Parrot Pupphaka ( SATTIGUMBA-JĀTAKA )

[yawares]

Dear Members,

I watched this wonderful story @ YouTube, I truly love it and wish to share it with you all.

Please click: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4akxrP- ... egcF0cIPLA" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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SATTIGUMBA-JĀTAKA [edited from Wisdom Library and sacredtexts.com]

This story the Master told while sojourning in the deer-park Maddakucchi, about Devadatta. When Devadatta attempt to kill the Buddha by hurling a stone at him,and a fragment pierced the Buddha's foot, there was great pain in it. Numbers of the Brethren gathered to see the Buddha.Jīvaka made the Tathāgata's foot well. The Brethren sitting before the Master talked of it: "Sirs, a sinner is Devadatta and sinners are all his people; the sinner keeps company with the sinful." The Master asked, "What do ye talk of, Brethren?" They told him. Said he, "It has been so before, and this is not the first time Devadatta the sinner has kept sinful company." Then he told them a story of the past.

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Once upon a time, a king named Pañcāla reigned in the city of Uttara-Pañcāla. The bodhisatta was born as the son of the king of the Parrots, in a grove of silk-cotton trees which grew on a high table-land in the heart of a forest: there were two brothers. Up wind from this hill was a robber village, where five hundred robbers dwelt: under wind was a hermitage with five hundred sages.

About the time when the parrots were moulting came a whirlwind that carried off one of the parrots, [431] and he fell in the robber village among the robbers' weapons: and because he fell there, they called him Sattigumba, or Bristling Spears. The other parrot fell in the hermitage, among the flowers which grew on a sandy spot, from which cause he was named Pupphaka, the Flower-bird. Sattigumba grew up amongst the robbers, Pupphaka with the sages.

One day, Pancala, king of Uttarapancala, went out hunting. While chasing the deer with his charioteer, he was separated from his bodyguard and found himself in a glen near the robbers village. There he slept. The robbers were absent, leaving only Sattigumba and a cook, named Patikolamba. The parrot, seeing the king, plotted with the cook to kill him. The king overheard the plan and fled with his charioteer. In his flight he came to the hermitage,

At that time the sages were all gone gathering fruits and roots, and only the Parrot Pupphaka was left in the hermitage. When he saw the king, he went to meet him, and addressed him courteously. The king told his story, and Pupphaka explained that though he and Sattigumba were brothers, their upbringing had been different, which accounted for the difference in their natures.

The king was pleased with this exposition. When the sages returned, the king greeted the sages and invited them to visit him at the palace. When he got back to his palace again, he proclaimed immunity for all parrots. Later the sages and Parrot Pupphaka came to visit him. And the king gave them his park to live in, and took care of them so long as they lived.

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When this lesson was ended, the Master said, "Thus, Brethren, you see that Devadatta kept bad company before, as he now does." Then he identified the Birth: "At that time, Devadatta was Sattigumba, [437] his followers were the robbers, Ānanda was the king, the Buddha's followers were the sages, and I myself was Parrot Pupphaka."

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Love Buddha's dhamma,
yawares