Khuddaka Nikaya - Jataka - Ekanipata - Tittira Jataka

Jataka Vol. I: Book I.--Ekanipāta: No. 117. Tittira-Jātaka



p. 260
No. 117.
TITTIRA-JĀTAKA.
"As died the partridge."--This story was told by the Master while at Jetavana,
about Kokālika, whose story will be found in the Thirteenth Book in the
Takkāriya Jātaka 1.
Said the Master, "As now, Brethren, so likewise in former times, Kokālika's
tongue has worked his destruction."
So saying, he told this story of the past.
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Once on a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta was born
a brahmin in the North country. When he grew up, he received a complete
education at Takkasilā, and, renouncing Lusts, gave up the world to become a
hermit. He won the Five Knowledges and the Eight Attainments, and all the
recluses of the Himalayas to the number of five hundred assembled together and
followed him as their master.
Insight was his as he dwelt amid his disciples in the Himalayas.
In those days there was an ascetic suffering from jaundice who was chopping wood
with an axe. And a chattering Brother came and sat by him, and directed his
work, bidding him give here a chop and there a chop, [432] till the jaundiced
ascetic lost his temper. In a rage he cried, "Who are you to teach me how to
chop wood?" and lifting up his keen-edged axe stretched the other dead with a
single blow. And the Bodhisatta had the body buried.
Now on an ant-hill hard by the hermitage there dwelt a partridge which early and
late was always piping on the top of the ant-hill. Recognising the note of a
partridge, a sportsman killed the bird and took it off with him. Missing the
bird's note, the Bodhisatta asked the hermits why they did not hear their
neighbour the partridge now. Then they told him what had happened, and he linked
the two events together in this stanza:--
As died the partridge for her clamorous cry,
So prate and chatter doomed this fool to die.
Having developed within himself the four Perfect States, the Bodhisatta thus
became destined to rebirth in the Brahma Realm.
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p. 261
Said the Master, "Brethren, as now, so likewise in former days Kokālika's tongue
has worked his destruction." And at the close of this lesson he identified the
Birth by saying, "Kokālika was the meddling ascetic of those days, my followers
the band of hermits, and I their master."



Footnotes
260:1 No. 481. Kokālika was one of Devadatta's schismatics.



Next: No. 118. Vaṭṭaka-Jātaka