The Vaka Jātaka

The Buddha told this story at Jetavana, and the Jātaka Aṭṭhakathā numbers it as Jātaka No. 300. The background is told in the Vinaya, the monastic code of discipline. The venerable Upasena once visited the Buddha with a junior monk who lived in the same monastery, and the Buddha rebuked him for it. Upasena withdrew, practised hard, and attained arahatship, the final stage of liberation. He then took up the thirteen ascetic practices, a set of optional austerities such as living on alms-food alone or dwelling under trees, and taught them to his fellow monks. While the Buddha was in seclusion for three months, Upasena and his companions kept those practices.

Later the Buddha gave Upasena an approving word. He said that any monks might visit him whenever they pleased, provided they followed the thirteen practices. Upasena carried the message back to the brothers. After that, the monks kept the practices before they came to see the Teacher. Once the Buddha emerged from his seclusion, they threw away their old rags and put on clean clothing.

As the Buddha walked round the monastery with the community to look at the lodgings, he noticed the old rags lying about. He asked what they were. When the monks explained, he said that their practice was short-lived, like the wolf's holy day service. The monks asked him to explain, and he told them an old tale.

In the days when Brahmadatta ruled at Benares, the Bodhisatta was Sakka, king of the gods. At that time a wolf lived on a rock beside the Ganges. When the winter floods came, the water rose and surrounded the rock. The wolf lay there with nothing to eat and no means of getting anything. As the water kept rising, he thought about his position.

The wolf reasoned that there was no food and no way to get any. Since he had nothing to do, he might as well keep a sabbath. So, as he lay on the rock, he took the precepts and solemnly resolved to keep the holy day. The thought was one of convenience, and not of conviction. His hunger had simply taken away every other choice.

Sakka, looking out with his divine sight, saw how weak the wolf's resolve was. He thought that he would test the wolf. He took the shape of a wild goat and stood near the rock, where the wolf could see him.

When the wolf saw the goat, he thought that he could keep his sabbath another day. He got up and leapt at the creature. The goat sprang this way and that, and the wolf could not catch him. When the wolf saw that he could not catch the goat, he stopped, went back, and lay down again. He told himself that his sabbath had not been broken after all.

Then Sakka rose in the air by his divine power and called down to the wolf. He asked what such an unsteady creature had to do with keeping a sabbath. He said the wolf had not known who he was and had only wanted a meal of goat's flesh. Having rebuked him, Sakka returned to the world of the gods. The verses end with a comparison. Some people in this world make resolutions beyond their strength, and swerve from them as soon as the goat appears.

The Buddha closed the story with a short identification. He said that in that time he himself had been Sakka. The tale was not told to blame the monks, and it was not told to shame them either. It showed them how easily a practice that is taken up for the wrong reason can fall away.

The Jātaka Aṭṭhakathā preserves this tale as a warning about borrowed resolve. A vow taken because one has no other choice is not yet a vow. It was easy for the wolf to keep his sabbath while there was nothing to eat, and he dropped it the moment the prey appeared. The same can happen to a devotee. A fast kept only when it is convenient, or a practice taken up only while someone is watching, will not stand when a real test arrives. The tale gently asks the listener to choose vows that fit his strength, and then to keep them even when the goat appears.