The Golden Deer

Also known as Ruru Jataka

• 3 minute read
• Ages 8-12
• Jataka Tales

A deer with a golden coat lived alone in a forest by a river, far from any village, and kept away from people entirely.

One day he heard shouting from the water.

A man was being carried down the river, going under and coming up, and there was nobody else anywhere.

The deer went in and got him and brought him to the bank, and warmed him, and stayed with him until he could stand.

The promise

The man was a merchant's son who had lost everything and had thrown himself in.

He was ashamed of that and grateful to be alive, and he said so at length, and asked what he could do in return.

"One thing," said the deer. "Tell nobody you have seen me. Not what I look like and not where I live. There is a price on a coat like mine and I would like to go on living here."

The man swore it. He meant it completely at the time.

Then the deer showed him the road and he went home.

The proclamation

Some weeks later the queen of that country dreamt of a golden deer that spoke, and woke certain that it was real.

The king announced a reward: a village and its revenue, and a daughter of the royal house, to anyone who could lead him to it.

The proclamation was read out in every street.

The merchant's son heard it standing in a crowd.

The forest

He went to the palace and said he knew where it was.

He led the king and a company of archers north for several days and into the forest, and to the clearing by the river, and pointed.

"There."

The king raised his bow.

And the deer stood up and spoke, which the king had not expected, and asked him one question.

"Who told you where I was?"

The king pointed at the merchant's son.

The deer looked at him for a moment.

"I pulled that man out of the river," he said. "Eleven weeks ago. There was nobody else within a day's walk. He would be under the water now."

The king lowered the bow and turned round and looked at the man, and asked whether it was true.

It was.

After

The king put his bow down for good and had it announced that no deer was to be hunted in that country again.

The story says he offered the deer a place at the palace, and that the deer declined, and asked instead for one thing, which was that the merchant's son should not be punished.

And when he was asked why, he said that he had pulled him out of the river knowing nothing at all about him, and that finding out what he was afterwards did not change what had been done or make it a mistake.