Sammodamāna-Jātaka

Tipitaka >> Sutta Pitaka >> Khuddaka Nikaya >> Jataka >>Sammodamāna-Jātaka

Source: Converted from Archaic translation by Robert Chalmers
JATAKA No. 33

SAMMODAMANA-JATAKA

"While harmony reigns."

This story was told by the Master while living in the Banyan-grove near Kapilavastu(Kingdom of Buddha's father Shuddhodana), about a squabble over a porter's head-pad, as will be told in the Kunala-jataka (*1).

On this occasion, however, the Master spoke thus to his family:-"My lords, conflict among family is unseemly. Yes, in past times, animals, who had defeated their enemies when they lived in harmony, came to utter destruction when they fell out." And at the request of his royal family, he told this story of the past.

Once upon a time when Brahmadatta was king of Benares, the Bodhisattva was born a quail, and lived in the forest at the head of many thousands of quails. In those days a hunter who caught quails came to that place; and he used to imitate the note of a quail till he saw that the birds had been drawn together, when he throw his net over them, and whipped the sides of the net together, so as to get them all huddled up in a heap. Then he crammed them into his basket, and going home sold his prey for a living.

Now one day the Bodhisattva said to those quails, "This hunter is making havoc among our family. I have a means by which he will be unable to catch us. From now on, the very moment he throws the net over you, let each one put his head through a mesh and then all of you together must fly away with the net to such place as you please, and there let it down on a thorn-brake; this done, we will all escape from our several meshes." "Very good," said they all in ready agreement.

On the next day, when the net was cast over them, they did just as the Bodhisattva had told them:-they lifted up the net, and let it down on a thorn-brake, escaping themselves from underneath. While the hunter was still disentangling his net, evening came on; and he went away empty-handed. On the next day and following days the quails played the same trick. So that it became the regular thing for the hunter to be engaged till sunset disentangling his net, and then to take himself home empty-handed. Accordingly his wife grew angry and said, "Day by day you return empty-handed; I suppose you've got a second establishment to keep up elsewhere."

"No, my dear," said the hunter; "I've no second establishment to keep up. The fact is those quails have come to work together now. The moment my net is over them, off they fly with it and escape, leaving it on a thorn-brake. Still, they won't live in unity always. Don't you bother yourself; as soon as they start bickering among themselves, I shall bag the lot, and that will bring a smile to your face to see." And so saying, he repeated this stanza to his wife:-

While harmony reigns, the birds bear off the net. When quarrels rise, they'll fall a prey to me.

Not long after this, one of the quails, in descending on their feeding ground, walked by accident on another's head. "Who walked on my head?" angrily cried this latter. "I did; but I didn't mean to. Don't be angry," said the first quail. But notwithstanding this answer, the other remained as angry as before. Continuing to answer one another, they began to bandy taunts, saying, "I suppose it is you single-handed who lift up the net." As they wrangled thus with one another, the Bodhisattva thought to himself, "There's no safety with one who is quarrelsome. The time has come when they will no longer lift up the net, and by that they will come to great destruction. The hunter will get his opportunity. I can stay here no longer." And upon that he with his following went elsewhere.

Sure enough the hunter came back again a few days later, and first collecting them together by imitating the note of a quail, throw his net over them. Then said one quail, "They say when you were at work lifting the net, the hair of your head fell off. Now's your time; lift away." The other replied, "When you were lifting the net, they say both your wings moulted. Now's your time; lift away."

But while they were each inviting the other to lift the net, the hunter himself lifted the net for them and crammed them in a heap into his basket and took them off home, so that his wife's face was wreathed with smiles.

"Thus, sire," said the Master, "such a thing as a quarrel among family is unseemly; quarrelling leads only to destruction." His lesson ended, he explained the relation, and identified the Birth, by saying, "Devadatta was the foolish quail of those days, and I myself the wise and good quail."

Footnotes:

(1)No. 536.