The Two Swans
At a Glance
- Central figures: The Bodhisatta, reborn as a golden swan and leader of a flock; his chief captain, a swan named Sumukha; and the king of Benares, who coveted the golden swans.
- Setting: The royal lake in Benares and a hunter’s snare at its edge; from the Pali Jataka collection.
- The turn: The Bodhisatta is caught in a snare, and Sumukha - though free to fly - refuses to leave him.
- The outcome: The hunter, moved by Sumukha’s loyalty, releases the Bodhisatta; both swans are brought before the king, where the Bodhisatta teaches the Dhamma and wins freedom for all the birds of the lake.
- The legacy: The king of Benares declared the royal lake a sanctuary where no creature could be harmed, and he kept the precepts the golden swan had taught him.
A noose of horsehair, almost invisible against the mud. The hunter Khemaka had laid it at the edge of the lotus pool where the golden swans came down to feed at dusk. He had been paid well. The king of Benares had seen the flock pass over his palace - ninety thousand birds, the two leaders burning gold against the sky - and wanted them. Not to kill. To own. To keep them in his garden the way he kept his peacocks and his painted storks.
Khemaka had studied the flock for six days. He knew which patch of lotus root the leader preferred, which stone he stood on to preen. He tied the snare to a stake driven deep into the clay and withdrew into the reeds.
The Snare at the Lotus Pool
The flock came down at the usual hour. Ninety thousand swans dropping out of the evening sky made a sound like rain falling on silk - the particular rush of that many wings. They settled on the water, on the banks, among the lotuses. The Bodhisatta, the golden king of swans, came to his usual place and stepped onto the stone.
The noose closed around his foot.
He felt the bite of the horsehair against the joint. He did not cry out. A cry from the leader would scatter the flock, and if they scattered in panic some would break their necks against the trees that ringed the lake. So he stood still, one foot caught, his wings half-spread, and waited.
The flock fed. They did not notice. He watched them eat - the young ones tipping headfirst into the shallows, the older birds pulling at the stems with slow dignity. When they had eaten enough they rose in groups, calling to each other, and flew toward the roosting-place on the far side of the lake. The Bodhisatta did not move. Group after group departed. The sky thinned. The water stilled.
Last of all came Sumukha, the chief captain, the Bodhisatta’s companion through more lives than either of them could count. He circled once, twice, and saw.
Sumukha’s Refusal
Go with the others, the Bodhisatta said.
Sumukha landed beside him.
The snare holds one foot. It does not hold me. I am staying.
There is no sense in two of us caught. You are free. Fly.
Sumukha folded his wings and settled onto the mud next to his king. He did not answer again. He did not need to.
The night came. The two swans stood together in the dark, the noose cutting a thin line into the Bodhisatta’s leg. Neither slept. Sumukha kept watch toward the reeds where the hunter’s breathing could just be heard.
At dawn Khemaka came out.
He had expected one bird. He found two - one caught, one free, standing flank to flank. The free bird turned to face him but did not fly. This was not something Khemaka had seen before. He had trapped birds for thirty years. A caught bird’s companions fled. That was the nature of creatures. That was what creatures did.
He stood with his net in his hands and did not cast it.
The Hunter’s Question
Why do you stay? he asked the free swan, though he did not expect an answer.
Sumukha spoke in a human voice - for in certain births, at certain junctures, the Bodhisatta’s companions could speak to men.
He is my king and my friend. Where he is caught, I am caught. Where he dies, I die. There is no distance between us that a snare can make.
Khemaka set down his net. He knelt in the mud and worked the noose loose from the Bodhisatta’s foot. The horsehair had cut into the skin; a thin line of blood ran across the golden feathers. Khemaka washed it with water from the lake.
I was paid to bring you to the king, he said. But I will not carry you bound.
Then take us free, the Bodhisatta said. We will go willingly. A king who wishes to see golden swans is not necessarily a cruel man.
Before the King of Benares
Khemaka walked through the streets of Benares at midday with a golden swan on each shoulder. People stopped. Merchants set down their scales. A woman carrying water on her head forgot to walk. The two birds sat perfectly still, their necks curved, their feathers catching the light so that Khemaka seemed to be wearing two small suns.
The king received them in the painted hall. He had prepared a cage of sandalwood and silver. When he saw the swans come in uncaged, sitting on the hunter’s shoulders with the ease of old companions, he left the cage where it stood.
The Bodhisatta stepped from Khemaka’s shoulder onto the arm of the throne. He was close enough that the king could see the wound on his foot, the blood dried dark against gold.
You wanted us, the Bodhisatta said. Here we are. But I will teach you something worth more than golden feathers.
The king leaned forward.
The Bodhisatta spoke about sila - moral conduct, the keeping of the five precepts. He spoke about generosity without expectation of return. He spoke about the nature of attachment: that a thing held in a cage is not a thing possessed, only a thing imprisoned, and the one who imprisons it is imprisoned beside it. He spoke simply, in short sentences, the way water runs down a slope - without effort, finding the natural channel.
The king of Benares listened. He did not interrupt. When the swan finished, the king reached out and touched the wound on the bird’s foot.
Go, he said. Take your flock. The lake is yours.
The Sanctuary
The Bodhisatta and Sumukha flew from the painted hall through an open window. They circled the palace once - the king watching from his balcony, Khemaka watching from the courtyard - and went back to the lake.
The king issued a decree that day. The royal lake and the land around it, one hundred bow-lengths in every direction, was declared a sanctuary. No net, no snare, no arrow could be used within its boundary. The golden swans came and went as they pleased. Fishermen grumbled but obeyed. The lotuses grew thick, and the water stayed clear, and the swans fed at dusk the way they always had - ninety thousand birds dropping out of the sky with a sound like rain on silk.
Khemaka gave up his trade. He became a keeper of the lake, watching the reeds not for prey but for poachers. He carried no net. The king, for his part, kept the five precepts and ruled Benares with a lighter hand than before. He never built another cage.