacrifice with the flesh of the goat, and erected the gate over it.