28. Spirit Belief in the Jataka Stories. 



By Nilmani Chakravakti. 



In this paper an attempt has been made to give a brief 

 account of spirit belief as can be gathered from the Pali Jataka 

 stories which form the oldest and largest collection of fables in 

 the world. 



The origin of the belief in spirits can be traced back to the 

 rr U t ., Pan-Indian Soul theory of the Upanishads, 



1 he origin ot the *. , u . , J ,. r ■_ Ti 



belief. according to which every being, whether 



rational or irrational, possesses a soul, 

 which never dies but passes from one body into another. 

 Even the tree is not without a soul; when the soul leaves the 

 tree it dies. 



Of the various Vedic gods only the following names are to 

 v ,. be found in the Jatakas, viz., Sakka— a 



^teft™^™* counterpart of the Vedic Indra Pajjunna > 



or the rain go 1, and Aggi' 1 or the fire god. 



Of these, Sakka comes in every now and then. He is the pro- 



nu , . a .. . tector of the righteous and scourge to the 



Character of Sakka. • i j T4.-i.u- j a.i^«7-* 



wicked. It is at his order that Vi4va- 

 karman, the celestial architect, comes down to the earth for 

 constructing a hermitage for righteous men renouncing house- 

 hold life. Sakka is not however an eternal god like the Vedic 

 Indra. He was originally a righteous man, raised to that 

 eminence in his next birth, through his merit. According to 

 the Dadhivahana Jataka* there were once four brothers who 

 were ascetics in the Himalayas. The eldest of them became 

 Sakka and used to come to attend on his brothers. In the 

 Bilara Kosiya Jataka we find that righteous men after their 

 death became Sakka, Canda (the moon-god), Suriya (the sun 

 god) and Paficasikha Devaputta.* It is curious to see here 



Pancasika Devapatta. Pancasikha mentioned as a god He is 



widely known as a teacher of the Samkhya 



philosophy. He is the fourth in succession from Kapila, the 

 founder of the system. He has been mentioned also in the 

 Culladhanuggaha Jataka 5 and as a gandhabbaputta in the 

 M ihagovindasutta of the Dighanikaya. If Paficasikha of the 

 Samkhya philosophy is the same as Pancasikhya gandhabba- 

 putta of the Nikaya or Pancasikha Devaputta of the Jatakas, 

 we have some data for ascertaining his time. Unfortunately 



1 Jataka, Vol. I. p. 331. 2 Jataka, Vol. I, p. 235. 



3 Jataka, Vol. II, p. 101. 4 Jataka, Vol. Ill, p. 222. 



6 Jataka, Vol. Ill, p. 222. 





