When the Buddha was Bad: Greedy Jackal

Wisdom Quarterly translation based on an archaic initial translation by H.T. Francis and E.J. Thomas (Jataka 148)

It is easy to think of the Rebirth Tales (Jatakas) as nothing more than children's stories, far fetched fables and parables the Buddha skillfully employed in teaching simple lessons.

Indeed, Aesop's Fables are based on them as they traveled from culture to culture to the delight and edification of many who lost sight or never knew they originated with the Buddha.

But as these videos show, they could very well be based on actual, albeit implausible, events. That they often involve animal communication or admirable characteristics is not to suggest that all animals are capable of higher-order reasoning or communicating. But it does suggest that some are. After all, it's not an ordinary being having these experiences, but a very special one.

THE GREEDY JACKAL GETS CAUGHT

(Buddhist Rebirth Tale 148)
Once upon a time, while Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta [Sanskrit, Bodhisattva] was reborn in the animal realm as a jackal. He lived in a forest alongside the great Ganges river.

At that time an old elephant died by the banks of the Ganges. And the jackal, finding the carcass, congratulated himself for discovering such a great store of rotting meat. [Elephants are pachyderms, which means "thick skin."] He bit the trunk, but it was like biting a plough handle. "There's no eating here," said the jackal and bit at a tusk.

But that was like biting a large bone. Next he tried a flexible ear, but it was like chewing the rim of a winnowing basket. He pounced on the stomach. But he found that as impenetrable as a grain basket.

The feet were no better. They were as tough as a mortar. He tried the tail, but that was like a pestle. "That won't do either," said the jackal.

Having failed everywhere else, he chewed at the rear and found that like eating a soft cake. "At last," he exclaimed, "I've found the right place!'' And he ate his way right into the belly of the great beast. There he made a feast of the kidneys, heart, and other organs, quenching his thirst with blood.

Having got his fill and feeling night come on, he lay down inside. As he rested there, a thought came into the jackal's mind: "This carcass is both meat and house to me; why would I leave it?"

0:26 shows that a carcass can be a home.

So there he settled to dwell in the elephant's innards, eating away. Time wore on until the summer sun and winds dried and shrank the elephant's hide. And the entrance by which the jackal had crawled in closed leaving the interior in utter darkness.

There the jackal found himself, soaked in stench, cloyed, cut off from the world, and confined in the space between worlds. After the hide shrank, the flesh began to wither, and the blood dried up. In a frenzy of despair, he rushed back and forth slamming against his prison walls in a fruitless endeavor to escape.

But as he bobbed excitedly up and down like a ball of rice in a boiling pot, a storm broke out. And the downpour moistened and softened the shell of the carcass. Restoring the entrance, light soon shone in like a star through the fetid canal.

"I'm saved! I'm saved!" cried the jackal. And backing up against the elephant's head, he rushed headlong at the outlet. He struggled and struggled and finally managed to get through, but only by leaving his hair all along the way.

And first he ran from his jail in joy. Then he halted and sat surveying his hairless body, which was now as smooth as a palm stem. "Ah!" he exclaimed, "this misfortune has befallen me because of my greed and my greed alone. From now on, I will not be greedy nor ever again crawl into offensive end of an elephant."

His terror at what had almost happened found expression in the following stanza:

"Once bitten, twice shy.

Ah, great was my fear!

Of elephants' innards

Henceforth will I steer clear!"

With these words the jackal ran off, never again to so much as look at another elephant carcass. [And the moral to the story is:] He was never greedy again.