Matanga Jataka
Topic: Buddhism, Jainism and Heterodox Traditions · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 3 "Kinship, Caste and Class - Early Societies"
Meaning
The Matanga Jataka is a Pali Jataka, a story about one of the Buddha's earlier lives. In it the Bodhisatta (the Buddha-to-be) is born as Matanga, the son of a chandala, a group treated as "outcaste" by Brahmanical rules. The story questions the idea that birth decides a person's worth. Historians use it to show how Buddhist texts challenged Brahmanical ideas about caste.
Example
Dittha Mangalika, a merchant's daughter, sees Matanga and calls him "inauspicious". Her attendants beat him. In protest, he lies down at her father's door until she is given to him in marriage. Their son, Mandavya, learns the Vedas and feeds Brahmanas every day, but he turns his father away because he looks like an outcaste. Matanga replies that people who are proud of their birth and ignorant do not deserve gifts, while those free from vices do.
Don't confuse with
- Gandatindu Jataka: This Jataka is about a cruel king and his suffering peasants. It does not deal with caste.
Related concepts
- Tipitaka
- Vinaya Pitaka
- Sutta Pitaka
- Abhidhamma Pitaka
- Abhidhamma Divas
- Pali
- Pali classical language
- Buddhist councils
- First Buddhist council
- Second Buddhist council