Lakkhaṇa-Jātaka

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Source: Converted from Archaic translation by Robert Chalmers
JATAKA No. 11

LAKKHANA-JATAKA

"The upright man." --This story was told by the Master in the Bamboo-grove near Rajgraha city about Devadatta. The story of Devadatta (*1) will be told, up to the date of the Abhimara-employment, in the Khandahala-jataka ; up to the date of his dismissal from the office of Treasurer, in the Cullahamsa-jataka (*2); and, up to the date of his being swallowed up by the earth, in the Sixteenth Book in the Samudda-vanija-jataka (*3). 

For, on the occasion now in question, Devadatta, through failing to carry the Five Points which he had pressed for, had made a division in the Brotherhood(Monk's order) and had gone off with five hundred Brethren(Monks) to dwell at Gaya-sisa. Now, these Brethren came to a riper knowledge; and the Master, knowing this, called the two chief disciples (*4) and said, "Sariputra, your five hundred pupils who were perverted by Devadatta's teaching and went off with him, have now come to a riper knowledge. Go there with a number of the Brethren, preach the Truth to them, enlighten these wanderers respecting the Paths and the Fruits, and bring them back with you." 

They went there, preached the Truth, enlightened them respecting the Paths and the Fruits, and next day  at dawn came back again with those Brethren to the Bamboo-grove. And while Sariputra was standing there after saluting the Lord Buddha on his return, the Brethren spoke thus to him in praise of the Elder Monk Sariputra, "Sir, very bright was the glory of our elder brother(Monk), the Captain of the Truth, as he returned with a following of five hundred Brethren; whereas Devadatta has lost all his following." 

"This is not the only time, Brethren, when glory has been Sariputra's on his return with a following of his family; like glory was his too in past days. So too this is not the only time when Devadatta has lost his following; he lost it also in past days." 

The Brethren asked the Lord Buddha to explain this to them. The Lord Buddha made clear what had been concealed by re-birth. 

<span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Once upon a time in the city of Rajgraha city in the kingdom of Magadha there ruled a certain king of Magadha, in whose days the Bodhisattva came to life as a stag. Growing up, he lived in the forest as the leader of a herd of a thousand deer. He had two young ones named Luckie and Blackie. When he grew old, he handed his charge over to his two sons, placing five hundred deer under the care of each of them. And so now these two young stags were in charge of the herd. <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Towards harvest-time in Magadha, when the crops stand thick in the fields, it is dangerous for the deer in the forests round. Anxious to kill the creatures that devour their crops, the peasants dig pitfalls, fix stakes, set stone-traps, and plant snares and other gins; so that many deer are killed. <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Accordingly, when the Bodhisattva noticed that it was crop-time, he sent for his two sons and said to them, "My children, it is now the time when crops stand thick in the fields, and many deer meet their death at this season. We who are old will make shift to stay in one spot; but you will retire each with your herd to the mountainous tracts in the forest and come back when the crops have been carried." "Very good," said his two sons, and departed with their herds, as their father had asked. <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Now the men who live along the route, know quite well the times at which deer take to the hills and return from there. And  lying in wait in hiding-places here and there along the route, they shoot and kill numbers of them. The dullard Blackie, ignorant of the times to travel and the times to halt, kept his deer on the march early and late, both at dawn and in the twilight, approaching the very confines of the villages. And the peasants, in ambush or in the open, destroyed numbers of his herd. Having thus by his mindless wrongdoing worked the destruction of all these, it was with a very few survivors that he reached the forest. <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Luckie on the other hand, being wise and clever and full of resource, never so much as approached the confines of a village. He did not travel by day, or even in the dawn or dusk. Only in the dead of night did he move; and the result was that he reached the forest without losing a single head of his deer. <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Four months they stayed in the forest, not leaving the hills till the crops were carried. On the homeward way Blackie by repeating his former wrongdoing lost the rest of his herd and returned solitary and alone; whereas Luckie had not lost one of his herd, but had brought back the whole five hundred deer, when he appeared before his parents. As he saw his two sons returning, the Bodhisattva framed this stanza in concert with the herd of deer:- <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:center;"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">The upright kindly man has his reward.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:center;"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> See Luckie leading back his troop of family,

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:center;"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> While here comes Blackie cut of all his herd. <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> Such was the Bodhisattva's welcome to his son; and after living to a good old age, he passed away to fare according to his deeds. <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">  <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">At the close of his lesson, when the Master had repeated that Sariputra's glory and Devadatta's loss had both had a parallel in past days, he explained the relation linking the two stories together and identified the Birth, by saying, "Devadatta was the Blackie of those days; his followers were Blackie's following; Sariputra was the Luckie of those days, and his following the Buddha's followers; Rahul's mother (wife of Buddha) was the mother of those days; and I myself was the father." <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Footnotes: <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">(1)The "Five Points" of Devadatta :-"The Brethren shall live all their life long in the forest, survive solely on alms collected out of doors, dress solely in rags picked out of dust-heaps, dwell under trees and never under a roof, never eat fish or flesh." These five points were all more rigid in their asceticism than the Buddha's rule, and were formulated by Devadatta in order to apparantly move ahead of his cousin and master (Buddha). <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">(2)no. 533. <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">(3)no. 466. <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">(4)The two chief disciples, of whom only one is named in the text, were Sariputra (surnamed 'the Captain of the Faith') and Moggallyana, two Brahmin friends, originally followers of a wandering ascetic, whos converted to Buddhism. Re-conversion of the backsliders is partially credited to Moggallyana.