Śvāna Nirṇaya

This episode comes from the Lava Kuśa Kāṇḍa of the Tulasī Rāmāyaṇa. A dog comes to the court of Bhagavān Rāma with a bleeding head and asks for justice against a brāhmaṇa beggar who struck it. Bhagavān Rāma asks the dog itself to name the punishment. The dog asks that the brāhmaṇa be made head of a maṭha (a religious institution). The court is amazed, and the dog then explains from its own past life.

The dog comes to court

In the reign of Bhagavān Rāma in Ayodhyā, the king held open court every day and heard the petitions of the people. One day Bhagavān Rāma sat in the assembly with his brothers and ministers. A dog came into the court. Its head was bleeding from a wound. It wept and looked straight at Bhagavān Rāma.

The dog spoke to the king. A brāhmaṇa beggar had hit it on the head with a stick for no reason. The dog had only been in his way as he walked along, tired and hungry. The wound was still bleeding. The dog asked the king to judge the matter by dharma.

The trial

Bhagavān Rāma at once called the brāhmaṇa beggar before the assembly. He asked the man whether he had struck the dog. The man did not deny it. He said he had been worn out and hungry, and the dog had come across his path. He had hit it with his staff without any special ill will. He admitted what he had done.

Bhagavān Rāma then turned to the ministers and asked them to advise on the right daṇḍa (punishment). While they talked it over, he looked at the dog with a questioning glance, to show that the dog itself should speak.

The dog’s verdict

The dog came forward and spoke to Bhagavān Rāma: “O Sārvabhauma, let this brāhmaṇa be made head of a maṭha. Let him be given charge of a religious institution. That is the right punishment.”

The assembly was astonished. The ministers and the citizens could not see how a place of honour and religious authority could be a punishment. They said so. Bhagavān Rāma smiled and showed that the dog should explain.

The dog said: “O Prabhu Rāma, in my last birth I was a brāhmaṇa. In that life I was the pūjārī (temple priest) of a temple in Kāśī. I used the temple’s wealth, the wealth given for the mūrti, for my own food and pleasure. As the fruit of that pāpa (sin), I was born in this low birth as a dog. I suffer as my own karma brings it.”

“The head of a maṭha has easy use of money and goods that belong to the mūrti and to dharma. A person in such a post who misuses the trust placed in him gathers pāpa very quickly. I say this from my own experience. If this brāhmaṇa is given such a post, then by his own nature and conduct he will make the causes of his own future suffering. That is the truest punishment.”

After saying this, the dog bowed to Bhagavān Rāma. Its eyes were full of tears, and it went away.

What Bhagavān Rāma did

Bhagavān Rāma honoured the brāhmaṇa with gifts. He gave him fine clothes and ornaments and a ride on a ceremonial elephant. He formally made him head of a large maṭha and sent him off with full dignity.

The dog’s own words give the warning of the episode. Taking what belongs to a temple, a maṭha or any religious trust is a pāpa, and in this text its fruit is a very low birth. The dog was a temple brāhmaṇa who had misused deva-dravya (wealth given to the devas), and it passes on what it knows as its own testimony.

Sources

• Tulasī Rāmāyaṇa, Lava Kuśa Kāṇḍa, Chapter 3 (Śunakamu Ceppina Tīrpu)