Ulūka Jātaka

Jataka No. 270 of the Pali Canon was told by the Buddha after he was informed that owls near Jetavana (the monastery grounds where he often stayed) were killing numerous crows night after night. To explain how this bitter enmity between the two birds had first begun, the Buddha recalled a former life in which the birds of the world had once gathered to elect a king of their own.

In the primeval dawn of the current world cycle, the four-footed beasts of the earth gathered in a great congress and elected the majestic lion to be their king. The fishes swimming in the great ocean assembled amidst the coral banks and chose a mighty leviathan to rule the waters. Seeing that the quadrupeds and aquatic creatures now possessed recognized monarchs, the birds of all realms gathered upon a vast plateau in the heart of the Himalayas. They resolved to elect an undisputed king of their own as well.

Flocks of peacocks, parrots, swans, cuckoos, falcons, and cranes circled the cliffs, chattering and deliberating for a long while. Their attention finally turned to a solemn, great-horned owl sitting motionless upon a crag, blinking with massive yellow eyes. The birds declared that here at last sat a candidate endowed with gravity, silence, and nocturnal vigilance, one who neither chattered vainly like the parrots nor strutted foolishly like the peacocks. They resolved to anoint the owl as sovereign king over all who fly.

The birds rejoiced, and an eagle brought an earthenware vessel of mountain water for the coronation consecration. Before the third and final proclamation could be uttered to seal the election, a large, glossy black crow flew into the center of the gathering, perched upon a boulder, and flapped his wings for silence.

The crow asked the assembly plainly whether they had actually looked upon the owl's countenance in this hour of his supreme triumph. Even now, he pointed out, when the owl's heart should have been overflowing with joy and gracious benevolence, his brow was furrowed in something that looked very much like wrath. His eyes glared with what could easily be mistaken for malice, and his hooked beak looked ready to tear at anything nearby.

The crow pressed the point further, asking what horrors might befall the assembly once this same owl was provoked to genuine anger, if his face already looked this fearsome while supposedly at his happiest. An angry owl upon the throne, he warned, would scorch his own subjects the way sesame seeds scorch in a hot iron skillet.

Struck by the crow's undeniable observation, the assembly murmured in sudden alarm, and the vote never reached its final proclamation. The owl, hearing his face mocked and his royal ambition shattered in front of the entire gathering, flew into a rage. He snapped his beak and screamed that the crow had robbed him of the crown that should have been his.

Lunging from his rock with razor-sharp talons, the owl struck at the crow, who dodged the blow easily. A furious aerial duel followed across the Himalayan skies until the owl, blinded by the harsh daylight, retreated into the dark hollow of a rotten tree, vowing vengeance upon all crows for every generation still to come.

The assembled birds, breathing a collective sigh of relief at having so narrowly escaped the rule of a dark-tempered ruler, turned their gaze instead toward a magnificent golden mallard, the Bodhisatta (the Buddha-to-be, in an earlier life) himself. He shone with radiant, spotless plumage and radiated loving-kindness, gentle majesty, and wisdom in every visible way. With unanimous acclamation, the birds consecrated him as the sovereign king of the air in the owl's place.

The Bodhisatta governed the feathered realm with righteousness, non-violence, and profound compassion. He established laws that protected every nest from predators and taught all birds the path of harmonious coexistence that the owl's near-coronation had so nearly put at risk.

What the crow's single honest objection proved was never that appearances tell the whole truth about character, but that a visible warning sign, however small, deserves examination before power is handed over rather than after. The feud between crows and owls that followed, crows pecking at slumbering owls by day and owls hunting roosting crows under cover of night, remained a living reminder of what nearly happened. It showed how close an entire kingdom once came to being ruled by the very temper its own face had already announced. The warning was there to see, for anyone willing to look closely enough before the final vote was cast.