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Pig munched on the sweet fruit, crisp grains, and crunchy vegetables that were his dinner as the oxen, Big Red and Little Red, were unharnessed for the day. He watched the two with pity as they laboriously chewed their tasteless straw and grass.
Pig shook his head as he thought about the miseries that the oxen must endure every day. They are forced to wake up at dawn and spend the entire day exhausting themselves with back-breaking labor. When they get home, they eat food that’s barely edible. They work and work and work, with no rest, and there wasn’t a single pleasure to make up for it.
Pig’s life was the picture of blissful happiness. He woke up when he wanted, and immediately dove into a delicious breakfast. After he’d eaten, he might roll in mud or play with some of the other animals. He spent hours daydreaming and finding shapes in the clouds. He ate when he was hungry, slept when he was tired, and played when he wanted to play. His life was happy, and he was happy with it.
One day, as he blissfully crunched on an apple, Pig overheard Big Red and Little Red talking about him. He listened as Little Red complained about the difference in their food and Pig’s food, and he heard Big Red tell his brother about the wedding feast and Pig’s sacrifice. Big Red claimed that all of the good, rich food was the food of death. Listening to the ox's pompous pronouncement, Pig struggled to contain his grunts of laughter.
Pig already knew that he was being fattened for the table. He’d always known. He couldn’t understand why Big Red and Little Red found that to be such a horror. All animals died, eventually. Death was the one certainty of the universe, and nothing could escape it. The important thing wasn’t to evade death, as nothing has that power. The point of life is to enjoy what you have, while you have it, since there’s no guarantee for the future.
Pig couldn’t imagine living a life like what the oxen experienced. It was one enduring misery after another. He wondered why anyone would bear that, much less want to extend it. Pig decided that he would much rather have fewer good years of life than many, many horrible ones. It isn’t the length of your life that matters, its how much living you do on the journey.
Author's Note: In the story, The Ox Who Never Envied the Pig, two oxen spend all day working and carrying the farmer's load. In exchange, they are fed straw and grass. The pig that lives on the farm is fed rich, good food every day, because he is being fattened up as the main course for a wedding.
One of the oxen tells the other that it isn't fair that the pig gets fed so much better when it's the oxen who do all the work. The other oxen says that they shouldn't be jealous. He states that although the pig is given the best food and isn't forced to work all the, the pig is eating the food of death. He relays the news about the wedding and the pig's place in the festivities. In the end, the pig is slaughtered and the two oxen are happy with their terrible food, because unlike the pig, they will have a long life.
Writing a story that anthropomorphized animals was new to me, and this jataka gave me a chance to explore that sort of tale. I wanted to tell this same story, but from the pig's point of view. I saw this jataka as one based more on perception than an all-encompassing moral tale. Perhaps the pig is equally happy with his own lot in life. I thought that the pig might look at the oxen, slaving away all day and living on dead grass, and think that he had the better end of the bargain. Yes, his life will be cut short, but he actually gets to enjoy the life that he has. Is it better to live one hundred miserable years of nothing but toil and bad food, or twenty good years of enjoyment and pleasure? After all, death comes for all of us in the end. The when and the how are irrelevant.
Bibliography: "The Oxen Who Never Envied the Pig," The Jatakas Tales of India by Ellen Babbitt. Web Source.
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