Reading Notes: Twenty Jataka Tales Part A

I decided to read some Buddhist Jatakas for this week.  I find that many Jatakas have nuanced but simple ideas that are interesting to read. The first Jataka I read centered on sacrifice by a leader and attempted to show how through love and sacrifice is how a true king/chief rules. The premise is that a tree with divine fruit, which is guarded by a troupe of monkeys, is sought after by a king who happened to find one of the fruits from the tree. When the king finds the tree, he threatens to kill the monkeys. The monkeys, trapped on the tree, only escape because their leader sacrifices himself to create a bridge (he holds a reed attached to another tree while he holds the divine tree). The funniest part of the story is how the king came across the fruit. The fruit fell from the tree and was taken down the Ganges river to the city of Benares. Benares is very far along the Ganges river, and is downstream of many major cities. The Ganges was and still is an incredibly polluted river.

Varanasi is the Modern Name for Benares. Source

This means that this king, who happened to be bathing in a river, which most likely contained massive amounts of sewage and cholera, picked up a random fruit, probably also covered in sewage, and ate it. This fruit mind you had traveled all the way from the Himalayan mountains and would most likely have rotten. The fact that this fruit was such a great motivator to this king means that it far exceeded the cuisine his city had to offer. This is a dismal picture for a city so grand, and it paints a desperate picture of what life may have been in ancient times. Still I admire the monkey chief and his commitment to his kin.

The Monkey Chief Saving His Brethren. Source

Bibliography

Twenty Jataka Tales. Noor Inayat. Source