This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Jātakas: Buddhist Storytelling (1 of 4) with Ajahn Sujato. It likely contains inaccuracies.
The following talk was given by Bhante Sujato at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.
Thank you so much, Rob, and thanks, it’s wonderful to see everybody here today. So, we’re going to be spending the next four weeks reading some Jātaka1 stories, just a few Jātaka stories, and having a little bit of discussion about them. That’s a bit of a different thing for me. Normally, I teach based on the suttas2 or meditation or something, but I did a little bit of work on Jātakas last year and I wanted to share some of the things that I’ve been finding and looking at. So hopefully we can explore that a bit today.
The Jātakas, very briefly, are past life stories of the Buddha. We find a few Jātaka stories in that sense in the early suttas, but not that many. When the Buddha gave his nine-fold collection of the different categories of the teaching, the Jātakas were one of those nine categories, so they’ve been there for a long time. But the collection we’re going to be talking about today is not exactly the same as that. What we’re talking about today is the collection known as the Jātakas, the Jātaka book, which is a specific part of the Pali3 Canon, one of the books in the Khuddaka Nikāya4, or the Minor Collection.
There are 500-something stories in that Jātaka collection in Pali. Of course, there are many other Jātakas in other Buddhist traditions as well—many in Tibet and many in Chinese, as well as others that were added in later collections within the Pali or the Theravāda5 tradition. There are probably a thousand or so Jātakas altogether, but the main collection is the Pali Jātaka collection. This has been a cornerstone of Buddhist education, certainly within the Theravāda world, and one of the most common ways that Buddhism is transmitted, especially to kids. You have your Sunday school or your classes in the temples, and they will read Jātaka stories. These are stories that, basically, in Theravāda countries, everyone grew up knowing, a bit like Cinderella or Beauty and the Beast. They have this kind of mythic quality because they are stories that you never really hear for the first time. They’re just sort of part of the culture.
I should add, not all of the Jātakas are like that. The Jātaka collection itself is very diverse, and some are quite adult-oriented. In fact, some of them were translated into Latin when they were first translated in the West because the translators thought that they were unfit for children. So not all of them are kitty stories. Some of them, especially towards the end of the collection, are quite long and sophisticated, and almost start to approach a novel-like format in their literary complexity and depth of characterization.
For this course, I have selected a few Jātakas semi-randomly, trying to illustrate a few of the main points of the collection. Hopefully, I can give a bit of an introduction for people and an illustration of some of the interesting things that we might find there.
Generally, a Jātaka story has four main parts. The introduction gives you an event in the Buddha’s day, called the “present story.” Then you have the Jātaka story itself, which is the story of past lives. That Jātaka story has two parts: a prose part and a verse part. Then you have the ending part, which gives you the identification of who in the past life was which character in the present story. Of all of these parts, only the verses are canonical. The Pali Canon includes a collection of poetry which it calls the Jātaka collection. All of this other material is sort of added from the commentaries.
This, of course, raises the question of the relationship between all of these different parts. This is a vast collection of literature, and clearly, it wasn’t like somebody just sat down and wrote it; it evolved over a long period of time. Generally speaking, the understanding is that the stories were perhaps the oldest portion. The verses are often subsequent to the story or tangential to it. They kind of go together, but the verses often sum up the main gist of the story. The cladding is, of course, added later in the commentarial period. What the cladding does is it provided the Buddhist community with a means of adopting stories into its tradition.
We’re going to be looking today at Jātaka number one, “The Apaṇṇaka Jātaka,” usually translated as “The Unquestionable Jātaka” or something like that. The verse of the Jātaka is:
When some have an unfailing basis, while sophists speak of a second way, an intelligent person, knowing this, would take up what is unfailing.
It’s a very simple little moral verse. It’s not entirely clear exactly what it’s going on about. The verses are very often quite incomprehensible without the stories. You might imagine that the verses are going to give the lesson of the story, which sometimes happens, and in this case, yes, we can see that’s happened in some way. There’s a moral being conveyed here, but the actual context and meaning and purpose of it is not really that clear.
The title, Apaṇṇaka Jātaka, is based on a tricky word, apaṇṇaka. Most translators will have a footnote on this and say they don’t exactly understand what it is about. I think the reason for that, which I only realized myself doing some research a couple of years ago, relates to the ancient Indian game of dice. When we think of dice, we think of a small little cube with dots on either side. But in the Vedic tradition, the dice game was different. You make a hollow or a bowl-like dish and then you fill that with a particular kind of seed. The two players will each grab a handful of seeds. Then you have to count how many seeds that you’ve grabbed. If the amount of seeds you’ve got is divisible by four, then that’s a winning hand.
This is why a katagaha is a perfect hand, because kata is four. But if you don’t have the four, you have a kaligaha, which is a losing hand. The worst kind of hand you can have is a hand that has five seeds in it, because you have to get four. So, what apaṇṇaka literally means is “a set without a fifth.” It means you’ve got your hand and you’ve got exactly four or a number divisible by four. So apaṇṇaka means you’ve got a winning hand and you can’t fail.
The older translations translated it as “unquestionable,” assuming that paṇṇaka comes from the Pali word pañhā, meaning “question” or “problem.” I’ve never really liked that translation because why should the Buddha’s teaching be unquestionable? The Buddha actually told us we should question it all the time. So the meaning is “unfailing,” a winning hand, like a royal flush.
So the verse means: some have a winning hand, while sophists speak of a second way. An intelligent person knowing this would take up what is unfailing. This is a bit of advice about who to listen to, but it’s a very generic verse. You could imagine that that verse could easily be attached to any number of different stories.
The prose story that it is attached to has a precedent in the suttas, in the Dīgha Nikāya 23, the Pāyāsi Sutta. This gives a canonical telling of the story which the prose portion of the Jātaka is based on. This is one of the fairly small number of instances where the Jātaka prose story is actually based on a sutta story. The sutta story is told by the monk Kumāra Kassapa to Prince Pāyāsi.
Once upon a time, a large caravan of a thousand wagons traveled from a country in the east to the west. Wherever they went, they quickly used up the grass, wood, water, and green foliage. The caravan had two leaders, each in charge of 500 wagons. They thought, “This is a large caravan. Why don’t we split it in two?” So they did.
One caravan leader, having prepared much grass, wood, and water, started the caravan. After two or three days’ journey, he saw a dark man with red eyes coming the other way in a donkey cart with muddy wheels. He was armored with a quiver and wreathed with a yellow lotus, his clothes and hair all wet. The caravan leader asked where he came from and where he was going. He then asked, “Has there been much rain in the desert up ahead?”
“Indeed there has, sir,” the man replied. “The paths are sprinkled with water, and there is much grass, wood, and water. Toss out your grass, wood, and water. Your wagons will move swiftly when lightly laden.”
So the caravan leader told his drivers to toss out their supplies. But in the caravan’s first campsite, they saw no grass, wood, or water. And in the second, the third, and up to the seventh campsites, they saw nothing. All fell to ruin and disaster. The men and the beasts in that caravan were all devoured by that nonhuman spirit. Only their bones remained.
Now, when the second caravan leader knew that the first caravan was well underway, he prepared much grass, wood, and water and started his caravan. After a few days, he saw the same dark man with red eyes. The man gave the same advice. But the caravan leader said to his drivers, “This person is neither our friend nor relative. How can we proceed out of trust in him? We should not toss out any grass, wood, or water but continue with our goods laden as before.”
They restarted the caravan. In the first campsite, they saw no grass, wood, or water, and the same for the next six. They saw that the other caravan had come to ruin, and they saw the bones of the men and beasts who had been devoured by that non-human spirit. So the caravan leader addressed his drivers, “This caravan came to ruin, as happens when guided by a foolish caravan leader. Well then, toss out any of our merchandise that’s of little value and take what’s valuable from this caravan.” They did so and crossed over the desert safely, as happens when guided by an astute caravan leader.
The story in the Jātaka follows much the same outline, with some more elaboration. The story is set in the past in Bārāṇasī, in the Kāsī kingdom, where a king called Brahmadatta reigned. The Bodhisatta6 was born into a family of caravan merchants. There was another caravan merchant’s son who was a fool. The Bodhisatta and the foolish merchant were both preparing to set out with 500 carts each.
The Bodhisatta thought that if they traveled together, the path would not be able to bear 1,000 carts, and resources would be scarce. He asked the other merchant if he wanted to go first or second. The foolish merchant thought, “If I go ahead, there will be many advantages. I’ll go along a path that is not broken up. The oxen will eat untouched grass. The men will have untouched curry leaves. There will be clear water. I’ll be able to fix the price as I like and sell my wares.” So he said he would go first.
The Bodhisatta, however, saw many advantages in going later—the second-mover advantage. He thought, “Those traveling ahead will make the rough places smooth. My oxen will eat the fresh grass that springs up where the old grass was eaten. My men will find fresh curry leaves. Where they have dug wells, we can drink the water. Fixing the price is like depriving people of life. Coming along later, I will sell my wares at the price already fixed.”
So the foolish merchant departed first. When he reached the center of the wilderness, the yakkha7 who lived there thought, “I will make these men throw away the water they’re carrying, and when they are weakened, I will eat them all.” He created a magical illusion of a delightful vehicle, surrounded by other non-humans, all appearing wet and covered in lotuses, as if they had just come from a place with abundant water.
The foolish merchant, because of his folly, accepted the yakkha’s word, broke his pots, and threw away every last handful of water. They went forward, but found no water. The weakened men and oxen lay down and fell asleep. Later that night, the yakkhas came and devoured them all, leaving only the bones.
After a month and a half, the Bodhisatta set out. He warned his men, “Without asking me first, let no one use even a handful of water. In this wilderness, there are poisonous trees. Let no one eat a leaf, flower, or fruit which has not been eaten before without asking me first.”
When they reached the center of the wilderness, the yakkha appeared to the Bodhisatta. But the Bodhisatta knew, “In this wilderness, there is no water. This fearless person with red eyes, whose shadow cannot be discerned, without a doubt persuaded the foolish caravan leader to throw away all his water and then ate them. But he doesn’t know my wisdom.” He said to the yakkha, “You should go away. We are tradesmen, and without seeing water, we do not throw away the water we have.”
The Bodhisatta then reasoned with his own men, who were tempted by the yakkha’s story. He used logic, asking them if they had seen any signs of rain—clouds, lightning, or thunder. They had not. Persuaded, they continued on their journey. They found the remains of the first caravan. The Bodhisatta had his men discard their own wares of little worth and take the valuable wares from the destroyed caravan. He went on to his intended destination, sold his wares at two or three times their base value, and returned safely to his own city with his whole company.
The Buddha concluded the story by making the identifications: “At that time, Devadatta8 was the foolish caravan leader. His followers were Devadatta’s followers. The followers of the wise caravan leader were the Buddha’s followers. And I, indeed, was that wise caravan leader.”
Question: Who was Devadatta?
Answer: Devadatta is the bad guy. He’s the Buddha’s cousin. He ordained and joined the Sangha and had initial progress in his meditation but became consumed with conceit and jealousy. He teamed up with the corruptible king at the time, King Ajātasattu, and tried to take over the Sangha. He proposed to the Buddha, “Why don’t you just retire and I’ll be the Buddha and I’ll run things from now on.” The Buddha was like, “No, thank you.”
Eventually, according to the story, Devadatta tried to kill the Buddha, and that failed. So Devadatta and his followers are the archetypal bad guys, the Buddha’s nemesis. According to the Jātakas, that goes back a long way. It can seem like conflicts in our own lives go on for a long time, and from a Buddhist point of view, yes, it can be a very, very long time. But it’s also true that in Buddhism, there is always a possibility for redemption. The Buddhist tradition always maintains that in a future life, Devadatta will become enlightened. He’ll get there, it’ll just take him a while.
Question: When were the Jātakas written, by who, and why?
Answer: The Jātakas originate from a bunch of different sources, so there’s no one date on them. We can compare the Jātakas with the inscriptions on the stupas at Bharhut and Sanchi. There, you find depictions of these Jātaka stories, which clearly shows that these stories were present and used in the Buddhist community at that time, which is dated maybe two centuries BC, or sometime after King Ashoka. So we know that at least some of the Jātakas were current in the Buddhist tradition around that time.
Many of the Jātakas are backdated to a socio-political situation which pertained a few hundred years before the Buddha. So the roots of the stories may be pre-Buddhist, but the form in which we have them today dates from maybe between 200 to 300 years after the Buddha, generally speaking. The commentary, however, was finalized nearly a thousand years after the Buddha.
As for who wrote them, I think the stories originated probably in the folk storytelling tradition for the most part. Some of them may have been told by the Buddha or his disciples. Many of them were collected, and we don’t really know by whom. It’s probably best to think of them as being collected by the Sangha in that period of time.
And why? The main cultural shift that was happening was that Buddhism was shifting from being a specialized, fairly esoteric philosophy to being a fully popular religion. That shift happened especially in the time of King Ashoka when he embraced Buddhism and it became a religion of devotion. Buddhism needed ways of connecting and communicating to people that weren’t so doctrine-heavy as you find in the suttas. And so this is why I think that they were using that storytelling technique.
Jātaka: A story of one of the Buddha’s past lives as a Bodhisatta, or being on the path to Buddhahood. ↩
Sutta: A discourse or sermon of the Buddha or one of his close disciples. ↩
Pali: An ancient Indo-Aryan liturgical language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is the language of the earliest Buddhist scriptures, the Pali Canon or Tipiṭaka. ↩
Khuddaka Nikāya: The “Collection of Minor Texts,” one of the five major collections of suttas in the Sutta Piṭaka of the Pali Canon. ↩
Theravāda: The “School of the Elders,” the oldest surviving branch of Buddhism. It is the dominant form of Buddhism in countries such as Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar. ↩
Bodhisatta: In the Pali tradition, a being who is on the path to becoming a Buddha. The term is used to refer to the Buddha before his enlightenment, in both his final life and all his past lives. ↩
Yakkha: A broad class of nature-spirits in Buddhist and Hindu mythology. They are sometimes benevolent guardians but can also be malevolent and dangerous. ↩
Devadatta: A cousin of the Buddha who became a monk but later turned against the Buddha, attempting to usurp his leadership and even assassinate him. He is an archetypal villain in Buddhist narratives. ↩