Buddhist birth stories; or, Jataka tales, Volume 1
Religion
Buddhist birth stories; or, Jataka tales, Volume 1
Jataka stories, English
But when he began to put a string through his nose and drag him along,
he could not get him to come. For the Bodisat, it is said, wouldn’t go
till he was promised a reward.
The young caravan owner, seeing what his object was, said to him, “Sir!
if you’ll drag over these five hundred carts for me, I’ll pay you wages
at the rate of two pence for each cart--a thousand pieces in all.”
Then the Bodisat went along of his own accord. And the men yoked him to
the cart. And with a mighty effort he dragged it up and landed it safe
on the high ground. And in the same manner he dragged up all the carts.
So the caravan owner then put five hundred pennies in a bundle, one
for each cart, and tied it round his neck. The bull said to himself,
“This fellow is not giving me wages according to the rate agreed upon.
I shan’t let him go on now!” And so he went and stood in the way of the
front cart, and they tried in vain to get him away.
The caravan owner thought, “He knows, I suppose, that the pay is too
little;” and wrapping a thousand pieces in a cloth, tied them up in a
bundle, and hung that round his neck. And as soon as he had got the
bundle with a thousand inside he went off to his ‘mother.’
Then the village children called out, “See! what’s that round the neck
of the old woman’s Blackie?” and began to run up to him. But he chased
after them, so that they took to their heels before they got near him;
and he went straight to his mother. And he appeared with eyes all
bloodshot, utterly exhausted from dragging over so many carts.
“How did you got this, dear?” said the good old woman, when she saw the
bag round his neck. And when she heard, on inquiry from the herdsmen,
what had happened, she exclaimed, “Am I so anxious, then, to live on
the fruit of your toil, my darling! Why do you put yourself to all this
pain?”
And she bathed him in warm water, and rubbed him all over with oil, and
gave him to drink, and fed him up with good food. And at the end of her
life she passed away according to her deeds, and the Bodisat with her.
* * * * *
When the Teacher had finished this lesson in virtue, in illustration of
that saying of his (“Not now only, O mendicants, has the Bodisat been
excellent in power; he was so also in a former birth”), he made the
connexion, and, as Buddha, uttered the following stanza:
Whene’er the load be heavy,
Where’er the ruts be deep,
Let them yoke ‘Blackie’ then,
And he will drag the load!
Then the Blessed One told them, “At that time, O mendicants, only the
Black Bull could drag the load.” And he then made the connexion and
summed up the Jātaka: “The old woman of that time was Uppala-vaṇṇā, but
‘the old woman’s Blackie’ was I myself.”
END OF THE STORY OF THE OLD WOMAN’S BLACK BULL.[316]
No. 30.
MUṆIKA JĀTAKA.
The Ox who Envied the Pig.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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