Week 2 Story: Taking the Time to Learn

Late one night ...

The deer Kharadiya had a son, and she named him Harina. Harina stayed by his mother's side for the first six months of his life, but he began to become curious about the world and would wander from his mother. Kharadiya knew that it was time her son to learn about deer ruses so that he could stay safe in the world.

Kharadiya went to find her brother to ask him to teach her son about deer ruses. Her brother was the Bodhisatta who was born a deer. He readily agreed to help his nephew and told him, "You must meet me tomorrow morning preciously at eight to begin learning."

The young deer agreed on and walked home with his mother. That night Harina fell asleep not excited to begin instructions the next day. Harina thought to himself, "Why should I get instruction on deer ruses, I have been wandering on my own and have been fine." Harina fell asleep that night with no plans of meeting Bodhisatta for instructions.

The next morning Bodhisatta waited and waited, but by eight thirty he decided his nephew deer did not care to learn and went on his way.

Harina slept in that morning. When Harina finally woke up, he wondered to himself if he should try to hurry and make it meet Bodhisatta. Harina knew it would make his mother happy if he went. But when he noticed it was already too late Harina decided to go off on his own.

While wandering through the forest alone, Harina became caught in a hunter's snare. Terrified the little deer struggled to free himself. He began to grow fearful that he would die within the hour if he could not get free. Finally, all out of strength, Harina started to cry and tearfully said, "I should have gone to my instructions, now I am surely dead."

During this time the Bodhisatta had also gone wandering through the forest to see if he could find his nephew. The Bodhisatta watched as Harina foolishly walked into the hunter's snare and then how he kept moving around making the snare tighter. After hearing Harina final cry Bodhisatta came out and asked him, "If I help you get free will you come to instruction and learn about deer ruses?"

Harina slowly stood up and replied, "Forgive me Bodhisatta I was foolish to think I did not need to learn deer ruses from you. If you help me get free, I will listen and learn everything you teach me."

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Author's Notes: This story comes from The Jataka Volume I  by Robert Chalmers in the tale The Self-Willed Deer. In the original tale, the Bodhisatta is a deer and is asked by his sister Kharadiya to teach his nephew deer about the ruses of a deer. The nephew deer does not meet up with Bodhisatta the first day or the next seven, so the young deer gets caught in a snare. In my story instead of having the deer die in the snare, I decided to have Bodhisatta give him a second chance. The Bodhisatta can use the nephew deer getting stuck in the snare as a way to get him to understand the importance of learning from others. I also gave the nephew deer a name in my story. The name Harina was found online as a Hindu name that means deer.

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Image: Mother and baby deer. Source: Wikimedia Commons by Anoushka Trivedi