The Banyan Deer

4-6 min read
13 pages

The banyan deer, a Jataka tale to read aloud. The king hunts one deer a day, and one morning a mother is chosen who cannot go.

In a park outside the city there lived two herds of deer, and each had a king: the Banyan deer, who was golden, and the Branch deer, who was golden too.

The king of the city hunted there every day, and every day his men drove the whole park and a great many deer were killed or hurt in the running.

So the two deer kings went to the king of the city, and they made an agreement: no driving, and no chasing. One deer would come to the kitchen each day of its own accord, from one herd and then the other in turn.

It was a hard bargain and it was better than the one before it. After that nobody was hurt in the running, and each herd knew whose turn it was.

Then one morning the lot fell in the Branch herd to a doe who was carrying a fawn.

She went to her own king and asked whether her turn could be put back — not taken away, only moved, until the fawn was born.

«There is an order,» said the Branch deer. «If I move you, I move somebody else into your place, and I will not do that. Go.»

So she went to the Banyan deer, who was not her king at all, and asked him the same thing.

He did not move anybody into her place. He said: «Go back to your herd,» and he walked to the kitchen himself and laid his head on the block.

The cook would not touch him. He went and fetched the king of the city instead.

«We had an agreement,» said the king. «You were not to come. Whose turn was it?»

«A mother's,» said the Banyan deer. «And the turn could not be moved without putting it on somebody else. So I came instead of her, and there is nobody standing behind me who has been put in my place. That is the whole of it.»

The king sat down on the step of his own kitchen and was quiet for a while. Then he gave the deer his life, and the doe hers, and then — because he could not see where to stop once he had started — the whole herd's, and the other herd's, and in the end every animal and bird in that country. And the Banyan deer walked back into the park, where nobody was waiting their turn any more.

…read the rest in the Marytale app.

Marytale is an app of illustrated bedtime stories to read to your child — a picture on every page, no ads and no internet needed. The bookmark stays where your child fell asleep.

Try it free

Scan with your phone to get Marytale

Text source: From the Jataka tales, the Indian collection of birth stories written down in Pali from around 300 BC. Public domain. The text was written anew for Marytale — it is not a reprint of anyone else's version.

Want to know where these stories come from? The articles are here

The Banyan Deer

More stories to read