This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Jātakas: Buddhist Storytelling (2 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.
Hi everybody. I’m Bhante Sujato, and I’m coming to you from the land of the Burramattagal people of the Darug nation. I pay respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging. In all of my teaching and the way that I’m living and trying to be on this land, I try to do so with respect and honor for the wisdom of those people and what they brought to this land.
Today, we are going to be looking at the Jātaka1 number seven, the Kaṭṭhahāri Jātaka. This is one of my favorite Jātaka stories of all time.
Briefly to recap, if you recall from last week, we looked at the first Jātaka, where we encountered a story that was surprisingly economic. It had to do with business transactions, and at least part of the message was about giving literal business advice, providing some teachings for the merchant class or for people who are living in that way. This gives us not just the teachings themselves, but it also gives us some examples of the ways that the Buddha would adapt his teachings for different audiences and different needs.
One of the interesting things about that particular text is that it speaks to the way that Buddhism is a universal teaching that is not bound to land. Just now, I paid respects to the Aboriginal people of this land. If you listen to Aboriginal philosophy, stories, and ethics, there is much in common with Buddhism. I sat down with an Aboriginal elder some years ago, and he began the conversation by saying, “You know, the essence of Aboriginal philosophy, you have to understand this: everything in our philosophy is all about impermanence.” That was literally what he began with; I hadn’t said anything about Buddhism. He started talking about impermanence, saying, “When we understand and we look at the world, you have to understand it in terms of changes. The seasons are changing, the winds are changing, the peoples are changing.”
There are so many things in there which you can say, “Oh yeah, that’s quite similar.” But one thing that is quite different is that Aboriginal philosophy is very much grounded in place. The stories will relate to this mountain or that stream, and it will tell a story about ancestors who lived on that land. That grounding in place is highly characteristic of Australian indigenous religiosity, but it’s also characteristic of many different religious traditions around the world, probably most ultimately.
One of the characteristics of the Buddhist teachings was that it was very psychological. It’s about your mind and how you behave, so it’s not really about place at all. This influences the way that Buddhism evolved and changed over time because, on the one hand, we found it possible to adapt our teaching to reach many different people, as we saw in that first Jātaka. On the other hand, we also kind of feel a need to create sacred landscapes by imbuing magical or quasi-magical qualities into places such as Bodh Gaya or Mount Kailash and other places which are felt to be sacred within the Buddhist tradition. Even though these things are not central to Buddhism in the same way that they are for indigenous spirituality, there’s still a kind of emotional wanting to call back to that kind of thing.
This is one of the interesting qualities of Jātaka stories: they show a way of implicitly expressing the emotional, symbolic, or unconscious needs that we have religiously and spiritually, which are not necessarily met in the suttas2 per se. The suttas tend to be very rational and psychological. They can be quite unrelenting, right? Everything’s just the five aggregates. It’s all impermanent. You’re just going to die. And if you’ve got a problem with that, that’s up to you. You’re going to have to deal with it. It can be quite challenging, and there are a whole lot of areas of psychology, story, culture, and history which are not really touched by that. You might say, “Well, look, the Buddha left them out because they were irrelevant. We didn’t really need them.” If that’s what you think, that’s fine. But I do find it interesting that the Buddhist tradition did feel the need to complement that with this vast mass of story.
How you want to relate to these things in terms of your spirituality, that’s up to you. We’re all different. I’m weird, and I’m not going to pretend that you’re weird in the same way that I am. You’re probably weird, but you’re probably weird differently. I’m not going to try to tell you how you should relate to this in terms of your spirituality and your path, but I do think it’s an interesting reflection to be able to look at things that are not what we find in the suttas. When I’m reading the Jātakas, I’m not reading them so that they can restate things that I’ve already read in the suttas. The suttas explain themselves perfectly well as far as I’m concerned.
While last week’s Jātaka was more or less contemporary and practical in its advice, this week’s Jātaka has a very different character. The character of this week’s Jātaka is very mythological. In fact, I would say that this story is a myth in the old sense of the word—a story that comes before time, a story that comes before story, a story that comes out of the past before we know what was there, and which has been passed down. We only see the outcome of it.
Why do I say that? A lot of reasons. And look, you can disagree with me all you like. I can’t prove any of this. But what I want to talk about today is to go into what the actual story is. We’ll begin with the verse as always. We’ll look at the story and the background, and then I’ll try to show some of what I think are the mythic resonances or meanings of this particular little story.
The verse for the Kaṭṭhahāri Jātaka is:
I am your son, great king. Provide for me, ruler of the people. The king provides for others. What then? Of his own offspring.
It’s a straightforward, simple verse. Linguistically, there are no great problems there. The background story tells of a king who visited a park. Spying a simple country girl gathering wood, he became enamored of her, and they had sex. Knowing that she had conceived, she told the king, who gave her a signet ring. Later, she presented herself with the child at court, but the king denied them. Even when the ring was shown, not until the child was thrown in the air did the king relent.
This is a summary of the background story. Clearly, this is about sons and kings, which means it’s about inheritance. It’s about the passing down of authority, power, and property from father to son. This is one of the major defining things that a culture has to work out. Even if you look at animal packs, they will have means of transferring power from one to the other by fighting or something like that. In human cultures, we worked out various different ways to hand power down from one leader to another. One obvious way is through inheritance, as in here. You have to then prove your inheritance, and being able to prove paternity is not easy. Even today, this is still a major problem. There are still many people whose fathers are not who they think they are. So for the king to be skeptical is obviously not unreasonable. But there is that idea that there is a responsibility in that paternal role.
It’s interesting to me that we are so incredibly bad at choosing leaders, like terrible at it. We routinely choose terrible, terrible people to become the leader. In this particular case, you see one way of handing down leadership is from father to son. To me, that seems like a terrible way of doing it. But is it worse than the other ways that we have? I don’t know. It seems hard to imagine that there’s going to be anything worse than what we’ve ended up with.
Anyway, let’s have a look now at the actual birth story. This is the story in the Buddha’s day. According to the commentary, the story was told by the teacher while at Jetavana about the story of Vasabhakhattiyā, which will be found in the twelfth book in the Bhaddasāla Jātaka. The commentary is now referring to another Jātaka story. This intertextuality is found a few times in the Jātakas.
Tradition tells us that she was the daughter of Mahānāma Sakya by a slave girl called Nāgamuṇḍā, and that she afterwards became the consort of the king of Kosala. She conceived a son by the king, but the king, coming to know of her servile origin, degraded her from the rank and also degraded her son, Viḍūḍabha. Mother and son never came outside the palace. Hearing of this, the teacher at early dawn came to the palace attended by 500 monks. And sitting down, he said, “Where is Vasabhakhattiyā?” The king told him what had happened.
“Whose daughter is Vasabhakhattiyā?” “Mahānāma’s daughter, sir.” “When she came away, to whom did she come as wife?” “To me, sir.” “She is a king’s daughter. To a king she is wed, and to a king she bore a son. Wherefore is it that son is not in authority over the realm which owns his father’s sway? In bygone days, a monarch who had a son by a casual gatherer of wood gave that son his sovereignty.”
A couple of notes about this. Viḍūḍabha, the king’s son, was ultimately the one who murdered his father and killed the Sakyans. The background story to his pride being slighted, which led him to visit this horrible fate upon so many people, is being given here. The slave girl is named Nāgamuṇḍā, which is an interesting name. Muṇḍā is the name of a non-Indo-European language group in India that preceded the arrival of the Vedic cultures. Nāga is also often associated with pre-Vedic culture in India. So Nāgamuṇḍā was probably an indigenous girl who was taken as a bride by the king.
The anthropology of ancient India is very complex. One of the assumptions we often make is that the origins of lower-caste people and outcast people would have often originated among indigenous peoples. We do find some evidence for that in the Jātakas as well. It’s also interesting to note how the commentary takes it for granted that the Buddha is getting quite involved in this question of succession for the king. This is a notoriously fraught thing to get involved in, and yet the Buddha somehow is okay with giving advice about who should be getting the inheritance.
Now the Buddha tells the actual Jātaka story: In the past, in Benares,3 Brahmadatta the king, having gone in great state to his pleasure gardens, was roaming about looking for fruits and flowers when he came on a woman who was merrily singing away as she picked up sticks in the grove. Falling in love at first sight, the king became intimate with her, and the Bodhisatta4 was conceived then and there. Feeling as heavy within, as though weighed down with the bolt of Sakka,5 the woman knew that she would become a mother and told the king so. He gave her the signet ring from his finger and dismissed her with these words: “If it be a girl, spend the ring on her nurture. But if it be a boy, bring the ring and child to me.”
When the woman’s time was come, she bore the Bodhisatta. And when he would run about and was playing in the playground, a cry would arise, “No-father has hit me!” Hearing this, the Bodhisatta ran away to his mother and asked who his father was. “You are the son of the king of Benares, my boy.” “What proof of this is there, mother?” “My son, the king on leaving me gave me this signet ring and said, ‘If it be a girl, spend this ring on her nurture. But if it be a boy, bring the ring and child to me.’” “Why don’t you take me to my father, mother?”
Seeing that the boy’s mind was made up, she took him to the gate of the palace and bade their coming be announced to the king. Being summoned, she entered and bowing before his majesty said, “This is your son, sire.” The king knew full well that this was the truth, but shame before all his court made him reply, “He is no son of mine.” “But here is your signet ring, sire. You will recognize that.” “Nor is this my signet ring.” Then said the woman, “Sire, I have now no witness to prove my words except to appeal to truth. Wherefore, if you be the father of my child, I pray that he may stay in midair. But if not, may he fall to earth and be killed.” So saying, she seized the Bodhisatta by the foot and threw him up in the air.
Very dramatic. Seated cross-legged in midair, the Bodhisatta in sweet tones repeated this verse to his father, declaring the truth:
I am your son, great king. You must support me, the leader of men. The king supports others. Why not his own son?
Hearing the Bodhisatta teach the truth to him from midair, the king stretched out his hands and said, “Come to me, my boy. None, none but me shall rear and nurture you.” A thousand hands were stretched out to receive the Bodhisatta, but it was into the arms of the king and of no other that he descended, seating himself in the king’s lap. The king made him viceroy and made his mother queen consort. At the death of the king his father, he came to the throne by the title of King Kaṭṭhavāhana, the stick-bearer, and after ruling his realm righteously, passed away to fare according to his karma.
His lesson to the king of Kosala ended, and his two stories told, the teacher made the connection, linking them both together and identified the Jātaka by saying: “Mahāmāyā was the mother of those days, the stick collector. King Suddhodana was the father, and I myself was King Kaṭṭhavāhana.”
So you can see all of the classic elements of the Jātaka story: the story in the present day, the story in the past, the verse, the word commentary, and the identification of the characters.
The whole story has a bit of a fairy tale feel to it. You could see Disney doing something with this. You’ve got all the ingredients: the lost romance and all of these things. The opening is kind of cute, right? The king wandering around the garden looking for fruits and flowers. It’s a nice thing for a king to be doing. Better to have kings doing that than going out smiting their enemies.
And there he came upon a woman who was merrily singing away as she picked up sticks in the grove. Again, quite a delightful thought. There’s this young woman, she’s very happy, she’s singing as she picks up the sticks. I don’t know, maybe it’s a projection on the emotional state of the working class. I don’t know if most stick collectors are all that happy when they’re going around picking up sticks most of the time, but this particular one was happy. In this story, she doesn’t have too much of a character. We don’t really learn much about who she is, about her background, or what she wants. She appears more as an archetype than anything else.
The king became intimate with her. This is a bit problematic consent-wise, because I can’t imagine that the little stick collector has too much of a say in those events. But then there’s this idea that she became immediately aware that she was pregnant, as though weighed down with the bolt of Sakka, like struck with a bolt of lightning. This is a very significant detail because on this hinges the fact that he then gives her the ring. She has to know right at that moment that she is pregnant, which obviously usually isn’t the case.
When you reach these details in a story, because we are conditioned to see stories as being realistic, when we see something that doesn’t make sense, our response is often to say, “Oh, that doesn’t make sense. That’s not how pregnancy works.” That’s the point, though. The point is to tell you that this is not an ordinary pregnancy. The king is literally being compared with Sakka here. This is being compared with a divine pregnancy. If you follow mythology, for example, in Greek mythology, you find this kind of thing happens all the time. There’s some maiden who gets attacked by Zeus or Apollo, or raped or seduced, and then she becomes pregnant and has a son of the god.
Presumably, there’s a historical basis for that. I don’t doubt that kings were wandering around having their way with the young maidens of the kingdom whenever they felt like it. But I also think that these are clearly depicted as an allegory or with a religious or spiritual dimension to it. This is not just an ordinary maiden, it’s not just an ordinary king, and it’s certainly not just an ordinary pregnancy. When we encounter these kinds of irrational moments that don’t make sense, this is where those deeper stories and that deeper level of the unconscious is breaking through into the surface level of the plot.
Then, of course, you see the gendered nature of the upbringing. If it’s a girl, you can buy her some stuff with the ring. If it’s a boy, bring the ring and child to me. The king is not being depicted as a monster. He’s doing the minimum, but he is doing something. It’s also interesting that the stick carrier doesn’t go and visit him until the boy has been brought up. My guess is she probably had some experience about what value to place on the words of men in a situation like that. She probably would rather just stay quiet.
Then there’s the little detail that the other kids would say, “No-dad has hit me.” They’re calling him “no-dad,” which tells us that kids are just as cruel and nasty now as they were then. This is a super realistic playground insult. It must be such a painful thing.
Then they go to the palace, and the king is in denial. This is a significant moment in mythology. Then there’s that very interesting motif where she throws her child up into the air. Again, you’re probably thinking a mother wouldn’t do that. And yes, I’m sure that’s correct. This is telling us that this is not an ordinary mother and not an ordinary child. The fact that he just stays suspended in midair is telling us in no uncertain terms that we’re not just dealing with ordinary people. This is why I say this is a mythic story. It’s not just using miraculous events to decorate the story or teach a lesson. There’s something far deeper going on. It recalls things like the Caucasian Chalk Circle, where two women have to pull a child out of a circle to determine who is the real mother. That story’s earliest record is actually in the Jātakas itself.
When he’s suspended in the air, this is speaking to something profound in the nature of the Bodhisatta. There’s something sacred or otherworldly about what he’s doing. He’s neither in heaven nor on the ground. He’s neither one thing nor the other. If we think about the Bodhisatta in terms of his spiritual career from suffering to enlightenment, there’s something in that as well. He’s still in the world and a part of the world, but not touching the world, not grounded on the world in the same way.
Nirupa: In Thai culture, they use Jātaka stories for teaching a lot. Is this a story that you hear about in Thailand? Is this one of the ones that’s known?
Bhante Sujato: No, I haven’t heard of this one, but it sounds similar to many ones that we’ve heard before.
Nirupa: One interesting thing you mentioned is about women’s menstruation. In Thailand, when I was young, which was 60 years ago, when a woman has a period, you should not touch peppermint or the peppermint will die. You should not touch so many things because it’s bad. And also, men should not go under the clothesline that has women’s clothes because all the holy chantings will… yes.
Bhante Sujato: Yes. So those kinds of taboos are still very much alive in Thailand. I think in the West, we kind of think we’re beyond those things, but then when you have an ad for tampons, you still use blue liquid. We’re not that far away from it. These are examples of those kinds of taboos which hang around with menstruation. It’s important for us to read the Jātakas and to study these things to be able to learn about them. When I read The Golden Bough when I was in Thailand, it helped me to make sense of so many of the things that I’d seen around me in Thai culture that I just had no framework for understanding.
Marcello: Don’t the Jātakas have a kind of a message or a teaching about what the Buddha learned in those previous lifetimes as he was accumulating merit to become the Buddha? Is there something that he might have learned through this experience?
Bhante Sujato: The commentary draws a nice, straightforward little moral lesson from this, which is that the mother’s lineage doesn’t matter, only the father’s lineage matters. Personally, I don’t believe that, just so we’re clear. There are many Jātakas that do have a nice, clear, straightforward moral lesson, and we saw one of those last week. But then there are others that do not, and to me, these are much more interesting. This is why I talk about these as being myths rather than moral fables. A moral fable has a lesson. A myth deals with symbols which open up meaning rather than closing down meaning. A moral fable wants you to know this one is right and this one is wrong. A myth wants you to have a sense of wonder about what the possibilities are.
Could the lesson be that the truth is most important? Sure, you can draw lessons from it, but the point I’m making is it’s not necessarily the lesson. That’s why I mentioned the story about Aragorn becoming king. Is the lesson that it’s good to become a king? I don’t know. But it’s really about living up to your potential, about transforming, about integrity. You can read so many things into it, and it’s open-ended. Mythology wants to open up meaning and expand the way that you see so that you have more of a sense of wonder and a broader picture of the world.
In fact, that relates to the stories of our two characters. You have the sky god up here and the earth goddess down here. He comes down into her world and then comes back, and then she comes up into his world. They’re both departing from their normal spheres, and because they both transgress their spheres, they’re able to transcend and become something greater than they were before. That, to me, is what mythology is about. It’s about opening up your potential so you’re not just reducing everything to being nothing more than a moral message.
And in that story, we do actually have a ring. The ring is, of course, the same as Tolkien’s ring, and it’s the same as the marriage ring. It’s the ring that ties it all together. The ring is a circle, is whole, and it binds all of these different things together. The completely different worlds of the sky god and the earth goddess, or of the king and the maiden, are all united through the ring which brings them all together.
Jātaka: A story concerning one of the Buddha’s former lives. ↩
Sutta: A discourse or sermon of the Buddha or one of his disciples. ↩
Benares: An ancient and sacred city in India, now known as Varanasi. ↩
Bodhisatta: The Pāli term for Bodhisattva, a being who is on the path to becoming a Buddha. ↩
Sakka: A prominent deity in Buddhism, ruler of the Tāvatiṃsa heaven, often equated with the Vedic deity Indra. ↩