0155. The Mountain-Stag and the Doe

From The Jataka Volume 1 translated by Robert Chalmers, online at: Sacred Texts Archive.

Notes. This is the Kandina Jataka.

Summary: A stag, for love of a doe, willingly enters into danger.

Read the story below:

---

THE MOUNTAIN-STAG AND THE DOE

(Sambar stag)

Once on a time in the kingdom of Magadha the king was reigning in Rajagaha, and when the crops were grown the deer were exposed to great perils, so that they retired to the forest.

Now a certain mountain-stag of the forest, having become attached to a doe who came from near a village, was moved by his love for her to accompany her when the deer returned home from the forest.

Said she, "You, sir, are but a simple stag of the forest, and the neighbourhood of villages is beset with peril and danger. So don't come down with us."

But he because of his great love for her would not stay, but came with her.

When they knew that it was the time for the deer to come down from the hills, the Magadha folk posted themselves in ambush by the road; and a hunter was lying in wait just by the road along which the pair were travelling.

Scenting a man, the young doe suspected that a hunter was in ambush, and let the stag go on first, following herself at some distance. With a single arrow the hunter laid the stag low, and the doe seeing him struck was off like the wind.

Then that hunter came forth from his hiding place and skinned the stag and lighting a fire cooked the sweet flesh over the embers. Having eaten and drunk, he took off home the remainder of the bleeding carcass on his carrying-pole to regale his children.

Now in those clays the Bodhisatta was a fairy dwelling in that very grove of trees, and he marked what had come to pass. "’Twas not father or mother, but passion alone that destroyed this foolish deer. The dawn of passion is bliss, but its end is sorrow and suffering, the painful loss of hands, and the misery of the five forms of bonds and blows. To cause another's death is accounted infamy in this world; infamous too is the land which owns a woman's sway and rule; and infamous are the men who yield themselves to women's dominion."

And therewithal, while the other fairies of the wood applauded and offered perfumes and flowers and the like in homage, the Bodhisatta wove the three infamies into a single stanza, and made the wood re-echo with his sweet tones as he taught the truth in these lines:

Cursed be the dart of love that works men pain!
Cursed be the land where women rule supreme!
And cursed the fool that bows to woman's sway!

Thus in a single stanza were the three infamies comprised by the Bodhisatta, and the woods re-echoed as he taught the Truth with all the mastery and grace of a Buddha.