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JÄtaka Stories of Past Lives 75
EkakanipÄta The Book of the Ones
Varuį¹avagga The Warding Tree
5. MacchajÄtaka The Fish: a past life story
āAbhitthanaya pajjunna, Thunder forth, Pajjuna! Due to drought, a pond dried out and the crows feasted on the fish. One of the fish prayed for salvation to the god of rain, Pajjuna, who appears also in DN 20:17.7. The previous verse featured VÄta, the wind, following which comes Pajjuna, the thunderstorm. Thus the two go together, as they do often in the Vedas. | The story and this verse appears in Cp 30, where it illustrates the perfection of truth.
nidhiį¹ kÄkassa nÄsaya; Disperse the trove of the crow! The commentary says the sense is that the stranded fish are the ātroveā (nidhi) of the feasting crow, which is āwiped outā by being covered with water.
KÄkaį¹ sokÄya randhehi, Subject the crow to sorrow, Pajjuna is fructifying and blessed, but also fearful and destructive (Rig Veda 5.83).
maƱca sokÄ pamocayÄāti. and free me from sorrow! Cp 30:7.6 has macche (āthe fishā) instead of maƱca (āmeā). If maƱca is accepted, there is no mention of fish in the verse. The original verse may have focused more specifically on the ātrove of the crowā, i.e. the deathly drought, from which the waters offer relief. | In Vedic tradition, the waters are invoked to save one from the sin wiped by the crowās mouth, the kiss of the dread goddess of black death, Nirį¹ti (Atharva Veda 7.64). The wish to harm the crow is distinctly un-Buddhist and more characteristic of the Atharva. Otherwise, though, the two passages are not similar, except they both end with the same verb.
MacchajÄtakaį¹ paƱcamaį¹.