Khuddaka Nikaya - Jataka - Ekanipata - Dubbalakattha Jataka

Jataka Vol. I: Book I.--Ekanipāta: No. 105. Dubbalakaṭṭha-Jātaka



No. 105.
DUBBALAKAṬṬHA-JĀTAKA.
"Fear’st thou the wind."--This story was told by the Master while at Jetavana,
about a Brother who lived in a perpetual state of nervous alarm. We learn that
he came of a good family in Sāvatthi, and was led to give up the world by
hearing the Truth preached, and that he was always in fear of his life
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both by night and by day. The sough of the wind, the rustle of a fan, or the cry
of bird or beast would inspire him with such abject terror that he would shriek
and dash away. He never reflected that death was sure to come upon him; though,
had he practised meditation on the certainty of death, he would not have feared
it. [415] For only they that do not so meditate fear death. Now his constant
fear of dying became known to the Brethren, and one day they met in the Hall of
Truth and fell to discussing his fearfulness and the propriety of every
Brother's taking death as a theme for meditation. Entering the Hall, the Master
asked, and was told, what they were discussing. So he sent for that Brother and
asked him whether it was true he lived in fear of death. The Brother confessed
that he did. "Be not angry, Brethren," said the Master, "with this Brother. The
fear of death that fills his breast, now was no less strong in bygone times." 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 a
Tree-Sprite near the Himalayas. And in those days the king put his state
elephant in the elephant-trainers' hands to be broken in to stand firm. And they
tied the elephant up fast to a post, and with goads in their hands set about
training the animal. Unable to bear the pain whilst he was being made to do
their bidding, the elephant broke the post down, put the trainers to flight, and
made off to the Himalayas. And the men, being unable to catch it, had to come
back empty-handed. The elephant lived in the Himalayas in constant fear of
death. A breath of wind sufficed to fill him with fear and to start him off at
full speed, shaking his trunk to and fro. And it was with him as though he was
still tied to the post to be trained. All happiness of mind and body gone, he
wandered up and down in constant dread. Seeing this, the Tree-Sprite stood in
the fork of his tree and uttered this stanza:--
Fear'st thou the wind that ceaselessly
The rotten boughs doth rend alway?
Such fear will waste thee quite away!
[416] Such were the Tree-Sprite's cheering words. And the elephant thenceforth
feared no more.
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His lesson ended, the Master taught the Four Truths (at the close whereof the
Brother entered the Paths), and identified the Birth by saying, "This Brother
was the elephant of those days and I the Tree-Sprite."



Next: No. 106. Udañcani-Jātaka