Discourse on Kuṇāla Jātaka

Summary: Buddha taught Kuṇāla Jātaka to The Five Hundred Bhikkhus.

The Buddha kept constant watch over these five hundred bhikkhus by personal contact, three times in a day and three times at night, a total of six times a day, just as a pheasant looks after her eggs, a fabulous beast Camari regards for its tail, a mother cares for her only son, a one-eyed man regards for his only good eye. He became well aware of the unhappy state of their minds and He considered: “These bhikkhus felt discontented and tedious even in the company of such a person as Myself, the Buddha, what kind of discourse would be suitable for them?” He perceived that Kuṇāla Jātaka, (which mentions frailties and weaknesses in the character of women) would be the best for them. Therefore, He made the decision: “I shall first take these bhikkhus to the Himalayas, then, by relating Kuṇāla Jātaka, I shall bring home to them the imperfections and defects in the character of women. In this way, I shall remove the unhappiness and discontent which had risen in their hearts and give them the knowledge of Path, sotāpatti-ñāṇa.”

The Buddha entered the city of Kapilavatthu in the morning for the usual round of almsfood, and in the afternoon He asked the five hundred bhikkhus: “Have you ever seen the pleasant forests of the Himalaya regions?” and they replied: “We have never seen them, Lord.” He asked them again: “Do you like to pay a short visit to the forest of Himalayas?” “Most Glorious Buddha, we do not possess any supernatural power; how would we go there then.” Whereupon He asked: “But if someone who has the power offers to take you there, would you like to go along with him?” The bhikkhus answered: “Yes, Lord, we will.”

The Buddha, exercising His supernormal power, took them all through the space towards Himalayas, and in the course of the journey, while still remaining in the sky, they were shown the golden, silver, emerald, vermillion mountains, mountains of glass, etc., the five great rivers and the seven great lakes. The Himalayas was of huge dimension, five hundred yojana high with an area of three thousand yojanas. The Buddha was revealing to the five hundred bhikkhus by His supernatural power only a small portion of the delightful splendours of the Himalayas. He also showed them four-legged animals such as lions, tigers, elephants, as well as enchanting parks and gardens teeming with various kinds of flora and fauna, abounding in numerous species of birds, aquatic and land flowers. They were shown also the sheer cliff on the east side of the Himalayas, the whole surface of which was golden and the cliff on the west completely covered with vermilion.

From the moment they had witnessed the rare spectacle and the strange sceneries of the mighty Himalayas, all these five hundred bhikkhus had virtually cut off their attachment to their former wives. Then the Buddha, with all the five hundred bhikkhus, descended on the western slope of the Himalayas where there was a massive vermillion slab, sixty yojanas in extent, on which was a huge Sāla tree (that will last to the end of the present world-system) with a height and width of seven yojanas. Under the shade of that tree, on a vermillion platform, three yojanas in width, the Buddha took His seat surrounded by the five hundred bhikkhus. With brilliant six-hued rays emitting from His body, He sat there looking like the morning sun whose rays were being reflected from the surface of the ocean. He then addressed the bhikkhus: “Bhikkhus, you may ask Me if there is anything in this vast region of the Himalayas you have not seen before.”

At that moment, a king of cuckoos, seated on a stick that was carried by a pair of youthful hen cuckoos with their beaks on either end of the horizontal stick, was seen coming down from a higher altitude They were accompanied by groups of eight youthful hen cuckoos, each group taking their positions above their heads, below them, on their right and left and on their front and back.

Struck with wonder at the sight of the strange spectacle, the five hundred bhikkhus made their request to the Buddha: “Exalted Buddha, what kind of birds are they and how are they called?”

“Bhikkhus.... those birds are the descendants of a succession of generations of cuckoos that owe their origin to a species of bird I was born in long ago. Such youthful hen cuckoos had treated Me in like manner at the very outset, their number being three thousand five hundred in my days. The number has dwindled in time and there is now just enough to preserve the species.”

Then the bhikkhus requested the Buddha to recount how those three thousand five hundred cuckoos had attended upon Him in those forests. Whereupon He expounded the Kuṇāla Jātaka of Asiti Nipata in three hundred verses to draw lessons from.