Jataka 492
Taccha Sūkara Jātaka
The Carpenter's Boar
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
This is a story with an unapologetic Buddhist emphasis. In this story a group of boars are threatened by a tiger. The tiger lives with a “sham ascetic.” But in true Buddhist fashion, the boars consider the sham ascetic to be “worse than ten tigers!”
“I wandered, searching far.” The Master told this story while he was living at Jetavana. It is about two ancient Elders.
Mahā-Kosala, they say, gave his daughter to King Bimbisāra (the King of Magada) and allotted her a village of Kāsi for bath-money. After Ajātasattu murdered his father (Ajātasattu was Bimbisāra’s son), King Pasenadi destroyed that village. In the battles between them, the first victory lay with Ajātasattu. And the King of Kosala, suffering the worst, asked his councilors, “What can we do to defeat Ajātasattu?” They answered, “Great King, the Saṇgha has great skill with magical charms. Send messengers to them and secretly get the opinion of the monks at the monastery.” This pleased the King. Accordingly, he sent men to the monastery where they hid themselves so they could overhear what the monks had to say.
Now at Jetavana there were many King’s officers who had renounced the world. Among these were a pair of old Elders who lived in a leaf hut on the outskirts of the monastery. One of them was the Elder Dhanuggahatissa, and the other was the Elder Mantidatta. They had slept all through the night and awakened at the wake of day. As he kindled the fire, the Elder Dhanuggahatissa said, “Elder Datta, Sir.” “Well, Sir?” “Are you asleep?” “No, I am not asleep. What is to be done?” “A born fool that King of Kosala is. All he knows is how to stuff himself with a mess of food.” “What do you mean, sir?” “He lets himself be beaten by Ajātasattu who is no better than a worm in his own belly.” “What should he do, then?” “Why, Elder Datta, you know that battle is of three kinds: Wagon Battle, Wheel Battle, and Lotus Battle. (These are military formations. In the Wheel, one end stays stationary while the other soldiers pivot around it. The Wagon is a wedge-shaped phalanx, and the Lotus is “equally extended on all sides and perfectly circular, the center being occupied by the king.”) It is the Wagon battle he should use to catch Ajātasattu. Let him post valiant men on his two flanks on the hilltop, and then show his main force. Once he gets them in his trap, he should attack with a shout and a leap. They would have him like a fish in a lobster pot. That is the way to catch him.”
(For more on this story see Jātaka 283.)
Now the messengers heard all this. They went back and told the King. He immediately set out with a great host. They took Ajātasattu prisoner and bound him in chains. After punishing him for some days, they released him, advising him not to do this again. And as a consolation, the King gave him his own daughter, the Princess Vajirā, in marriage. Then he dismissed him with great ceremony.
There was a widespread discussion about this among the monks. “Ajātasattu was caught by the King of Kosala by following the plan of Elder Dhanuggahatissa!” They talked about this as well in the Dharma Hall. The Master entered and asked them what they were discussing. They told him. Then he said, “This is not the first time, brothers, that Dhanuggahatissa has shown himself to be an expert in strategy.” And then he told them this story from the past.
Once upon a time, a carpenter who lived in a village near the city gate of Benares, went into the forest to cut wood. He found a young boar who had fallen into a pit. He brought it home and raised it. He named him Carpenter’s Boar. The boar became his servant. He turned trees over with his snout and then brought them to him. He hitched the measuring-line around his tusk and pulled it along. He retrieved and carried the adze, chisel, and mallet in his teeth.
When he grew up, he was a monstrous and burly beast. The carpenter, who loved him as his own son, was afraid that someone might do him harm there, so he let him go free in the forest. The boar thought, “I cannot live alone by myself in this forest. What if I search out my kindred and live with them?” So he searched through that multitude of trees for boars. Finally, he saw a herd of them. He was excited, and he recited three stanzas:
“I wandered, searching far and wide the woods and hills around,
I wandered, searching for my kin, and lo, my kin are found!
“Here are abundant roots and fruits, with plentiful store of food,
What lovely hills and pleasant streams! To live here will be good.
“Here I will live with all my kin, not anxious, at my ease,
Having no trouble, fearing nothing from my enemies.”
The boars—on hearing this verse—responded with the fourth stanza:
“A foe is here! Take refuge some other place, go your ways,
Ever the choicest of the herd, O Carpenter, he slays!”
“Who is that foe? Come tell me true, my kindred, so well met,
Who wants to destroy you? Though he has not destroyed you yet.”
“A king of beasts! Striped up and down he is, with teeth to bite,
Ever the choicest of the herd he slays—a beast of might!”
“And have our bodies lost their strength? Have we no tusks to show?
We shall o’ercome him if we work together, only so.”
“Sweet words to hear, O Carpenter, of which my heart is fain,
Let no boar flee, or he shall be after the battle slain!”
Now Carpenter’s Boar—having made them all of one mind—asked, “When will the tiger come?” “Today he came early in the morning and took one. Tomorrow he will come early in the morning.”
Now the boar was skilled in warfare. He knew the type of place where he had an advantage and victory might be won. He searched about and found just such a place. He had his gathering eat while it was still night. Then very early in the morning, he explained to them how the order of battle is of three kinds, the Wagon Battle, and so forth. After that he arranged the Lotus Battle in this manner. (In the story—in—the—present the Wagon Battle formation is used.) In the middle he placed the sucking pigs. Around them were their mothers. Next to these were the barren sows. Next was a circle of young porkers next to the young ones with tusks just budding. Next came the big tuskers, and the old boars were outside of them all. Then he posted smaller squads of ten, twenty, thirty apiece here and there. He had them dig a pit for himself. And for the tiger to fall into was a hole the shape of a threshing basket. Between the two holes was left a spit of ground for him on which to stand. Then he and the stout fighting-boars went around everywhere exhorting the boars.
As he was engaged in this way the sun rose. The tiger emerged from the hermitage of a sham ascetic and appeared on the hilltop. The boars cried, “Our enemy has come, sir!” “Fear not,” he said. “Whatever he does, you do the same.” The tiger gave himself a shake as though about to depart. The boars did the same. The tiger looked at the boars and roared a great roar. They did the same. Observing what they were doing, he thought, “They have changed somehow. Today they face me as an enemy in orderly bands. Some warrior has been organizing them. I must not go near them today.” In fear for his life, he turned around and fled back to the sham ascetic. Seeing the tiger empty-handed, he recited the ninth stanza:
“Have you renounced all killing? Have you sworn
Safety for every living creature born?
Surely your teeth their needed virtue lack.
You find a herd and come a beggar back!”
Thereupon the tiger repeated three stanzas:
“My teeth no longer bite,
My strength exhausted quite.
Brother by brother all together stood,
Therefore I wander lonely in the wood.
“Once they would hurry-scurry all about
To find their holes, a panic-stricken rout.
But now they grunt in assembled ranks compact,
Invincible, they stand and face me out.
“They all agree together now, a leader they have got,
When all agree they may hurt me, therefore I want them not.”
To this the sham ascetic replied with the following stanza:
“Alone the hawk subdues the birds, alone
The Titans are by Indra overthrown,
And when a herd of beasts the mighty tiger sees,
Ever the best he picks and kills them at his ease.”
Then the tiger recited one:
“No hawk, no tiger lord of beasts, not Indra can command
A kindred host that tiger-like combine to make a stand.”
At that the sham ascetic, to egg him on, recited two stanzas:
“The little tiny feathered fowl in flocks and coveys fly,
In heaps together up they rise, together skim the sky.
“Down stoops the hawk, and all alone, down on them as they play,
Harries and kills them at his will, that is your tiger’s way.”
This said, he further encouraged him: “Royal tiger, you do not know your own power. One roar only, and then a leap—there will not be two of them left together, I dare swear!”
To explain this, the Master said a stanza:
“Then he with cruel greedy eye, deeming these words were true,
Took heart, and with his fangs all bare leaped on the tusked crew.”
Well, the tiger went back and stood there on the hill for a while. The boars told Carpenter’s Boar that he had returned. “Fear not,” he said, comforting them. And then he took his position on the ridge between the two pits. The tiger ran with all speed and sprang towards the boar. But the boar rolled tail over snout into the first hole. The tiger could not check his momentum. He fell in a heap into the pit shaped like a threshing fan. The boar jumped up in an instant. He buried his tusks into the tiger’s thigh, pierced him in the heart, chewed the flesh, and bit him. Then he carried him over into the other pit, crying, “There, take that!” Those who got there first got one choice mouthful. Those who came later asked, “How does tiger’s meat taste?”
Figure: Wrong Hole
Carpenter’s Boar came out of the pit. And looking around on the others, he said, “Well, don’t you like it?” But they answered, “My lord, you have dealt with the tiger, and there is that. But there is another who is worse than ten tigers.” “Who is that, pray?” “A sham ascetic who eats the meat that the tiger brought him from time to time.” “Come along then, and we will catch him.” So they quickly sprang off together.
Now the sham ascetic was watching the road. He was expecting the tiger to come any minute. And what should he see coming but the boars! “They have killed the tiger, and now they have come to kill me!” Off he ran. He climbed up into a wild fig tree. “He has climbed a tree.” the boars said to their leader. “What tree?” “A fig tree.” “All right, we shall have him soon.” He had the young boars grub away the earth from the tree’s roots and the sows bring each as much water as their mouths would hold. And finally, there stood the tree bare down to the roots. Then he had the others clear out of the way. He got down on his knees, and he struck at the roots of the tree with his tusk. He cut clean through the root as if he had an axe. Down came the tree, but the man never got as far as the ground. He was torn to pieces and eaten on the way. Observing this marvel, the tree spirit recited a stanza:
“United friends, like forest trees—it is a pleasant sight,
The boars united, at one charge the tiger killed outright.”
And the Master recited another stanza about how both were destroyed:
“So the brahmin and the tiger both did the boars destroy,
And roared a loud and echoing roar in their exceeding joy.”
Again the boar asked, “And have you another foe?” “No, my lord,” they replied. Then they proposed to anoint him as their King. Water was fetched. Seeing the precious conch with the spiral turned clockwise that the sham ascetic had used for his drinking water, they filled it with water and consecrated Carpenter’s Boar there on the root of the fig tree. There the water of consecration was poured on him. They made a young sow his consort. And from this occasion a custom arose that still prevails. That is that in consecrating a King, they seat him on a chair of fig wood, and they sprinkle him from a conch whose spirals run to the right.
This the Master also explained by reciting the last stanza:
“The boars beneath the wild fig tree the holy water poured,
Upon the Carpenter and cried, ‘You are our King and Lord!’”
When he had ended this discourse, the Master said, “No, monks, this is not the first time that Dhanuggahatissa has shown himself skilled in strategy. He was the same before.” With these words, he identified the birth: “At that time Devadatta was the sham ascetic, Dhanuggahatissa was Carpenter’s Boar, and I was the tree sprite.”
