Namaste, Welcome to SAM-VAD (Together In Conversation), This week let me bring to your attention another monumental work, ‘The JĀTAKAS – Birth Stories of the Bodhisatta (the one bound for, or to, enlightenment). A Jātaka is a story about a birth, and this collection of tales is about the repeated births – and – deaths of the Bodhisatta.
According to Sara Shaw only a selectionof 26 stories have been included in this current translation out of the 547 stories with at least one story linked in one ancient source to each perfection.
The Ten Perfections (pāramis) are:
Generosity (dāna)
Virtue (síla)
Renunciation (nekkhamma)
Wisdom (paññā)
Effort (viriya)
Forebearance (khanti)
Truth (sacca)
Resolve (adhiţţhāna)
Loving Kindness (mettā)
Equanimity (upekkhā)
The characters in Jātakas inhabit an intricately meshed network of almost familial relationships. They are constantly interacting with each other, discussing their problems and giving advice on how to live. Links between characters extend far back into the past; events tend to recur as old habits are repeated in later lifetimes. Underneath it all is the assumption of the Jātakas that each being lives as an independent locus of consciousness, capable of choice and of finding enlightenment for him or herself.
The Story of the Partridge
Once upon a time, on the slopes of the Himalayas, there lived three friends beside a single large banyan tree: a partridge, a monkey and an elephant. But they became disrespectful, lacking in deference and common courtesy towards one another. So they then thought, ‘It is not right that we live like this. Why don’t we live so that we accord due respect to the one of us who is the eldest?’ ‘But which of us is the eldest?’ they wondered. One day as the three of them sat at the roots of the tree they had an idea as to how to find out. The partridge and the monkey asked the elephant, ‘Good elephant, what size was this banyan tree when you first knew it?’ He said, ‘When I was a baby this banyan tree was just a shrub too and I could walk so that it went between my thighs. When I stood over it its highest branch brushed against my navel. So I have known this tree from the time when it was just a bush.’ Then the elephant and the partridge asked the monkey according to the same method. He said, ‘Friends, when I was a baby monkey I used to sit on the ground and even without having to stretch my neck I could eat the uppermost buds of this young banyan tree. So I have known it since it was just a sapling.’ Then the monkey and the elephant asked the partridge in the same way. ‘Friends, at one time there was a very large banyan tree at such and such a place. I ate the fruits and then expelled excrement over this spot. This tree grew from that. So I have known it from the time even before it existed. Therefore I am older than both of you.’ At these words the monkey and the elephant said to the wise partridge, ‘Friend, you are the eldest amongst us.
I end this tale here.
You can buy your copy from any of the bookstores near you or via any on-line portal selling books or also by clicking the following link:
I want to draw your attention to these wise words of a Storyteller which I have extracted from yet another monumental work which has been inspired from “The Panćatantra”:
My stories require, at this stage, no extra commentary, imaginings, or guesswork by you, me, or anyone else. The very worst would be that of moralizing. To explain away is to forget. Thus, let the stories which you can remember do their own work by their very diversity. Familiarize yourself with them.
Excerpt from Doctor’s orders:
Kalila Wa Dimna; Vol.1 – Ramsay Wood
Let us remember: Our life experience would ultimately amount to whatever we had paid attention to. Attention: is important and most of the times we are so indifferent to it. It is as fundamental as food; and we go blundering about, seeking ways to assuage the craving, instead of learning how to provide ourselves with what we need, sensibly and calmly. We feed the hunger blindly. Once the mechanism is brought to our attention and we begin to study it, it is as if a veil has been stripped off ordinary life, and we become freer in our action and choices.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | Pandora | iHeartRadio | JioSaavn | Podchaser | Gaana | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSS