Six stories, each a few minutes long. They are told here in new words, from the traditional plots. Under each is the book it comes from, and what is known about how old it is, because the honest answer about a folk tale is nearly always “older than the earliest copy we have”.
Story 1 of 6
The Monkey and the Crocodile
Where it comes from. Panchatantra, the fourth book, which is about what is gained and lost. The same tale is Jataka 208 in the Pali collection, where the monkey is the Buddha in an earlier life.
Beside a slow river stood a rose-apple tree, and in the tree lived a monkey. One noon a crocodile drifted into its shade, tired and hungry, and the monkey tossed him a handful of ripe fruit. So began a friendship. Every afternoon after that the two talked, and every afternoon the monkey dropped more of the sweet fruit, some of it for the crocodile to carry home to his wife.
The wife was not grateful. “A creature who lives on fruit this sweet must have a heart as sweet as the fruit,” she said, and announced that only the monkey’s heart could cure the illness she had suddenly developed. The crocodile loved his wife more than he loved his conscience. He went back to the tree and invited his friend to dinner on the far bank, and the monkey, delighted, climbed onto his broad back.
Halfway across the river the crocodile lost his nerve and told the truth. The monkey felt the cold water rising around his fear. Then he laughed. “My friend, you should have said so on the bank! We monkeys never carry our hearts about; mine is hanging in the rose-apple tree. Take me back and I will fetch it gladly.” The crocodile, relieved, swam back. The monkey sprang into the highest branch and called down: “Anyone who trades a friend for a whim deserves neither. Go home.”
The idea. Keep your head. And trust is far easier to break than to mend.
Story 2 of 6
The Blue Jackal
Where it comes from. Panchatantra. It is retold in many versions, and in several the jackal meets a harsher end than the quiet one given here.
A jackal, hungry and careless, slipped into a town one night and fell into a vat of indigo. He climbed out blue from ears to tail and ran for the forest before the dogs could reach him. When the animals there saw him, they fled. No one had ever seen a blue animal.
The jackal understood at once what had happened and what could be done with it. “Do not be afraid,” he called. “The gods have coloured me and sent me to be your king.” The lion, the tiger and the leopard bowed. The deer brought him water and the elephants fanned him. He grew used to the best of every kill, and he drove off the other jackals, ashamed to be related to them.
But jackals have one habit that no dye can wash out. On the next full-moon night, from far across the plain, the pack began to howl. The blue king felt something rise in his chest before he could stop it, lifted his head and howled with them. The lion looked at the tiger. The tiger looked at the lion. That was the end of the reign.
The idea. A borrowed colour lasts until the moment you forget that it is borrowed.
Story 3 of 6
The Blind Men and the Elephant
Where it comes from. Udana 6.4, the Tittha Sutta, in the Pali canon, where the Buddha tells it to his monks. The parable is also told in Jain and Hindu tradition and has travelled far beyond India.
In Savatthi, the story goes, a king once had every man in the city who had been blind from birth brought to his courtyard, and an elephant led in. Each blind man was allowed to touch one part of the animal. Then the king asked them what an elephant was like.
The man who had felt the head said, “It is like a pot.” The one at the ear said, “A winnowing basket.” At the tusk: “A ploughshare.” At the trunk: “The pole of a plough.” At the body: “A granary.” At the foot: “A pillar.” At the back: “A mortar.” At the tail: “A pestle.” At the tuft of the tail: “A broom.” Each was certain, and soon each was certain that the others were lying. “An elephant is a pot!” “No, a basket!” Before long they were striking one another with their fists, and the king watched and was delighted.
In the Udana, the Buddha tells this to his monks after they report how the teachers of rival schools in the city keep quarrelling, every one sure that his own view is the whole truth. They are, he says, like the blind men: each has hold of a part.
The idea. Each of us holds a part of the truth, and the quarrel begins the moment we mistake the part for the whole.
Story 4 of 6
The Golden Swan
Where it comes from. The Suvannahamsa Jataka, number 136, in the Pali collection, where the swan is the Buddha in an earlier life. The bird is a hamsa, which some translators render as goose.
A Brahmin died and left a wife and three daughters with almost nothing. In his next life he was born as a swan with feathers of gold, and he remembered everything. One day he flew to the roof of the house where his family now lived in hardship. “I was your husband and your father,” he said. “Take one of my feathers and sell it. That will be enough for now.” He pulled out a single feather himself and left it.
He came back from time to time, always leaving one feather, and the family was poor no more. But the mother began to worry. What if the bird stopped coming? Why should they wait for one feather at a time? The next time the swan visited, she caught him and plucked every feather he had.
In her hands the feathers turned pale. Given freely, they had been gold; taken by force, they became ordinary feathers, like a crane’s. The swan grew new feathers, but they were plain ones, and he flew away and did not return.
The idea. Greed destroys the very gift it wants more of.
Story 5 of 6
Vikram and Betaal
Where it comes from. Vetala Panchavimshati, the twenty-five tales of the vetala. One of the oldest surviving forms is in the Kathasaritsagara, compiled in Sanskrit in the eleventh century by Somadeva from older material. Names and endings differ from version to version.
On a dark night, King Vikram left his palace and walked to the cremation ground outside the city. A holy man had asked him to bring a corpse that hung from a tree there. The task was hard and the king was stubborn. He climbed the tree, cut the body down, hoisted it onto his shoulder and began the long walk back.
But the corpse was inhabited by a vetala, a spirit that lives in the dead, and the vetala began to talk. “The road is long and you look tired,” he said. “Let me tell you a story.” He told a tale, and at the end he put a question about it, and added a warning: “If you know the answer and stay silent, your head will split into a hundred pieces.”
A wise king cannot stay silent in front of a good question. Vikram answered. The moment he spoke, the corpse slipped from his shoulder and flew back to the tree, and Vikram turned round and went back to fetch it. The collection is known as the twenty-five tales of the vetala, and each tale ends with a puzzle for the king. How the frame itself ends differs from version to version, and is left for the reader to find.
The idea. Some questions can only be answered by speaking, and the answer costs you the silence.
Story 6 of 6
Birbal’s Khichdi
Where it comes from. The Akbar and Birbal folk tales. Birbal was a real courtier, Mahesh Das, who served the emperor Akbar and died in 1586 on a campaign against the Yusufzai. The stories about his wit grew up later and belong to folklore, not to the record.
One winter Akbar declared that a man who could stand all night in the cold river would receive a reward. A poor man did it, shivering until dawn, and came to court to claim what he had earned. The courtiers objected. “He was warmed by the lamp burning in the palace tower,” they said. “He did not stand in the cold alone.” The emperor was inclined to agree.
The man went to Birbal, who did not come to court the next day. When Akbar sent for him, Birbal replied that he was busy: his khichdi was still cooking. The whole court went out to see. A pot hung from a tall branch, and a small fire burned far beneath it on the ground.
“Birbal,” said Akbar, “that pot will never cook.” “Then how,” said Birbal, “can a lamp in a tower warm a man standing in a river?” The emperor laughed, and the poor man was paid. In Hindi, a plan that seems to be taking forever is often called Birbal ki khichdi.
The idea. Warmth that never reaches you is not warmth, and a fair reward cannot be argued away by a rule that no one could meet.