style="font-size:15px;"> You come to us as Comfort incarnateas we sink into this mouth of death! (30.22 [10])
Portrayed as offering freedom from fear (“Have no fear! Have no fear!” 26.10), the Bodhi·sattva in various stories saves people from death, suffering and the disastrous consequences of holding immoral views, all of which serve to foreshadow his ultimate attainment of Buddhahood and the end to suffering that will be brought about by this salvific goal. In “The Birth-Story of the Elephant’ (30), the Bodhi·sattva explicitly connects the merit derived from his act of self-sacrifice with his quest to attain Buddhahood. Not only that, in a startling comparison between the corporeal and the soteriological, the body that the Bodhi·sattva sacrifices to save a group of starving people is implicitly compared with the Buddha’s teaching of the Dharma that will save the world:8
Instead, if I possess any merit from desiring
to rescue these people floundering in the desert,
may I use it to become savior of the world
as it roams the wilderness of samsara. (30.44 [22])
In this intensely devotional context, the intimacy of friendship takes on a heightened role. “A special friend and kinsman” (30.17 [7]), the Bodhi·sattva is portrayed as companion to all, even to strangers or to those who have wronged him:
Be a relative to us bereft of kinsmen!
Be our resort and refuge!
Please save us, illustrious lord,
in whatever way you know best. (30.35 [18])
Though our acquaintance is new,
you have acted towards us
as one would toward a best friend,
following your magnanimous nature. (22.146 [89])
With its emphasis on self-sacrifice, compassion and forbearance, the Bodhi·sattva’s practice of virtue thus leads to his depiction as an ultimate “good friend.” Offering moral guidance to the world, he saves both friends and foes through a devotional relationship that is both intimate and at the same time based on a hierarchy of savior and saved.
Animals, Ascetics and Kings
A striking aspect of the present volume is the number of animal stories it contains. Eight of the fourteen stories describe the Bodhi·sattva’s rebirth as a bird or animal.9 Animal stories are common in jataka collections and far from ________
unique to the “Garland of the Buddha’s Past Lives.” However, the fact that they are grouped together in the present volume is noticeable and points to important thematic continuities running through the tales.
There are doctrinal problems involved in depicting the Bodhi·sattva as an animal. According to Buddhist thought, animal rebirth derives from bad karma and thus raises a potential question mark over the purity of the Bodhi·sattva’s karmic history. Moreover, while animals have the ability to act morally, their potential for virtue is usually restricted in comparison to humans. The issue of whether the Bodhi·sattva suffers from bad karma is raised by a verse in “The Birth-Story of the Buffalo’ (33.6 [3]): “Some trace of karma must have affected him to be reborn this way.” Normally, however, the problem is sidestepped by simply extolling the Bodhi·sattva as a superior being whose virtue transcends the norms of animal nature.10 “The Birth-Story of the Great Monkey’ (24.4) thus states: “Even though he was a monkey, the Bodhi·sattva had lost none of his moral awareness. Grateful and full of vast fortitude, his nature was devoid of anything lowly.” The Bodhi·sattva’s virtue is seen as a constant and unchanging attribute, despite his animal rebirth:
The earth with its forests, fine peaks and seas
may through water, fire and wind
perish a hundred times at an eon’s end,
but not the great compassion of the Bodhi·sattva.
(24.5 [1])
Numerous references are made to the abnormal quality of the virtue displayed by the Bodhi·sattva as an animal. ________
Shock is expressed at his ability to speak in an articulate human voice (26.48) and the conceit is often raised that the Bodhi·sattva must be an animal only in appearance and something more superior in substance:
How can animals possess such conduct?
How can they have such wide regard for virtue?
Some design must lie behind your appearance.
You must practice asceticism in an ascetic grove!11 (33.31 [20])
Far from diminishing his purity the Bodhi·sattva’s rebirth as an animal therefore serves to accentuate his miraculous virtue still further by contrasting his conduct with normal animal nature. Furthermore, the virtue that the Bodhi·sattva displays as an animal throws into relief the immoral conduct of human beings. As the Bodhi·sattva states in ‘The Birth-Story of the Antelope’ (26.21): ‘Men’s hearts are, after all, usually ruthless and uncontrolled in their great greed.”12 It is thus men who normally act immorally in the narratives, especially by wronging or betraying the Bodhi·sattva, and who thereby display a behavior that is truly animal in quality in contrast to the Bodhi·sattva, whose animal nature is only apparent:
How castigated I feel by
his gentle yet wounding behavior!
It is I who am the animal, the ox.
Who is this creature, a sharabha but in form?
(25.27 [14])
The splendor of the Bodhi·sattva’s virtue is often paralleled by his physical beauty. Likewise the geographical lo- ________
cation of the animal stories is invariably set in forest scenes of exquisite charm. Sometimes compared with a delightful garden (28.9, 28.12), the forest is commonly portrayed as a mysterious realm of refined beauty in which the wild aspects of nature are often tamed.13
The Bodhi·sattva is said to have once lived as a huge monkey who roamed alone on a beautiful slope on the Himavat mountain. The body of the mountain was smeared with the ointments of various glistening, multi-colored ores. Draped by glorious dense forests, as if by a robe of green silk, its slopes and borders were adorned with an array of colors and forms so beautifully variegated in their uneven distribution that they seemed to have been purposefully composed. Water poured down in numerous torrents and there was an abundance of deep caves, chasms and precipices. Bees buzzed loudly and trees bearing various flowers and fruits were fanned by a delightful breeze. It was here, in this playground of vidya·dhara spirits, that the Bodhi·sattva lived. (24.3)
Several stories emphasize the forest’s remote location and its lack of human contact.14 The idyllic beauty of the forest is, however, not solely enjoyed by animals. It is also shared
