Khuddaka Nikaya - Jataka - Dukanipata - Kapi Jataka

Jataka Vol. II: Book II. Dukanipāta: No. 250. Kapi-Jātaka



No. 250.
KAPI-JĀTAKA.
"A holy sage," etc.--This story was told by the Master whilst living at
Jetavana, about a hypocritical Brother.
The Brotherhood found out his hypocrisy. In the Hall of Truth they were talking
it over: "Friend, Brother So-and-so, after embracing the Buddha's religion,
which leads to salvation, still practises hypocrisy." The Master on coming in
[269] asked what they were discussing together. They told him. Said he,
"Brethren, it is not the only time this Brother has been a hypocrite; for a
hypocrite he was before, when he shammed simply for the sake of warming himself
at the fire." Then he told them an old-world tale.
_____________________________
Once on a time, when Brahmadatta was king in Benares, the Bodhisatta was born
one of a brahmin family. When he grew up, and his own son was of an age to run
about, his wife died; he took the child on his hip, and departed into the
Himalayas, where he became an ascetic, and brought up his son to the same life,
dwelling in a hut of leaves.
It was the rainy season, and the heaven poured down its floods incessantly: a
Monkey wandered about, tormented with the cold, chattering and rattling his
teeth. The Bodhisatta fetched a great log, lit a fire, and lay down upon his
pallet. His son sat by him, and chafed his feet.
p. 188
Now the Monkey had found a dress belonging to some dead anchorite. He clad
himself in the upper and lower garment, throwing the skin over one shoulder; he
took the pole and waterpot, and in this sage's dress he came to the leaf-hut for
the fire: and there he stood, in his borrowed plumes.
The lad caught sight of him, and cried out to his father, "See, father--there is
an ascetic, trembling with cold! Call him hither; he shall warm himself." Thus
addressing his father, he uttered the first stanza:
"A holy sage stands shivering at our gate,
A sage, to peace and goodness consecrate.
O father! bid the holy man come in,
That all his cold and misery may abate."
The Bodhisatta listened to his son; he rose up, and looked; then he knew it was
a monkey, and repeated the second stanza: [270]
"No holy sage is he: it is a vile
And loathsome Monkey, greedy all to spoil
That he call touch, who dwells among the trees;
Once let him in, our home he will defile."
With these words, the Bodhisatta seized a firebrand, and scared away the monkey;
and he leaped up, and whether he liked the wood or whether he didn't, he never
returned to that place any more. The Bodhisatta cultivated the Faculties and the
Attainments, and to the young ascetic he explained the process of the mystic
trance; and he too let the Faculties and the Attainments spring up within him.
And both of them, without a break in their ecstasy, became destined to Brahma's
world.
_____________________________
Thus did the Master discourse by way of shewing how this man was not then only,
but always, a hypocrite. This ended, he declared the Truths, and identified the
Birth:--at the conclusion of the Truths some reached the First Path, some the
Second, and yet some the Third:--"The hypocritical Brother was the Monkey,
Rāhula was the son, and I was the hermit myself."



Next: No. 251. Saṁkappa-Jātaka