The Monkey King
At a Glance
- Central figures: The Bodhisatta, born as the king of eighty thousand monkeys; a king of Benares who hunts in the Himalayan foothills; a captain of the king’s archers.
- Setting: A great mango tree growing on the bank of the Ganges near the Himalayan foothills, and the court of Benares, in the Pali Jataka tradition.
- The turn: The king of Benares discovers the mango tree and orders his archers to surround it at dawn so that the monkeys who eat its fruit can be shot and cooked.
- The outcome: The Monkey King stretches his own body across the river as a bridge so that all eighty thousand monkeys can cross to safety, breaking his back in the effort; he dies from the strain.
- The legacy: The king of Benares, shaken by what he witnessed, honors the Monkey King with funeral rites fit for a sovereign and governs his own kingdom with greater compassion afterward.
The mango tree stood where the Ganges narrowed between two rocks, its roots clutching the southern bank, its canopy so vast that fruit dropped into the water on both sides. The mangoes were the size of a man’s fist and sweeter than anything that grew in the lowlands. Eighty thousand monkeys lived in that tree and in the trees around it, and their king - the Bodhisatta - had given them one standing order: pick every mango that hangs over the water. If even one fruit floats downstream, he said, men will find it. And men will come.
They missed one. It was hidden behind a wasps’ nest, and by the time the wind knocked it free it was golden-ripe and already falling. The current took it south.
The Mango in the River
A fisherman working a net below Benares found the fruit caught in his mesh. He had never seen anything like it. He brought it to the king’s cook, who brought it to the king, who cut it open and tasted it and asked where it had come from.
No one knew. The king summoned boatmen, hunters, anyone who worked the river. A forester from the northern reaches said he thought he knew the tree - an enormous mango near the rapids, three days upstream, crawling with monkeys. The king wanted more of the fruit. He wanted all of it. He assembled a company of archers and oarsmen and set out by river.
They found the tree at dusk. The king saw the monkeys moving through the canopy - hundreds of them, maybe thousands, dark shapes against the last light. He saw the mangoes hanging heavy on every branch.
“We camp here,” he said. “At first light, ring the tree. Shoot every monkey. Then we pick the fruit.”
The Monkey King’s Count
The Monkey King heard the men making camp. He climbed to the highest branch and looked down. Torches. Bowstrings being waxed. He counted the archers. He counted the exits - the branches that reached other trees, the distance to the far bank. There was no route out that eighty thousand monkeys could take before the arrows started.
Except the river. The Ganges was narrow here, compressed between the rocks. A long bamboo - or a long body - might span it.
He climbed down to the thickest branch that extended over the water toward the far bank. The gap was perhaps a hundred hands. He measured it with his eye. Then he leapt.
He cleared the river. He landed on the far side in a tangle of cane. He bit through a length of bamboo - strong, green, flexible - and tied one end around his waist. The other end he lashed to a cane root on the far bank. Then he leapt back.
The bamboo was not long enough. He had measured wrong, or the knots had eaten up the length. He reached the branch over the river, but only by stretching his full body out, gripping the branch with his hands while the bamboo pulled taut at his waist. His spine was the bridge’s missing section. His body connected the bamboo to the tree.
He called out to the monkeys.
Go. Walk on my back. Cross to the far side.
Eighty Thousand Feet
They came in the dark. The first monkeys crossed carefully, gripping his fur, stepping on his ribs. He said nothing. The tenth monkey crossed. The fiftieth. His arms shook. His spine compressed under the weight. He locked his fingers around the branch and held.
Some of the younger monkeys jumped instead of walked, and each landing sent pain through his back like something cracking. He held. His breathing went shallow. The bamboo cut into the skin at his waist.
The archers below woke at the noise. Torches flared. The captain of the archers looked up and saw what was happening - a dark line of monkeys crossing a dark line stretched over the river, moving fast, pouring onto the far bank and vanishing into the forest.
The captain nocked an arrow. The king of Benares put his hand on the man’s arm.
“Wait,” the king said.
He was watching the monkey at the center of the bridge. The one who was not moving. The one whose body bent in a way that bodies do not bend and stay whole.
The King of Benares Looks Up
The last monkeys crossed. The Monkey King’s hands opened. He did not fall - the bamboo held him, hanging over the water by his waist, arms loose, spine broken. He was still alive. His eyes were open.
The king of Benares ordered his men to stretch a cloth beneath the monkey and cut the bamboo. They lowered him down. The king knelt beside him. The Monkey King’s breathing was a thin whistle through cracked ribs.
“You are their king?” the man asked.
The Monkey King looked at him.
“And you did this - your own body as their road.”
The Monkey King said - and his voice was quiet enough that only the king and the captain heard it:
“I knew them all. Each one. A king who does not know his people will not hold the branch.”
He closed his eyes. His breathing stopped. The torches reflected off the water and the broken length of bamboo.
The Rites at Benares
The king of Benares ordered sandalwood brought. They burned the Monkey King’s body on the riverbank with the rites given to a sovereign - the full ceremony, the chanting, the offerings of rice and flowers and ghee. The archers did not shoot a single monkey that day or any day after.
The king took the skull-bone back to Benares and had a shrine built for it at the gate of his palace. He passed it every morning. His ministers said he governed differently after the journey north - more carefully, with more attention to the people who could not protect themselves. When asked about the shrine, he did not explain. The bone was enough. The story had already moved through the court, through the markets, downstream. A king had used his own body as a bridge, and another king had understood what that meant, and neither one of them had needed to say the word.