In Jataka 43 we find the following verse:
One who does not follow advice when instructed
by an ally who desires their good,
ends up destroyed
like Veḷuka’s father.
- For Pali geeks, the only tricky bit in the verse is in the third line, where we find seti, which normally means “lies down”. Here, however, it is sa + eti in the sense “he comes (to such a state)” i.e. “becomes” or “ends up”.
Obviously this alludes to a story that would have accompanied the verse when told. It’s part of a series of three Jatakas (41, 42, 43) that share the first two lines.
Here is the story:
https://ancient-buddhist-texts.net/English-Texts/Jataka/043.htm
And the word commentary:
https://ancient-buddhist-texts.net/Texts-and-Translations/Jatakagathavannana/043.htm
Now, one of the interesting things about the Jatakas is their composite nature. The verses and stories go together, and frequently, as here, the verse makes no sense without a story. However, we know from other Buddhist texts that when a verse or saying (or Vinaya rule for that matter) is supposed to be attached to a story, it is not necessarily attached to that story. The same verse or rule is commonly found in different places with different stories. So in the Jatakas, we should not assume that the story is always going to be the only one, or even the original one.
The story in this case is a popular fable. A hermit befriends a viper, keeping him in a bamboo, so that the viper is known as “Veḷuka” (from veḷu, “bamboo”). So attached does he grow that he becomes known as the viper’s father. His comrades warn him that the snake will turn on him, but he insists it is his friend. One time he has to leave for a few days, and when he returns the hungry viper strikes him and he dies.
The story in Pali has a few morals.
- Listen to advice.
- Don’t get attached.
- Snakes are dangerous.
But the main one emphasized in the verse is about listening to advice, and this must be the core of the verse’s story.
The Jataka story as it stands, however, seems to emphasize, rather, the dangerous nature of the viper, emphasizing that a bad creature (or person) is inherently bad and cannot change. This is a dubious message that, at the very least least, requires some contextualization.
This story is one of many Jatakas that is connected to Greek stories.
Aesop’s fable was proverbial in ancient times, and remains so in the English adage “nourish a viper in one’s bosom”. It was popularized in the song “The Snake” by Oscar Brown:
Recently it has become notorious for being read out loud by Donald Trump at his rallies. I won’t link it here, out of compassion for y’all, but it’s really noteworthy how he stumbles through, reading at his third-grader level, using a sing-songy nursery rhyme intonation, except for one part—when it comes to describing the snake as vicious. There he comes to life, growling out the words and repeating them.
It has been often pointed out that this performance is an act of narcissistic projection: he is the snake, and the gullible fools are his own followers who let him in. But his surface intention is that immigrants are the snake, and the other party are the kindhearted fools who will be bitten. The fact that he is using the words of a black activist to demonize people of color is, of course, entirely on brand.
We are now seeing the direct results of this hateful rhetoric in the US. A vile old lie about immigrants eating cats was pushed by a leader of the Nazi group Blood Tribe, and spread by a woman who now is consumed by guilt at her carelessness. It was taken up by Trump and his cronys who knew they were lying. As a direct result of this, in the town in question, Springfield, schools and universities were shut down over bomb threats while Nazi thugs roamed the streets.
How can it be, one might wonder, that a Buddhist story can come to such an end? That would be a complex journey to trace, but Wikipedia notes that the use of the story to demonize immigrants stems back to 19th century Russia:
The Russian fabulist Ivan Krylov, who often used La Fontaine’s fables for a variation of his own, adapted the story to address contemporary circumstances in his “The Peasant & The Snake”. Written at a time when many Russian families were employing French prisoners from Napoleon I’s invasion of 1812 to educate their children, he expressed his distrust of the defeated enemy. In his fable the snake seeks sanctuary in a peasant home and pleads to be taken in as a servant. The peasant replies that he cannot take the risk, since even if it is honest about its kindness, a single kind snake will set the precedent for a hundred wicked ones to enter.
The root of the problem is the attribution of particular qualities to people or groups of people. As we have seen, that is not the main moral of the Jataka story, although it is suggested in it. Don’t forget, though, that in India, then as today, there are lots of literal snakes that literally kill people, and it is quite likely the original sense was simply a warning to beware of dangerous animals. As stories are repeated, it becomes possible to abstract their meanings by way of metaphor. But the way that metaphors are extended tells us much about the one doing the extending, and little about the original story.
As so often with these stories, it is not exactly clear whether it originated in the Greek or Indian cultural sphere (or somewhere else). We can say with some confidence that the high incidence of shared stories in the Jatakas reflects the trade between India and Greece/Rome after Alexander. The Jataka collection itself hints at this, as the first chapter is stories about merchants.
The verses may well be older than the stories, and in some, perhaps many, cases, even older than the Buddha. After all, they are said to come from a time before the Buddha. Verses from such an old date, however, are less likely to reflect shared Greek forms, although they could have been originated earlier and taken to Greece later. But this seems unlikely in this case, as the story was proverbial in Greece before Alexander.
So then, let us ask what we can say about the verse itself.
We know:
- the theme is the danger of ignoring good advice
- a protagonist is “veḷuka’s father"
- the protagonist meets a bad end
That’s about it. Nothing about a hermit or a viper.
Now, veḷu means “bamboo”, and a veḷuka is typically a bamboo worker of some kind. Later Hindu texts said they were a low caste.
There are many words for bamboo in Pali, and one of the others features in SN 47.19. There we meet the “bamboo acrobat of the corpse-workers” (caṇḍālavaṁsika). Evidently there was a tradition of “corpse-workers” (caṇḍāla, the most despised of all castes) doing acrobatic tricks on the street.
Being a Buddhist text, the story does not denigrate the acrobats, but rather praises them for wisdom and harmony as an example for meditators. They can do their trick safely because they listen to each other’s good advice as they balance on the bamboo pole.
(And yes, this does mean that Buddhist suttas contain probably the world’s earliest reference to pole-dancing. The connection is not arbitrary. In the story, the apprentice Medakathālikā is a girl. The commentary tries to argue that it is a boy, evidently unable to comprehend that a girl, an outcaste girl at that, can not only speak back to their teacher, but the Buddha praises her for it. Although the Buddha evidently appreciated their skill, it seems that the sight of a girl—probably naked or near-naked—contorting on a pole was considered inappropriately erotic for monks, as suggested by the fact that this is one of the banned performances at DN 1:1.13.2. I’ll bet you didn’t have “the Buddha was canonically a fan of pole-dancers” on your bingo card this morning!)
This seems like a good match for our Jataka verse.
- Where the Jataka verse has veḷuka, the story has the synonymous vaṁsika.
- Both contexts highlight the importance of listening to good advice.
- The story features a master/apprentice relationship, where the apprentice could easily be the master’s child. Thus it fits the use of “father” better than the snake story.
Of course the narrative is inverted, as in the sutta the acrobats are safe, whereas in the Jataka he dies. But both assume that the acrobatics were dangerous and required care and cooperation.
In such cases, we can’t conclude without stronger evidence whether the verse should be read in light of SN 47.19 or with its traditional story. Personally I think it’s more likely about acrobats. If I was to follow this, I would translate the last line, “like the acrobat’s father”.
But it does give me pause as a translator. I tried translating the title as “The viper in the bamboo” until I realize there’s no viper in the verse. Better to avoid implying a connection with the story unless it is justified.
And in terms of historical provenance, it seems that we cannot assume from a Greek connection with the story—of whatever kind that may be—to a similar connection with the verse. Rather, the verse, if it is about acrobats, alludes to an indigenous Indian cultural practice that must have originated in a local story.
More importantly, this shows the dangers of reading morals from ancient scripture. Such tales, and the moral lessons they impart, would have been told and passed down by a teacher, in a context, where the meaning and intent was made clear. When we strip a text of its context, it is easy to read it in a way that its creator would find abhorrent. If we lack any morality or sense of decency, we will turn even a simple parable into an instrument of evil.
For a detailed list of connections, see GREEK MOTIFS IN THE JATAKAS, Merlin Peiris:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/23730784?seq=15
And on the author:
