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FOLK-TALES OF INDIA.
Dhammaddhaja Jâtaka.[2]
The Holy Crow.
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IN days long gone by, when Brahmadatta reigned at Benares, the Bodhisat was reborn among the bird kind. When he was grown up he had about him a retinue of birds, and lived on an island in the middle of the ocean. On a time some merchants, residents of the Kâsi country, were sailing over that ocean with a foreign crow on board, when their vessel was wrecked in mid-ocean. The foreign crow took refuge on the aforesaid island and thought to itself, "I'll act craftily towards this assemblage of birds, and so manage to eat both their eggs and young ones." Whereupon he flew down into the midst of the birds, and, with open mouth, stood on the ground on one leg. "Who are you, sir?" asked the birds. "I am a saint," replied the crow. "Why do you stand on one foot?" said they. The crow made answer, "Were I to put both feet down the earth (on account of my sanctity) would not be able to support me." "But why," asked the birds, "do you stand with your mouth wide open?" The crow replied, "Because I eat no
- ↑ The Jâtaka Book is a very ancient collection of Buddhist fables, which, professing to have been told by Gotama Buddha, narrate his exploits in the 550 births through which he passed before attaining enlightenment or Buddhahood. For the relation of these tales to Indo-European folk-lore generally, consult Dr. Rhys Davids's Buddhist Birth-Stories (Trübner and Co.) and the translator's article on "The Book of Birth-Stories," Contemporary Review, May, 1881.
- ↑ Jâtaka Book, vol. iii. No. 384, p. 267. The Bilâra Jâtaka (to be given in the next part) contains a similar story of a "Jackal and Rats."
