Reading Notes: Indian Fairy Tales, Part A

Source: Indian Fairy Tales (Joseph Jacobs) This is a collection of many individual stories (too many to write about them all), so I will give a short summary of a few of my favorites.

Image Source. The lion
and the crane

The Lion and the Crane: A crane helps out a lion who has a bone stuck in his mouth, hesitantly, because the crane is afraid the lion might try to eat it Later, the crane asks if the lion might repay him somehow for help. The lion says not eating him was repayment enough, and the tale ends. It is noted the Buddha would complete this story by saying "Now at that time the lion was Devadatta the Traitor, but the white crane was I myself."

The Broken Pot: A Brahman begs for rice, and, after gathering a lot, dreams of a big grand plan to sell his excess rice, buy goats, and then cows, and continue buying/selling things until he is rich. While he is dreaming, the brahman kicks the wall and breaks/knocks over the pot of rice.

Image Source. The cruel crane

The Cruel Crane Outwitted: The cruel crane tricks some fish in a small pond by showing one of them a much bigger, better pond nearby. The crane says he will take them to the pond one by one, only to take them away and eat each one. Once all the fish are gone, the crane tries to trick a crab in a similar way. However, the crab sees through the trickery and grabs onto the crane's neck with his sharp pincers. It cuts off the crane's neck before the crane can eat him.

Image Source. The Tiger, the Brahman,
and the Jackal

The Tiger, the Brahman, and the Jackal: A kind Brahman lets a tiger out of a cage, and, despite making the tiger promise not to ear him, he suddenly becomes the tiger's victim. Before being eaten, the tiger allows the Brahman to go out and seek judgement from others on the morality of the whole situation. He brings back a jackal to explain the story to. The jackal pretends to not understand the story at all, forcing the tiger to step back into the cage to demonstrate what happened, and the jackal shuts the cage on the tiger.