The Monkey & the Croc / Turtle

Illustration of “The Talking Cave” episode,

by an unknown Tibetan artist in Gyantse at

the very beginning of the 20th century.

The Monkey & the Crocodile Turtle...

Dear children, if you're looking for the Story of the Monkey and the Crocodile, this may not be what you were expecting exactly. Go to Buddhanet instead (when you go there, click your mouse on the picture to go to the next comic book page) and you'll probably be happier. And say "Thank you!"

Fool me once? Shame on you!

Fool me twice? Shame on me!

Long ago when the good king Brahmadatta was ruling Varanasi, a monkey was born and, fed by the plentiful figs, grew to maturity in the forest inside a huge bend in the holy river Gangga.

A certain crocodile also lived in that section of the river together with his wife. One day his wife happened to see the monkey swinging its powerful limbs through the tops of the fig trees on the opposite side of the river and she thought to herself. ‘Just imagine, of all the most sweet and exotic fruits in the world, the sun-ripened fig is the most tasty. But imagine just how much sweeter would be the heart of a monkey who had fed on nothing but figs. I simply must taste that monkey’s heart.’

She told her husband of her secret longing, so he hatched a plan how he might get the monkey down from the trees and bring its heart to his dear wife.

Crossing the river, he was lucky enough to find the monkey taking a drink at the edge of the river. He addressed the monkey in a kind tone of voice, “My dear fellow, king of all monkeys, are you not somewhat tired of having figs for breakfast, lunch and dinner? On the other side of the river we have the most wonderful fruits. Have you even heard about jackfruits, mangos or papayas? What about rose-apples? No? Oh, good gracious, you don’t know what you are missing.”

“Sir crocodile,” the monkey said with genuine respect and a tiny bit of doubt, “the Gangga is the widest river in the whole country, as deep as the sea and, they say, just as difficult to cross. Aw well, I suppose I shall have to stick with my figs.”

“You seem to forget that we crocodiles are the most excellent swimmers. Why, you could just hop on my back and we would be there in no time.”

Remembering a thing or two he had heard about crocodiles, he thought once about how they could be true, then twice about the colorful and tasty fruits awaiting them, and decided he was game for a little adventure. “Alright! I’m ready. Where do I sit?”

“Just over my shoulders. And hold on tight!”

Half way across the river and the crocodile suddenly went under the waves carrying the poor monkey with him. When at last they surfaced again, the thoroughly soaked simian said in a shivering voice, “What the hell was that? You could have drowned the both of us! Are you crazy or what?”

“Well, you know, I’m really quite a mellow laid-back sort of fellow, all my friends tell me so, and normally I wouldn’t be doing this kind of thing, but my wife told me I shouldn’t come back home without bringing her a monkey heart. Anyway, she’s my wife and I love her very much. But you seem like a nice enough sort, so I was having second thoughts.”

Temporarily at a loss for words, and sailing quickly toward the far bank of the holiest of rivers, the monkey thought of something. He said, “Good thing you told me this, because as you probably know we monkeys don’t travel around with our hearts inside. While swinging through the trees there is far too much danger of them getting snagged by thorns, and when we bathe in the river we fear they might get scraped by a rock. So for their own safety we hang them up in the highest branches of the tree. But if it’s monkey hearts that you need, I know where there are plenty of them. Just take me back home and you’ll get all you want.”

In truth, as the crocodile was swishing its powerful tail back toward the monkey’s side of the Gangga in the evening dusk, the distant figs looked like nothing so much as little monkey hearts hanging there ripe for the plucking.

The monkey jumped off and raced up his own fig tree, laughing all the way. “Silly croc! You truly thought monkey hearts grow on trees? You pitiful fool! The bigness and clumsiness of your body are more than compensated for by the smallness of your lizard brain. Take this home to your hungry wife!” he taunted, throwing a shriveled-up over-ripe fig, making a bullseye out of the crocodile’s cold, but nonetheless for that, sensitive nose.

Rose-apple, jack-fruit, mangoes too 


across the water there I see;


Enough of them, I want them not; 


my figs are good enough for me.


Great is your body, verily, 


but how much smaller is your wit!


Now go your way, Sir Crocodile, 


for I have had the best of it.

I retold the story to suit myself, as people have been doing for thousands of years. I based myself on translations of the Pali Jataka version, and since this is the word of Buddha, I didn’t feel free to introduce anachronisms or very substantial innovations — well, maybe a few small ones. The ending verses — each Jataka story in the Pali collection has them — are copied word-for-word from the old translation of Cowell.

Now that you’ve heard my own version of the story, I thought you might like to try this alternative version, which I translate directly, and I hope faithfully, from the 13th-century Tibetan version by Lorepa:

Deceived by bonds of friendship.

Like the Monkey and the Turtle...

In ancient times in the first eon, there was a monkey of the forest and a turtle of the ocean who became friends. They even took an oath of friendship, promising to never do anything bad to one another. On one particular occasion, the Naga King became ill, and it emerged that the one medicine most necessary for his recovery was the heart of a monkey. The turtle came up with a wicked idea. He went and called to the monkey at the edge of the forest. “There is a wonderful show going on in our Naga country. Let’s go see it. You and I have become the best of friends, but if you haven’t at least once seen my country, then, they say, the friendship cannot be finalized.”

He took the monkey to Naga Country and, upon their arrival, the turtle said, “The king of we Nagas is sick, so they said, ‘A monkey heart is needed for medicine,’ so I must beg you as a friend.”

The monkey replied, “We monkeys are quick-tempered creatures, easily angered, so we have to leave our hearts at the top of the deodar — ‘Tree of the Gods’ — for protection. It needs to be picked up. I have one, we just need to go and take it.”

Together with the turtle he returned to the forest. There, the monkey said, “You stay here and keep your mouth opened wide. I’ll toss the heart down to you.”

The monkey climbed up to the tip of the deodar tree. The turtle shouted up at him, “Did you find the heart?”

The monkey answered with this verse.

Keeping the friendship of the evildoer spells defeat.

For no good reason he takes you down into the sea, into the depths of it.

He separates you from your most precious thing, your life.

If it’s monkey heart you wanted, Here! Take this monkey shit.

Then into the turtle’s open mouth the monkey squeezed off a big fresh turd.

So the turtle, not getting the heart he was looking for, went to the cave where the two of them had been staying. He was thinking that the monkey would return there, so he stayed there quietly, lying in ambush.

The monkey came down from the tip of the deodar tree and was thinking to himself, ‘Maybe he’s in the cave?’ So he shouted out, “Brave Mister Cave! Brave Mister Cave!” Then after he started destroying the cave he shouted the same thing again.

The turtle thought, ‘He is expecting to get an answering ‘Ah’ from the cave.’ So the turtle said “Ah!”

The monkey said,

The one who destroys first is the wise one.

He who regrets later is the more foolish by far.

A rock cave with a human voice? What an evil omen!

Monkey, don’t stay here. Get to the top of that deodar!

He climbed the tree.

So, you know, even close friends are not to be trusted.

* * *

Let’s just call it “misplaced trust”! Still, I hope you're in a mood to trust me when I tell you that there have been thousands of versions of the story told all over the world. One of the most interesting transformations took place in Korea ("Sorry, my good sir the turtle, but I'm sorry to have to tell you I've left my liver behind, drying on a rock" — see Grayson's article), where the monkey's heart became a rabbit's liver, and among African slaves in the American South, where the monkey also became a rabbit, the internal organ in question the gizzard. I just wanted to say something about the rabbit, since I know there are other bloggers lurking around here who are very fond of rabbit stories. Well, here you go.

I don't feel like pounding in the point too vigorously, since I like to think of the remaining readers of Tibeto-logic blog, both of you, as sensitive people, able to come to conclusions on your own without coaching or coaxing. Put bluntly, the story is all about desires — thirsts or addictions if you prefer — coming in tandem with delusions, as they do.

In some versions we get a different motive that sets the plot in motion, something all cultures know about, but most unlike Sanskrit don't have a particular term for it. The Sanskrit (or is it Prakrit) word is dohada (see Bloomfield's article), which is explained as probably being a Prakritic reduction of an original Sanskrit term *dauhṛd, which has been further interpreted a ‘sickness at heart.’ I’m not sure my Indo-logical friends will agree, but I think the initial do- stands for dva, meaning ‘two’ (as in the word doha, which means ‘couplet’). The pregnant woman is believed to have two hearts — hence two wills, two ways of thinking — within her body. This doubles the craving levels, and perhaps could go toward explaining her urge for strange combinations of two things that don't normally go together. In the U.S., women are said to crave pickles and ice-cream. The point here is just that, in some versions of our story at least, dohada explains the crocodile/turtle wife's craving for monkey heart.* And as everybody knows, the husband is responsible for going out, overcoming all obstacles, and getting whatever it is she wants. As Bloomfield says (p. 4):

“All the young woman has to do is to express longing for some rare article of food, or a fruit out of season, and the deluded husband, as he is in duty bound, sets out to procure it.”

In some Indian stories, the pregnant woman wants badly to consume her husband's intestines. Or his favorite pet peacock. In another she feels she simply must drink the moon. Sometimes, omens are divined in the items the expectant mother craves for. There is a sense of ambiguity about the source of the craving. Is it really something the mother is wanting, or is she being influenced by the will and the wants of the child? Sometimes, too, the husband is forced to trick his own wife into thinking her desire is, or will be, fulfilled before the spell of the dohada can be lifted.

*(In other tellings of the story the turtle wife believes her husband is spending too much time in the company of female monkeys, making jealousy the prime motive.)

So, to close up shop for today, we may conclude that the story of the monkey and the turtle is one about cravings and desires... and that those cravings lead both ourselves and our loved ones into situations in which we are left wide open to deception. The paw next time, I promise. Have I ever let you down before? Do rabbits have gizzards? Would getting one for you convince you of my love?

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More to Tell —

Samuel  Beal, “The Story of the Foolish Dragon,” contained in: The Romantic Legend of Śākya Buddha: A Translation of the Chinese Version of the Abhiniṣkramaṇasūtra (London 1875), pp. 231-234. Here the Buddha recognizes His past incarnation as the monkey. Try downloading this internet archive version.

Maurice Bloomfield, The Dohada or Craving of Pregnant Women: A Motif of Hindu Fiction, Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 40 (1920), pp. 1-24. Two versions of the monkey and crocodile story are told on pp. 11-13 as examples of the pregnancy craving motif.

James Huntley Grayson, Rabbit Visits the Dragon Palace: A Korea-Adapted Buddhist Tale from India, Fabula, vol. 45, nos. 1-2 (2004) 69-92. If you don’t have any way to get the article from JSTOR, you might try the same author’s book, Myths & Legends from Korea, at Googlebooks here.

(But, I am sorry to say, you will probably not be able to read the complete story there, and the book is terribly expensive. The article is important for tracing the East Asian versions of the story, which reached China by 251 CE, in which the monkey's liver, not his heart, is the desired organ. In the earliest written Korean version, of the early 12th century, the monkey has already become a rabbit. The monkey remains a monkey in Japanese versions, and the organ is the liver, although a modern version does replace the turtle with the dog. A modern Tibetan version is also told (p. 84), but on the basis of a Chinese translation that apparently turns the turtle into a frog. This last version has ‘The Talking Cave’ episode including the monkey turd incident, just like Lorepa’s. And the Mongolian version also largely agrees with it, even if the monkey becomes a female, and the jealousy motive comes into play.)

Lorepa Dragpa Wangchug (1187-1250 CE), ’Brel-ba’i Gnyen-gyis Bslus-pa, Spre’u dang Rus-sbal Lta-bu, contained at p. 21 in: Dam-chos Thub-pa Lnga’i Sngon-’gro’i Skabs-kyi Gtam-rgyud Rgyu-’bras-la Yid-ches Bskyed-byed, in its turn contained in: Smad ’Brug Bstan-pa’i Mnga’-bdag Rgyal-ba Lo-ras-pa Grags-pa-dbang-phyug Mchog-gi Gsung-’bum Rin-po-che, Ven Khenpo Shedup Tenzin & Lama Thinley Namgyal, Shri Gautam Buddha Vihar, Manjushri Bazar, Kathmandu, Nepal (2002), vol. 3, pp. 1-292. If you are interested in my listing of the titles in Lorepa's collected works, look here.

W.F. O’Connor, collector and translator, Folk Tales from Tibet, with Illustrations by a Tibetan Artist and Some Verses from Tibetan Love-Songs, Ratna Pustak Bhandar (Kathmandu 1977), reprint of 1906 edition. The 20th story is the one we care most about right now, at pp. 141-146. It tells the story of ‘The Tortoise and the Monkey’ in two episodes, the ‘monkey heart’ and ‘talking cave’ episodes. In this it resembles our Lorepa version. The book has been archived here, but I recommend ordering a reprint from your favorite New Delhi book wallah anyway.

Patrick Olivelle, translator, The Pañcatantra: The Book of India’s Folk Wisdom, Oxford University Press (Oxford 1997). The first few pages of chapter 4, “On Losing What You Have Gained.” A book worth having for its very worldly wisdom.

José Rizal (1861-1896), The Tale of the Tortoise and the Monkey. The author is one of the most famous national figures in the Philippines. He argued, in his 1889 essay Two Eastern Fables, that the story as widely told in the Philippines served as source of the Japanese folktale, The Battle of the Monkey and the Crab (this archived version is the most charming).

John Alexander Stewart, Talaing Folklore, Journal of the Burma Research Society, vol. 3, no. 1 (1913), pp. 54-64. I haven’t seen it. If you have access to this rather rare old journal issue, I’d love to know what it says about the Mon version of the story of “The Monkey and the Turtle,” which ought to be part five of the article, to judge from the outline.  (Thanks to J.S. for sending me the article.)

Herman W. Tull, The Tale of ‘The Bride and the Monkey’: Female Insatiability, Male Impotence, and Simian Virility in Indian Literature, Journal of the History of Sexuality, vol. 3, no. 4 (April 1993), pp. 574-589. I didn't go into this especially obscene but related monkey story. Hey, be my guest, have a look at it if you so desire.

From the Fables of Bidpai

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Online stuff:

The younger kids might like the comic-book version hung up on the web by Buddhanet. Illustrated by Jeffrey Fowler. I put this link up front, since I imagine it will suit them better.

For several stories corresponding to no. 91 in Aarne-Thompson folktale typology, see D.L. Ashliman’s The Monkey’s Heart here or here if you prefer. This includes Swahili and southern U.S. versions.

Can you see the monkey on that crocodile’s back in this relief from Borobudur?* Where does that phrase “monkey on my back,” as a way of alluding to drug addiction, come from? Reminds me of that Beatles’ song, the one with the line “Everybody’s got something to hide, ’cept for me & my monkey.” Have you heard the story that the original line said something about the Maharshi before they changed it to ‘my monkey’?

(*I apologize for the broken link.)

“The Curious Jew” blog entry for January 15, 2007, is entitled “Literary Fun with the Apocrypha.” It’s literally fun finding a version of our story in The Alphabet of Ben-Sira, in which Leviathan gets a fish to bring him a fox so he can eat its heart to become wise. You know ahead of time that it is just •because• the fox is wise that it won’t prove possible to cheat him out of his heart. Try here.

Or try the entry by Crawford Howell Toy & Louis Ginzberg at JewishEncyclopedia.com, here, where you will also find a discussion of the story’s debt to India.

A

t the creation of the world God consigned a male and a female of every kind of animal to the sea. When the Angel of Death (“Malak ha-Mawet”), who was charged with the duty of sinking them in the water, was about to take the fox, that animal began to cry. The Angel of Death asked him why he did this. The fox answered that he wept because his friend had been condemned to live in the water; and going to the shore, he pointed to his own image in the water. The Angel of Death, believing that a fox had already been sunk, allowed him to go. Leviathan, the ruler of the sea, now tried to lure the fox into its depths, because he believed that if he could eat the heart of so cunning an animal he would gain in wisdom.

One day, while the fox was walking by the sea, some fishes came and spoke to him. They told him that Leviathan was nearing his end and wanted the craftiest of animals to be his successor. They promised the fox to carry him to a rock in the sea where he could erect his throne without fear of the surrounding waters. When he reached the high seas the fox knew that for once he had been tricked; but he did not lose his self-possession. “What!” said he, “It is my heart you want, is it? Well, why did you not say so before? I would then have brought it here; for usually, you know, I do not carry it with me.”

The fish quickly conveyed him back to the shore, and in exultation he leaped about. The fish called to him to fetch his heart and come with him; but the fox replied: “To be sure, I went with you when I had no heart” (the ancients considered the heart the seat of wisdom); “but now I have my heart, I’ll stay here. I got the better of the Angel of Death; how much easier, then, to fool stupid fish!”

For the older version in Bidpai’s Kalila and Dimna (Fables of Bidpai, if you prefer) I couldn’t yet find a good online resource.  Wait, perhaps this one will do.  This story collection arrived in Europe more or less at the same time Padampa arrived in Tibet.

Delusions are nothing if not dissolvable, I'd say.

That's Buddhist optimism for you.

Monkey Paw, Salty River

If you don't swim, don't play in the water.

skyal myed-pas chu-la rtse-bar myi bya'o ||

— Padampa Sanggyé

Hello all of you, or both of you, or however many of you might still have internet connections at your air-conditioned beach resorts on the Riviera! Or the Canary Islands! After several days at it I really badly need a break from touching up my Zhang-zhung dictionary. I'm rewriting the introduction right now, and I think I've made some headway in convincing a sometimes too skeptical world that this thousand-some-year-old language does indeed possess some of the essential features of language that people have unjustly claimed are missing in it. That means verbs, personal pronouns and grammar.* I do so much more enjoy the freedom of blog writing to other kinds that I'm all too familiar with.

*(Well, in fact it doesn't have the personal pronouns, but then the only lengthy bilingual text we have for Zhang-zhung doesn't have any kind of dialog in it, so why would it need to speak of you and me and her?)

I know I should have gone on to say more already about the back scratchers, but let's let go of them for now and look at what might seem a remotely related, but, well, maybe, anyway, related, topic. I mean, the most popular shape for back scratchers is the rake or 'claw' shape, correct? That's because it's meant to take the place of your own claw-shaped hands when they can no longer reach the center of your back where that irritating sensation is most likely to be found. And that probably means you are getting old and haven't been keeping up with your yoga practice. Give me a minute to go pop a few more aspirin for my arthritis and we'll begin.

Remember the animal metaphors of Padampa, the Telugu Mahasiddha? There was one metaphor that, despite the explanation of the commentarial text, really didn't convey much of any meaningful message. Let me cut-and-paste my old translation attempts right here. First, the line from the root text with the words of Padampa:

spre'u-yi sder-mo rnyed-pa'i rus-sbal lan-tshwa'i chu-la lto 'gal med //

spre'u-yi: C spre'u. rus-sbal: C rul-rbal. lan-tshwa'i: C ba-tsha'i.

56. The turtle has gotten a monkey claw, no reason not to eat it in borax water.

And now the commentary on the same, probably written by a 12th-century Tibetan follower. Take special note of my shriek of frustration enclosed in square brackets at the end:

Zhijé Collection, vol. 1, p. 438, line 3 ———

56. {{All the animals that go into the borax ocean rot and disappear, they say. A turtle that appears on the surface of the water later on doesn't appear at all. In the case of the monkey paw, it doesn't rot. It [the turtle?] goes with the hamstring. Then, in the forest cleans the paw, and it is no contradiction that it eats it in borax water. Sensual qualities are like the borax, in turning into virtue through skilful means.}} [This is clearly not a workable translation; the text uses some very rare vocabulary items.]

I may take another shot at translating this before long. And here's the Tibetan text of the commentary, since I'm sure that English didn't make sense to anyone [it's in 'texto' style, with none of those tacit corrections you often get, no dashes, etc.]:

dper na rgya mtsho' ba tsha can de la srog chags phyin pa thams cad rul nas 'gro skad /

de la ru rbal chu'i teng du bsdad nas phyir de rtsam myi 'byung ste / de la spre'u rder mo snyed na myi 'drul bas kho ting chu dang 'grogs nas nags gseb du sder mo tsal nas ba tsha'i chu la ltos 'gal myed par 'gro'o //

de bzhin du 'dod yon ba tsha dang 'dra ste / thabs la mkhas pas yon tan du 'gyur ro gsung //

I think this is going to make a little more sense to you, and to me, too, very probably, by the time I finish writing for the day. I won't promise miracles. I think I can explain to you in at least a general way, for the first time here in this blog, the Indian background that would shed light on how or why a turtle might get its teeth into a monkey paw to begin with. I also think I can say something meaningful about the chu ba-tshwa-can phrase (notice there's a variant) that I translated as 'borax water.' More on that in a minute.

My new understandings took off like a space-station launcher after reading a blog by Tenpa at Tibetan Buddhist Digital Altar that covers the delicate topic of homosexuals going to hell. Wait a minute, don't kill the messengers. Hear us out. Condemnation is not my purpose today. Maybe tomorrow. I would say that some of my best friends are gay, but then you'd start reading things into it, now, wouldn't you? I'll be witness to the fact that sometimes it's hard to state the simplest of facts without getting yourself into trouble. In matters of sex, as in religion, people are always divining hidden meanings in between the words or hovering above them. Mom, if you're reading this, the answer is no, never was.

Where was I? Oh, yes.

Tenpa, in his blog, supplied a passage from Śāntideva's Śikṣāsamuccaya that is in turn a quotation from the Saddharmopasthana Sutra (I guess that means Saddharmasmṛtyupasthāna, which is a huge 3-volume scripture, so please, my dear reader, don't expect me to trace the original context... find it yourself if you must):

Likewise, endless varieties of punishments in a future life are described for the wrong deed of sexual intercourse between two men. The one who commits misconduct with boys sees boys being swept away in the Acid River who cry out to him, and owing to the suffering and pain born of his deep affection for them, plunges in after them.

Although I suppose you may find this difficult to believe, I was a lot more interested in the "Acid River" than in the same-sex sex. I looked the quote up just to be sure about the wording. Over time I finally located it in the crusty old Bendall & Rouse translation, at page 80. Here's a slightly longer quote, although I, too, will leave off the subsequent paragraph about the despicable form of animal abuse known as bestiality, since it isn't especially relevant, is it? I'll take that as a No.

Likewise the hell called Mahā-paduma is said to come into existence if by the prayer of a heavenly nymph one brings one's chaste life to an end. There flows the river called Kshāranadītaraṅginī, the Stream of Brine. All the stones of this river are bones, its weeds are hair, its mud is flesh, its water is molten copper, and its fishes are prisoners in hell, etc. Likewise, endless varieties of punishments are described for the sin of sodomy. Likewise as the result of misconduct with children he beholds boys floating about in the River of Brine. They cry out to him, and he plunges into the river through the impulse of grief and pain arising from his keen affection and attachment to them.

Here's the Tibetan from the copy of the text I had close at hand (p. 105), not because I think it's the best textual witness:

de de ltar lha'i bu mo 'dod pa'i phyir tshangs par spyod pa yongs su bsngo bas na / pad ma chen po zhes bya ba'i sems can dmyal bar gsungs te / de na tsha sgo can gyi 'bab chu dpa' rlabs can zhes bya ba 'bab ste / 'bab chu de la nya gang yin pa de dag ni sems can dmyal ba pa de dag go // rus pa gang yin pa de dag ni rdo ba'o // 'jim pa gang yin pa de dag ni skra'o // 'dam rdzab gang yin pa de dag ni sha'o // chu gang yin pa de dag ni ro nye bskol ba'o zhes bya ba la sogs pa'o // de bzhin du skyes pas skyes pa la 'khrig pa log par bcug pa'i chad pa'i bye brag dpag tu med par brjod do // de bzhin du byis pa rnams la log par 'jug pa yang cha sgo can gyi chus khyer ba'i khye'u dag mthong nas de dag gis de la bos pa dang / de byis pa de dag la shin tu sdug par sems pa dang ldan zhing mya ngan dang sdug bsngal gyi shugs kyis chu der 'jug go //

The 'sin of sodomy' isn't very literal. What it says here is 'Men wrongly engaging in sexual intercourse with other men.' That's in case you had any doubts. Buddhists never shrink back from talking about every possibility. They never had a Victorian phase. That's why they're not quite sure what 'repression' is. Well, at least as far as talking about things is concerned.

And here's the original Sanskrit for those who insist on having it. It could really help solve some arguments that might arise about the meaning.

evamapsarasaḥ prārthanayā brahmacaryapariṇāmanān mahāpadumo nāma naraka uktaḥ / tatra kṣāranadī taraṅgiṇī nāma pravahati / tasyāṃ nadyāṃ yāny asthīni te pāṣāṇāḥ / yacchaivālaṃ te keśāḥ / yaḥ paṅkastanmāṃsam / yā āpaḥ tat kathitaṃ tāmram / ye matsyās te nārakā ityādi //

evaṃ puruṣasya puruṣeṇa saha maithunavipratipatteḥ aprameyāḥ kāraṇāviśeṣāḥ paṭhyante / evaṃ śiśubhiḥ saha vipratipatteḥ kṣāranadyām uhyamānān dārakān paśyati / te taṃ vilapanti / sa tāṃ nadīm avagāhate / teṣu bālakeṣu tīvrasnehapratibandhaśokaduḥkhavegāt /

Right away we ought to observe, at the very least, that 'River of Brine' is not a very accurate translation of the Sanskrit, certainly, where it's kṣāra-nadī, with nadī meaning 'river.' Although kṣāra can mean 'salty,' the first meanings in the Monier-Williams dictionary are: caustic, biting, corrosive, acrid, pungent, saline.

Equipped with the Sanskrit and Tibetan words, I started searching out rivers of brine or whatever, along with words for salt and types of salts, all over the place. I'd bother you with all the details, but I guess you won't have patience for it. Anyway, my dull conclusion is that the various words for salts and salty waters are confused in the sources — even the two texts for animal metaphor no. 56 disagree whether it's lan-tshwa or ba-tshwa — so little wonder if we're confused about which is which. Ba-tshwa, to the best of my current guesses means, to some authors at least, 'borax' such as you find in lakes with internal drainage — the Northern Plains of Tibet are full of it — and as your mother knows very well an ingredient in some popular clothes-washing detergents. Sanskrit lavaṇa is in Tibetan lan-tshwa, the usual word for sodium chloride, or common table salt, NaCl.

Still, a Tibetan medical dictionary told me that lan-tsha has two meanings: [1] ordinary salt and [2] medicinal salts. According to this, when the latter meaning is intended the letter 'w' is added as a subscript, lan-tshwa. That is interesting... But who followed this spelling advice?

I went to such lengths to find out more about salt symbolism, I even wrote to Austria in quest of a mysterious scripture entitled Lan-tshwa'i Chu-bo'i Mdo. It was quoted by Atisha, but it has probably always been quite difficult to find in Tibet or anywhere else. It was translated at about the beginning of the 11th century, probably in fact at Tholing, where Dharmapāla, the Indian master named in the colophon, started the Highland Monastic Ordination Lineage.

That could help explain why it only exists in two Kanjurs located in the westernmost parts of the Plateau, the Gondhla and the Tholing Kanjurs (this information accepted with thanks from Helmut Tauscher, who kindly went out of his way to help me on this, far more than was necessary, really). Its Sanskrit title has been reconstructed in two different ways. It seems that Mark Tatz once Sanskritized it as Lavaṇa Nadī Sūtra, although Kṣāra Nadī Sūtra would also be possible. Even the Tibetan title is not always given consistently. Sometimes it's Lan-tsa'i Chu-bo'i Mdo, but we also find reference to it as Ba-tshwa'i Chu-klung zhes bya-ba'i Mdo.

I won't go into this scripture very much, since I think anyway someone will do a study of it before too long. I think we already learned something of significance, that even Tibetans might sometimes confuse or consider equivalent ba-tshwa and lan-tshwa. Not everyone is cut out to be a chemist. I'll just quote one brief passage and make a stab at understanding it. In this scripture the Buddha makes a kind of extended metaphor, and later on in the scripture it's interpreted in every last detail.

lan tsha'i chu bo'i ngogs sam 'gram dag las gang tsher ma can gyi chu skor yod la / der mun pa mun gnag smag tu 'thoms pa'i skye dgu' lus can kun kyang chu bo'i rgyun phyogs su khyer zhing ded de de las rgal myi nus so //

Let me try to get the gist of it without laboring over every word. It's meant to describe our situation here in sangsara, but you knew that.

On the banks or shores of the salt river there are lots of thorns. A waterwheel lies ahead. The myriad beings are disoriented in the pitch-black darkness. They are getting carried along by the constant stream of the river. There is no way they can turn back [from going under the water mill].

Now I jump ahead to the Buddha's own interpretation of what the salt means:

lan tsha ni sdig pa dang / myi dge' ba dang / de la rtog pa dang gsum po dag go zhes nga smra'o //

"I say to you, the salt means sin, non-virtues, and thoughts about them, all three."

Salt is a positive symbol in Christianity and Judaism. You even find salt along with oil used in significant ways in Roman Rite consecration ceremonies. Have you ever heard anyone called "salt of the earth"? That's a good thing. Salt preserves. Salt heals. Salt is good. Salt is something like life.

Salt is hardly ever positive, or at least unequivocally positive, in Buddhism. In general in Buddhist metaphors, salt doesn't preserve. It makes you more and more thirsty, and it corrodes things. Salt most often stands for desires, since fulfilling them is only temporary at best, and leads to addiction, just as drinking salt water only makes you want to drink more and more. It doesn't quench your thirst like you might have thought it would.

I found this in Access to Insight —

And what is salt water? Salt water stands for defilement. The defilements of the mind are saltier than salt. When we try to eat salt — even just a little — we can't swallow it because we find it so salty, but the defilements are even saltier than that. They can crust us over so that we spoil and rot in all sorts of ways. When this is the case, what can we do? We have to filter or distill them.

Try this page, also, where you'll find another Salt Sutra.

This is not positive. Notice that this Buddhist salt is said to be corrosive. I see the same in many of my Tibetan texts, including scriptures (I'd quote more of them, but the day is slipping away), and this leads me to think that at least some of the time they aren't intending ordinary table salt, or ordinary ocean salt,* but rather some kind of borax or, perhaps even more likely to fit the symbolism, caustic soda.

*(Ocean salt can be called rgyam-tshwa in Tibet, where it was often used for medicinal purposes, which was a very good idea, given that iodine could avert all danger of goiter, and most Tibetans were using rock salt from the Northern Plains, unfortunately. If you still haven't seen Die Saltzmänner von Tibet, it's about time you rented the video. It's really worth it.)

Are you with me this far? That's amazing! Thank you for being so patient. Just remember that a monkey paw when placed in caustic soda or lye would soon dissolve into nothingness. This knowledge will come in useful next time when we try to figure out what the turtle is doing with it in the first place. I should learn to say what I want to say right away instead of wasting time getting around to it. Good advice for any ordinary day. Today is just too hot, and on days like this, it's best to have a little extra salt. We'll talk again before too long. You can drop me a line meanwhile.

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Read and Read and Read and Read

Śāntideva's Śikṣāsamuccaya. For the English, I used Cecil Bendall & W.H.D. Rouse, Śikṣāsamuccaya: A Compendium of Buddhist Doctrine, Motilal Banarsidass (Delhi 1971), reprint of 1922 edition. For The Sanskrit, I used p. 45 of the P.L. Vaidya edition reproduced by Sridhar Tripathi at the Mithila Institute (Darbhanga 1999), but you can also do as I did and compare this with the Jens Braarvig's edition of Chapter Four here. For the Tibetan I made use of the version in the Gangs-can Rig-brgya'i Sgo-'byed Lde-mig series vol. 23, published by Mi-rigs Dpe-skrun-khang (Beijing 1995), just because I happened to have it at hand, not because I particularly recommend it.

Tibetan Buddhist Digital Altar, blog dated March 20, 2009 entitled Acid River. This blog provoked a rhetorically heated and here & there mildly interesting and informative discussion at E-sangha. You may have to register to see this thread, I'm not sure of it, though.

Helmut Tauscher, Catalogue of the Gondhla Proto-Kanjur, Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien Universität Wien (Vienna 2008). This is by far the most fascinating Kanjur catalog ever made. I would never say such a thing lightly or in jest. If you can't see the beauty in it it's probably because you're not a Tibetologist yet. If you are a Tibetologist already, look here for more details. If not, don't.

There's a fairly nice discussion of worldwide salt symbolism here. Just ignore the Scientology video advertisements and whatnot.

I find it rather strange that Sakya Pandita, in the early 13th century, used ba-tshwa to refer to the saltiness of ocean water. He says (quoting Lozang Jamspal's fine translation, where ba-tshwa is translated as 'brine'):

When virtuous people associate with the wicked,

they become affected by vice.

When the sweet water of the Ganges reaches the oceans,

it turns into brine.

This is the illustration and text on ba-tshwa* from Jampal Dorjé's** materia medica work, which lists all-in-all 20 types of salts, 16 of them naturally occurring, including ba-tshwa, and 4 of them produced by special processes, or 'manufactured.' If I translate the first line of it, as best I can, you may get some idea what's going on in the illustration.

Ba-tshwa: It forms on old walls of houses. It's oily, soft, and has moisture. It has a biting taste on the tongue. It's the stuff ze-tsha*** is made from, but hot tasting. If you burn it in fire, like ze-tsha it does not boil.

It ends with a brief quote from the Crystal Globe, a famous materia medica work, about its medicinal effects. It looks like, as with other salts, one of the main usages is in urinary disorders, although I'm not sure exactly what it's saying here.

*You can see that what appears to be there is "ba cha na," but you have to learn to read through the missing ligatures and see what's actually there, which is "ba-tshwa ni."

**It isn't well known among Tibetologists yet, but this Jampal Dorjé is identical to the Mongolian prince known in other sources as Tho-yon Ye-shes-don-grub-bstan-pa'i-rgyal-mtshan (1792‑1855).

***Ze-tshwa in Pasang Yontan Arya's materia medica is identified as Nitrum. For the whole entry, look here. Please let me know if that link doesn't work for you.

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'Gro-lung-pa's famous Bstan-rim text, dating from around 1100 CE, has this very interesting passage that almost unbelievably places side-by-side metaphors of salt water drinking and of scratching what itches: lan tshwa'i chu 'thung ba dang g.yan pa 'phrug pa la sogs pa ltar sred pa je 'phel je 'phel du 'gyur ba 'ba' zhig go | des na nam zhig nyes pa 'di lta bu shes nas spangs pa de'i tshe ngoms pa mthar phyin par zad do | | byang chub sems dpa'i sde snod las | sngon 'das dus ni shin tu rgyas pa nas | | lha rdzas dag dang mi nor bzang po dang | | 'dod pa'i yon tan lnga dag bsten gyur kyang | | de la nam yang ngoms pa ma rnyed do | |

Just to translate the first sentence quickly:

Drinking salt water, scratching itches and the like, are nothing but ways to increase the 'thirst' (or addiction) more and more.

“I was a hidden treasure and I wanted to be known, so I created the world, that I may be discovered.”

— A well-known Hadith Qudsl (Divine Saying)