Alinacitta Jataka: The Elephant Who Saved a Kingdom (Jat 156)

　　One day, while Buddha was staying at Jetavana, a bhikkhu came to him and confessed that he was weak-hearted. Buddha encouraged him, saying, "Monk, in bygone days you won the entire kingdom of Baranasi and presented it to a tiny baby boy. You did it by sheer determination. Now that you have embraced this great discipline leading to liberation, how could you possibly lose heart

　　" Then he told this story of the past.

　　Long, long ago, when Brahmadatta was king of Baranasi there was a village of carpenters who earned their livelihood by building houses. Every day they took a boat upriver and went into the forest. There they cut trees and shaped beams and timbers for houses. Then they numbered all the pieces to be put together into a frame. Taking all the lumber back to the river, they loaded it on the boat and returned to town. They were very skillful at their work and earned substantial wages.

　　One day, near their jungle workplace, an elephant stepped on a splinter of acacia wood. The splinter pierced the elephant”s foot, which began to swell and fester, causing him terrible agony. When the elephant heard the carpenters cutting wood, he thought, "Perhaps those carpenters can cure my foot." Limping with pain, he approached them and lay down. At first, the carpenters were very surprised at this, but, noticing his swollen foot, they looked closely and discovered the splinter. With a sharp tool they made an incision around the splinter, fastened a string to it, and pulled it out. Then they lanced the wound, cleaned it thoroughly with warm water, and wrapped it in clean bandages. In a short time the elephant”s foot had healed completely.

　　Grateful to the carpenters for having saved his life, the elephant decided to repay them by helping them with their work. From that time on, he pulled up trees and rolled logs for them. Whenever the carpenters needed tools, he picked them up with his trunk and took them to where they were working. At lunchtime, the carpenters brought food to the elephant, so that he didn”t have to forage.

　　After some time, the elephant realized that he was getting old and would not be able to continue serving the carpenters much longer. One day he brought his son, a magnificent, well-bred white elephant. He said to the carpenters, "This young elephant is my son. Since you saved my life, I give him to you. From now on, he will work for you." After he had explained all his duties to his son, the old elephant returned alone to the forest.

　　The young elephant worked faithfully and obediently, the same as his father had done. The carpenters fed him as they had fed his father, and he thrived.

　　At the end of each work day, the elephant bathed in the river before returning to the forest. The carpenters” children enjoyed pulling him by the trunk and playing all sorts of games with him both in the water and on the riverbank.

　　Of course, noble creatures, be they elephants, horses, or men, never urinate or defecate in water. This elephant, being noble and pure white, was always careful never to do anything of the kind while he was in the river. He always waited until he came out.

　　One day, when it rained very heavily, flood waters caught a half-dry cake of the white elephant”s dung and carried it down river. This piece of dung floated to Baranasi where it lodged in a bush, right at the spot where the king”s elephant keepers brought the king”s five hundred elephants to bathe. When these beasts caught the scent of the dung of the noble young elephant, they refused to enter the water. Instead, they extended their tails, fanned their ears, and ran from the river.

　　When the keepers explained what had happened to the elephant trainers, the trainers realized that there was s…

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