Romaka Jātaka

Jataka No. 277 of the Pali Canon was told by the Buddha while he was staying at the Bamboo Grove (Veluvana), in response to Devadatta's repeated attempts to murder him. Devadatta's attempts were famous among the monks: he hired archers, rolled a boulder down upon the Teacher, and loosed the elephant Nalagiri on the road. The Buddha showed that Devadatta had once before played the part of a counterfeit holy man who wished harm on those who trusted him, and that he had failed then just as he failed now. The title word romaka means feathered one, the way the ascetic addresses the pigeon in the verses, and the tale takes its name from that address rather than from any hermit.

When Brahmadatta ruled in Benares, the Bodhisatta was born as a pigeon and lived with a large flock in a hill cave in the woodland. Close to a frontier village, a virtuous ascetic had built a hut and lived in a hill cave of his own. The pigeon king visited him regularly and heard worthwhile teaching from him. In that simple friendship the birds learned that a robe and a hut are no proof of anything; what mattered was the ascetic's conduct, and for a long while his conduct had been good.

After a long time the virtuous ascetic went away, and a sham ascetic took over the hermitage. The pigeon king and his flock kept visiting, greeting the newcomer respectfully, feeding around his dwelling by day and returning home at evening. The sham ascetic stayed there for more than fifty years, and the trust between him and the birds seemed unbroken.

One day the villagers gave the ascetic some cooked pigeon meat. He liked the flavour, asked what it was, and decided to kill some of the pigeons that visited his hermitage.

He gathered rice, ghee, milk, cumin, and pepper to cook the birds with, hid a staff in the folds of his robe, and sat at the door of his hut waiting for the pigeons to arrive.

The pigeon king came with his flock and recognised the man's wicked intent. He alighted to leeward, caught the ascetic's scent, and warned his companions to keep away. The flock stayed at a distance and did not go in. Nothing in the man's outward bearing had changed, and that is the lesson: the king of the pigeons trusted his sense of the real danger over the familiar appearance of the old hermitage.

Seeing that the birds kept their distance, the ascetic tried flattery. In two verses he reminded the pigeons that for over fifty years they had come to his hand, and asked why they now flew to another mountain grotto and seemed not to recognise him. The Bodhisatta answered in a single verse: this was not the ascetic they had known, and the birds were not the same either; his mind was set against their kind, which was why they were afraid. He called the man a corrupt ascetic living for gain.

Realising he had been seen through, the sham ascetic hurled his staff at the pigeon king but missed. The Bodhisatta mocked the miss and warned that such a man would not escape the four hells.

The pigeon king threatened to call the villagers and have the man seized as a thief, and told him to flee at once. The ascetic could no longer remain at the hermitage and had to leave.

What the Bodhisatta's wariness preserved was never really about one hermit's appetite. It was about how thoroughly even decades of apparent restraint can collapse the instant a hidden craving finds something worth indulging. Outward reputation protects no one, bird or villager, once that collapse has already begun. At the end of the tale the Buddha identified the characters: Devadatta was the sham ascetic, Sariputta was the virtuous ascetic, and the Buddha himself was the king of the pigeons.