There once was a boy named Lau who lived with his parents that
were very rich. In this family the parents provided everything this boy could
ever imagine! Most of his days from the time he was a boy all the way up to
when he was a young adult consisted of him doing nothing but lying around
waiting for his servants to bring him what he wanted. His parents did not feel
the need to make him go to school or really do any kind of real work since they
had so much money he would never have to do much of anything. Until one day
when Lau’s parents both fell very ill. This resulted in both of the parents'
deaths following the next few days.
When Lau found out about the news he was extremely sad that he now
had no parents. In the next few months to try and deal with the pain he would
invite all of his friends over to play cards and gamble. The only problem with
this was that since his parents were no longer here to regulate he spent all
their money. This was a huge problem for Lau since he had never worked a day in
his life and felt without money he would eventually lose all of his friends. A
few days later Lau thought of a plan to be able to get all of his money back
and keep his friends. Lau would just go to people around his village and ask to
borrow money from them and he would eventually be able to pay them back!
After Lau went around the village and received money from everyone
he could think of he went to gamble his way back into wealth.
Months later Lau was broke and living on the streets. All of the
people he had borrowed money from were looking to be paid back. Lau and his
loan sharks knew he wasn’t going to be able to pay him back, so he came up with
another idea. He gathered all the people he owed money to and told them that he
had buried money near the river so that when he absolutely needed the money he
would have it. Little did they know that Lau was only trying to lure them there
so that he could jump into the river and drown himself instead of them killing
him first.
Lau had made the plunge into the water and got pulled into the
rapids where he began to sink.
Meanwhile, in a hidden spot across the river there lived an
ancient silver deer named Juju. He watched this entire scenario unfold right in
front of him. So once he saw all the other people leave this man in the water
to die Juju took action! Juju sprinted to the riverbank and threw a rope over
to him. With a few hefty pulls Juju was able to save the man from his own
death.
Juju understanding full well that he had never let any human know
where he lived was a little worried about his safety after saving this person.
The only thing Juju wanted in return from Lau was that he did not tell anyone
about this hiding place to that people wouldn’t try to come and kill him. Lau
promised that he wouldn’t tell anyone and he was very thankful that Juju saved
him from his death.
Lau was thankful that he was given a second chance now that all the
people that wanted to kill him thought he was dead. He returned to his
village for just a few hours before he left for his new life. Being in the
village he heard an announcement directly from the King saying that if anyone
knew the whereabouts of an ancient silver deer he would pay this person more
gold then he could imagine. As soon as Lau heard this announcement his thoughts
started to go crazy! He would be able to pay back all of his loans and move
back into his old house by just showing them were Juju was! Without a second
thought Lau ran to the King and told him he knew exactly where this deer was
hiding!
Lau was excited he was going to be able get all of his money back
by just showing the King where this deer was hiding. However, once he got the
King closer to where Juju’s home was Lau started to feel bad about betraying
the one who saved his life. So when they were close enough Lau told the King
the deer was just behind those bushes. However, Lau chose to hide behind this
bush just far enough from Juju so he couldn't see him.
The King had come into Juju’s secret hiding place to kill him
but as soon as was about to shoot him Juju started to talk to the King. The
King baffled by the fact that the deer could talk did not want to shoot him. So
once they had sat down and talked for a while Juju wanted to know how he was
able to find him. The King told him that a man named Lau told him where to find
him.
Immediately Juju was furious that the man he saved would sell him
out for some gold. He told the King how he saved Lau’s life for him just
to sell him out the King. Juju wanted to have justice for this betrayal!
The King pulled Lau out of his hiding place so that he could look
at Juju face to face. Since he sold out the one that saved him he would not get
any gold. On top of that he was going to be arrested for not being able to pay
back his loans to the people of his Kingdom. It is better to repay your debts
by working hard rather than finding the easy way out every time.
Author’s notes: This
story is based off of Ruru the Golden Deer. This tale is a Jataka tale that was a little longer than I am use to reading and writing stories about so I had to kind of rush through it to get all the information in it.. I tried to tell the story more based off of Lau in
the story other than Ruru in the original story. In the original story Ruru was the main character and his only goal was to not be hunted by anyone. So when he saved the man this was a huge deal for him since it gave away his hiding place. So I mainly stuck to the original plot line that
was in the comic but changed the names. I changed the boy’s name to Lau which
means lazy in German to kind of give it a back meaning. Also Ruru’s name was
changed to Juju as an attempt to give it a more modern twist to the story. I
would want to focus more on the story line in revisions because to me I feel
that I rushed through a lot of the story. I think it is a little long so I could
probably benefit from putting more detail in the end of the story and not so
much in the beginning of the story.
Book Source
Information:
Bizzell Library
Deer Stories: The Gentle Wisdom of the Jataka
Author: Anant Pai
