We last left off when the Great Advisor, Hector the little
pig, told the colony of monkeys to never let any apples fall from the apple
tree. One day, when the monkeys were out playing a game, a single apple fell
from the tree and floated down the river to a village where a woman picked it
up.
“I should not eat this, but this apple looks so delicious,”
the woman whispered to herself. After a while of contemplating, she lifted the
apple to her mouth and took a small bite. The apple poured tastes of delight into
her mouth. “This is the best apple I have ever tasted in all the land!” she
yelled.
She hurried home to tell her family of the wonderful
tasting blessing she received on her way home, but as she went to take a step
forward, she became very disoriented and fell to the ground. She suddenly
gasped for breath, trying to get enough to remain conscious. An old fisherman
saw her fall to the ground and rushed over to her. The woman before she sucked her last breath said, “The apple… it is… dangerous.”
The man shook her trying to get her to breathe again, but
she did not. The fisherman was so disturbed by this sight he immediately went to the king to tell of the incident he just witnessed.
The king was outraged by this and demanded that all the best detectives
find out where this poisonous apple came from. They patrolled the city and came
to the conclusion that it came from the jungle by the river. The king ordered a
team to go search in the jungle for this dangerous fruit. The team reached the
giant apple tree and saw that it was filled with hundreds of huts. They walked
a little closer and realized that monkeys were everywhere in the tree! “It is a
militant colony of monkeys!” they exclaimed.
The group quickly rushed back to the king to describe the
wonder of what they saw. The king was mortified! He told the group that the
monkeys and the tree must be destroyed because a life was ended due to this
tree and the monkeys were going to bear the consequence.
So the group gathered
all of their best weapons to battle the monkeys and returned into the jungle,
but before the group could make it into the tree Hector the little pig stood in
the middle of a small opening. The group was confused why a small pig was just
standing there. Small pigs were considered a delicacy in the kingdom and the
group decided to try and capture the pig to bring back for the king. The group
knew that the king would be happy when the monkeys and tree were dead but to
also bring back a small pig would just be icing on the cake!
So the group sneaked closer and closer to try and catch the
pig. All of a sudden Hector just broke and ran into the dense jungle.
“He is so fast for a pig!”
“We must get him!”
“For the king!” they shouted into the night.
The group chased and stumbled through the trees for hours
trying to catch Hector but they could never catch him until one of the group
members said, “Does anyone know where we are?”
“Oh no…”
Hector had finally lost the group. He had sent them deep
into the jungle where the ferocious lion lived. He and Hector were good
buddies growing up, so Hector knew that he would take care of the jungle
intruders.
Hector trotted back to the tree to meet his monkey followers.
“Are they gone?” one of the monkeys asked.
“All is well… for now at least,” replied Hector.
Author’s Note: This two-part story was by far my favorite to
make! I fell in love with the Jataka Tales, so it was pretty easy to include
that in my Portfolio. I find the past lives of Buddha to be inspiring and
fascinating. This story was a mix of two Jataka Tales. The first one is the
Monkey Bridge by Inayat in Twenty Jataka Tales. In this story there was a giant monkey king that told the group to never let
the fruit fall from a great fruit tree into the river. Eventually, a fruit fell
into the river and a fisherman found it. A search team went and found the fruit
tree and planned to kill the monkeys to get the delicious fruit. The monkey
king saved his group of monkeys by letting them climb on his back to another
tree via his back and a long reed. One of the monkeys broke his back while
climbing to safety. I mainly used this story in the first story of the two-part
series, but I made Hector, who was supposed to represent the heroic monkey
that saved his followers, lure the group out the jungle. This part came from
the second Jataka Tale, which was The Woodpecker, Turtle, and Deer by Babbitt.
This dynamic trio saved each other’s lives by distracting a hunter from trying
to harm them. The deer lured the hunter into the forest long enough that the
deer could circle back around and set the turtle free.
