The Servant Who Guarded the Door
- 3 minute read
- Ages 6-10
- Jataka Tales
A merchant was going out for the evening and left his servant in charge of the house.
The servant was honest, willing and not clever, and everybody in that household knew it, which is why the instruction he was given was as simple as anyone could make it.
"Guard the door. Do not leave the door. Whatever happens, watch the door."
"Guard the door," said the servant. "Yes."
The drum
An hour later a drum started up two streets away.
There was a performance in the square, and the servant could hear it very clearly, and he wanted extremely badly to go and see it.
He thought about the instruction.
Guard the door. Do not leave the door.
He looked at the door.
And then he had what he considered to be an excellent idea, which solved the whole problem: he took the door off its hinges, put it across his back, and carried it to the square.
The performance
He watched the entire thing with the door on his back.
People asked him about it and he explained that he had been told not to leave the door, and several of them agreed that this was very sensible, because it was a good performance and they did not want to be the one who spoiled it for him.
Then he carried it home.
The house
Thieves had been in.
They had come past a house with no door on it, walked in, and taken everything that was not fastened down, and gone.
The merchant came home to an empty house and a servant standing in the street holding a door.
What the merchant said
He looked at all of it for a long time.
And then he said the thing the story is actually about, which he said to the people who had gathered rather than to the servant.
"He did exactly what I told him. Every word of it. I have known this man for eleven years and I know precisely what he understands and what he does not, and I gave him an instruction that needed working out."
He took the door off his servant's back.
"This is my fault," he said. "Not his."
Moral of the story
The merchant knew his servant and gave him an instruction that required interpretation. The story puts the blame on the man who gave the order.
Questions and answers
- What instruction was the servant given?
To guard the door and not leave it, whatever happened.
- Why did he want to go out?
A drum started up two streets away for a performance in the square.
- How did he think he had solved the problem?
He took the door off its hinges and carried it on his back to the square.
- What happened to the house?
Thieves walked in through the doorless entrance and took everything.
- Who did the merchant blame?
Himself, for giving an instruction that needed working out to a man he knew could not work things out.
Word meanings
- hinges
- Metal joints that a door swings on.
- performance
- A show put on for an audience.
- fastened
- Fixed firmly in place.
- interpretation
- Working out what something means.
Questions about The Servant Who Guarded the Door
What is the moral of The Servant Who Guarded the Door?
That an instruction is only as good as the person giving it makes it. The merchant knew his servant and phrased it badly anyway.
Is the servant being mocked?
The story is funny, but it deliberately ends by defending him. The merchant's speech is the point of the whole tale.
Why is this a useful story for children?
Because it separates doing what you were told from doing what was meant, and it puts the responsibility on the adult rather than the child.
Is this a well-known Jataka?
It is one of the comic tales, less famous than the great ones but widely retold across South and Southeast Asia.