Jambuka Jataka

Jataka No. 335 of the Pali Canon was told by the Buddha concerning Devadatta's (the Buddha's envious cousin and rival) attempt to imitate the Buddha's own conduct and claim an equal standing he had never earned through equal practice. To show where such imitation leads when it mistakes borrowed nourishment for genuine capacity, the Buddha recalled an old story of a jackal who grew fat on a lion's leavings and concluded he had become the lion's equal.

In that former life the Bodhisatta (the being who would in a future life become the Buddha) was born a lion in the Himalayas, maned and mighty, dwelling in a cave of golden rock. Whenever he brought down a buffalo, deer, or boar, he ate only the choicest portion for himself. He left the rest of the carcass behind without a second thought, since a lion who could kill at will had no need to hoard what remained.

A thin, scavenging jackal discovered the lion's cave and its abundant leavings, and offered himself as a humble attendant in exchange for whatever meat the lion no longer wanted. He promised to scout the trails and keep watch over the lair, and the Bodhisatta, moved by simple compassion for so small and hungry a creature, allowed him to stay.

Feeding daily on rich venison and the choice meat of fattened cattle, the jackal's thin frame filled out until his coat shone with a borrowed prosperity his own hunting had never earned. But the same rich diet that strengthened his body did nothing to temper his mind, and as his belly grew round, his sense of his own importance grew rounder still.

Catching sight of his own reflection in a still mountain pool, the jackal began to wonder what truly separated him from the lion who fed him. Both walked on four legs, and both carried claws and fangs. If a lion could bring down a buffalo or a boar, the jackal saw no reason he should not attempt the same, rather than living out his days on another's leftovers.

The jackal announced to the Bodhisatta that he intended to climb the high cliff above the valley, roar as a hunter roars, and leap upon the head of a wild elephant to kill it himself. After that, he said, the lion could feed on whatever he left behind. The Bodhisatta answered him with more pity than anger. He explained that only lions, born of an ancient line of hunters, could bring down an elephant, and that a jackal born to scavenge would find only ruin in pretending otherwise.

Rejecting the lion's counsel as an insult to his newfound confidence, the jackal climbed to the clifftop overlooking the valley, where a great tusked elephant grazed peacefully among the reeds below. He tried to loose a hunter's roar but managed only a thin, broken yelp, and then he leapt from the rock toward the elephant's head with all the confidence his fattened body could muster.

The jackal's judgment of the distance failed him completely, and instead of landing where he had aimed, he fell short and struck the ground directly between the startled elephant's front legs. The great animal, alarmed by the sudden weight landing so close to him, brought one heavy foot down without hesitation. The jackal's brief imitation of a lion ended there beneath it, before he could ever learn whether his courage might have matched his swollen pride.

At the story's end, the Buddha identified the jackal with Devadatta, and the lion with himself. He taught the assembly that borrowed strength, however much it fattens the body or swells the pride, can never substitute for the discipline that earns a true capacity. Whoever tries to leap beyond their own nature on nothing but another's leftovers will find only the ground waiting to correct them.