Guna Jataka

Jataka No. 157 of the Pali Canon was told by the Buddha at Jetavana monastery after the Elder Ananda (one of the Buddha's chief disciples) received a gift of a thousand robes and distributed them among the brothers whose own garments had worn thin. When the king of Kosala (an ancient north Indian kingdom) questioned why Ananda should accept so many robes when the Order's own rules permitted a monk only three, Ananda explained that nothing had gone to waste. Worn robes became cloaks, cloaks became shirts, shirts became coverlets, coverlets became mats, mats became towels, and even the last remnants were worked into the clay used for plastering walls. To show that such careful gratitude for what one receives was nothing new in Ananda's own history, the Buddha told the following story from a former life.

In the kingdom of Kasi, the Bodhisatta (the being who would in a future life become the Buddha) was born as a lion dwelling in a mountain cave above Benares. While chasing a deer across the edge of a forest marsh, the lion misjudged his leap and plunged into a deep quagmire, sinking until he was held fast up to his belly. For seven days the great lion remained trapped there without food or water, his strength failing with each hour that passed.

On the seventh day a jackal wandering the marsh in search of smaller prey came upon the helpless lion. He recognized at once what manner of creature he had found, a predator who could devour him in a single bite were their positions ever reversed. Rather than flee the danger or abandon the lion to his fate, the jackal chose to risk his own safety for a stranger's life, approaching the edge of firm ground and offering to attempt a rescue.

The jackal set to work at once, scratching and loosening the thick clay packed around the lion's legs and softening it further with water carried from the marsh's edge, carving out a narrow channel toward solid ground. When the path was finally clear enough, the jackal called to the lion to gather what strength remained in his hindquarters and leap. The lion, drawing on the last of his failing power, sprang free of the mud and hauled himself onto dry land.

Overcome with gratitude toward the small creature who had saved a life many times his own size, the lion invited the jackal to bring his mate and settle in a cave near his own. From that day the two families shared both shelter and food. The lion hunted for both households, and for years the lion and the jackal lived side by side as true companions, each family eventually raising two young of their own.

In time the lion's own mate grew resentful of the jackal family's constant presence, and she began tormenting the she-jackal with cutting questions about why a creature so far beneath a lion's dignity should be allowed to remain in their company at all. The jackal, hearing of his own mate's torment, went to the lion in genuine fear. He told him plainly that the strong will always have their way simply because it is their nature to do so, admitting that he no longer felt safe remaining so close to a household that resented him.

The lion turned to his own mate and reminded her, without softening the truth, that a friend who plays a true friend's part is kin and flesh and blood to him. This was true, he said, regardless of how small or seemingly unworthy that friend's birth might appear. The jackal before her had once reached into a killing mire to save the very life she now shared. Hearing this, the lioness set aside her jealousy and made peace with the jackal's family, and the two households are remembered as having remained bonded in loyalty for seven generations that followed.

At the story's end, the Buddha identified the jackal with his own disciple Ananda, and declared that he himself had been the lion whose life was saved in the quagmire. The circle closed between a gift of a thousand robes carefully put to use and a debt of gratitude that, centuries earlier, neither a lion nor a jackal had ever let go to waste.