Dictionary of Pali Proper Names v1.c21.125

v1.c21.125

**Tacchasūkara Jātaka** (No. 492).—Once a carpenter in a village near Benares picked up a young boar from a pit and took him home and reared him, calling him **Tacchasūkara** (Carpenter's Boar). The boar helped him in his work, fetching his tools and so on. When he grew up to be a big, burly beast, the carpenter let him go free in the forest. There he joined a herd of wild boars which was being harassed by a fierce tiger. Tacchasūkara made all the preparations for a counter-attack, digging pits and training all the members of the herd in their various duties, and their several positions at the time of attack. Under his guidance they succeeded in killing the tiger and greedily devouring the corpse. Tacchasūkara was told that there was a sham ascetic who had helped the tiger to eat the boars. The herd attacked the ascetic, who climbed up a fig-tree, but they uprooted the tree and devoured him. They consecrated Tacchasūkara as their king, making him sit on a fig-tree, and sprinkling water on him from a conch-shell, with its spirals turned right-wise, which the ascetic had used for drinking. Hence arose the custom of seating the king on a chair of fig-wood and sprinkling him with water from a conch-shell at his coronation.