For the next two weeks I am reading through the Jataka Tales from the Eastern Stories and Legends by Marie Shedlock.
The Hare That Ran Away:
- Buddha born as lion to help fellow animals
- Hare: nervous, dreadful of something bad happening
- Started running - "the earth is falling in" when she heard the rustling caused by a falling fruit
- she tells her brother who tells another hare soon...
- deer -> sheep -> wild boar -> buffalo -> camel -> tiger -> elaphant
- Lion stops then and asked where the info came from...takes the hare to the original site and explains nothing is happening
The Monkey and the Crocodile:
- Brahmadatta was king of Benares, the Bodhisatta, came to life at the foot of Himalaya as a Monkey
- lived by the River Ganges
- New crocodile fam in town..wife hungry for the monkey
- husband goes to the monkey and offers a ride across the river
- croc tells the monkey why his wife sent him
- Monkey is smart, tricks croc by telling him that monkey hearts are not inside instead hang on trees
- Croc goes back without the hear for his wife
The Spirit That Lived in a Tree:
- Buddha was re-born as a Tree-Spirit
- King of Benares says he will build a palace resting on only one column
- in the King's Park was a lordly Sal tree, straight and well grown, worshiped by village and town, and to this tree even the Royal Family also paid tribute, worship, and honor to be cut down
- King gets a visit from the Tree Spirit and is shown why the trees can't be cut down...King tells that they won't be cut
The Hare That Was Not Afraid to Die:
- Buddha was born a Hare and lived in a wood; on one side was the foot of a mountain, on another a river, on the third side a border village
- three friends: a Monkey, a Jackal, and an Otter
- Hare thought the friends important lessons in the evening
- One time Buddha (Hare) tells that tomorrow is a fast day and to give food from their own store if a beggar comes by
- Next day:
- Otter takes fisherman's fishes...called out but no response from owner
- Jackal takes milk curds and lizards
- Monkey takes mangoes
- Hare has nothing..lies in grass says he will give his own flesh
- Sakka, king of gods, disguises himself as Brahmin to test the Hare
- Hare passes Sakka's test for his virtue...fire was icy cold
- Buddha was re-born in the shape of a Parrot
- father makes son the flock leader
- flock eats rice and leader takes some back in his beak
- farmer fears there will be no rice left despite all of his attempts to steer the parrots away from the rice fields they still end up eating their fill
- farmer goes to Brahmin to get advise
- trap the leader
- Farmer sets trap..leader thinks if he cries out his kinsfolk will leave foodless
- his cries are ignored by the others and they fly away
- Brahmin questions and hears the story of the parrot
- paying a debt, storing a treasure
- taking food for parents and chicks who cannot yet fly
- Brahmin moved by the story and the parent was granted full permission and even given a part of the land
The Man Who Worked to Give Alms:
- Buddha was born as a merchant named Vissaya (and being endowed with the Five Virtues)
- had alms halls built at the four city gates
- set on foot alms-giving and every day 600,000 men went forth to beg and the food of the beggar and the merchant was exactly the same
- Sakka, the King of the gods, grew suspicious
- he took away all the goods, money, worker from the Merchant and wife
- Merchant and wife discover that they don't have any money...cut grass to make money
- They aren't able to raise enough to feed people...Sakka sees their determination and restores the wealth
The King Who Saw the Truth:
- Wisdom Child that should in time become the Buddha was born a King
- King decreed to give anything that anyone would ask would get
- He enjoyed giving..his heart is filled by giving to others
- Sakka tests how much truth the King's words hold...
- Sakka comes as a blind Brahmin and requests the king for one of his eyes..
- people question the king and he says he shall not break his vow
- surgeon does the procedure..few weeks later King's sight was restored to him and allowed him to see perfect and absolute Truth.
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| The Running Hare |
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