Kukkuṭa Jātaka

In the time of the Buddha, certain monks grew troubled on learning that Devadatta, consumed by envy and rivalry, was once again plotting to take the Enlightened One's life. When they voiced their distress in the hall of the Bamboo Grove, the Buddha counselled them not to be surprised: Devadatta had sought his destruction in ages past as well, and had failed then just as he would fail now. To illustrate the point, he recounted this Jātaka from a far earlier existence, when he himself walked the three worlds not as a sage among men but as a wary bird among birds.

In the days when King Kosambaka ruled at Kosambī, the city on the Ganges, the Bodhisatta was born into the animal realm as a wild fowl in a bamboo grove, and became the leader of several hundred fowls of the forest.

In the same woodland dwelt a cunning and voracious falcon. Having previously slain countless woodland birds through stealth and sudden swooping attacks, the falcon turned his greedy eye upon the wild cock. The falcon caught and ate them one by one until only the Bodhisatta was left. Being careful in finding his food, the Bodhisatta kept to a thicket of bamboo that the falcon could not enter.

Frustrated by his inability to catch the fowl by force, the falcon devised a treacherous scheme rooted in deceit. Flying to a branch near the bamboo thicket, he perched and called out, asking why the fowl was so afraid of him. He declared that he wanted to be friends, and invited the fowl to a place where food was plentiful, where they could feed together. The fowl refused. The falcon then confessed his past wrongs and promised never to repeat them, pleading to be trusted. Twice more the fowl refused, saying that such a creature could never be a friend.

The Bodhisatta looked down upon the smooth-tongued predator with crystal-clear discernment. He knew that nature does not change its essence through sweet rhetoric, and that between predator and prey there can exist no genuine amity. He then recited seven verses, here given in paraphrase: do not trust those who lie, who serve only their own interests, who have done wrong, or who make a show of excessive piety; some are like thirsty, greedy cattle who offer friendly words but never act on them, holding out empty hands while the voice hides the true intent; do not trust the fickle, or those who make pacts only to break them; do not trust one who follows evil ways and threatens everyone, for he is unsteady, like a sharp sword kept in its sheath; some speak sweet words that do not come from the heart, feigning friendship to win favour; and when such an evil-minded one sees food or gain, he works harm and will in the end leave, but not before bringing ruin.

Having refused the falcon, the Bodhisatta did not let the matter rest. He called the falcon back and gave him a final warning: that if the falcon stayed in that place, the fowl would know what to do.

Realizing his deception had utterly failed, the falcon flew away to another place, and the Bodhisatta lived out his span in safety.

Having finished the tale, the Buddha, now fully awakened, added four verses of his own, here in paraphrase: that many enemies appear as friends and offer help, and it is best to leave bad men, as the fowl left the falcon; that whoever is slow to grasp the meaning of events falls under his enemies' control and later regrets it; that whoever grasps it quickly escapes his enemies, as the fowl escaped the falcon's snare; and that a wise person with clear sight should keep far from such treacherous traps, as the fowl fled far from the falcon. He then declared plainly that the treacherous falcon of that forest was Devadatta himself, and that the wise fowl was the Bodhisatta — himself, in that former birth.

This tale is preserved in the Pali Canon's Khuddaka Nikāya, in the Jātaka book's Dasaka-nipāta — the tenth book, gathering jatakas told in ten verses — as the Kukkuṭa-Jātaka, No. 448, grouped within the Catudvāravagga, the chapter named for its opening tale, the Catu-dvāra-Jātaka (No. 439). It stands as the tenth story of the sixteen gathered in that book (Nos. 439–454). The canon itself distinguishes this telling from two earlier, unrelated Jātakas sharing the same title: the Kukkuṭa-Jātaka No. 209, in which a bird mocks a fowler who disguises himself as a moving bush of branches (there the Bodhisatta is a tree-spirit watching, and Devadatta is the fowler), and the Kukkuṭa-Jātaka No. 383, in which a fowl is approached not by a falcon but by a flattering cat. All three share a name and a character type — the fowl who sees through a predator's disguise — but each is a separate canonical text, with its own setting, antagonist, and verses.